If any entrepreneur or writer needs to take a big deep breath, it’s the blogger who has discovered that his/her blog has been copied. This can be extremely infuriating for a writer who spent a long time writing articles and trying to drive traffic to a website.
Not only is the idea of someone taking credit for something they didn’t do maddening but there are also many cases where the copied content will actually outrank the original content. If this isn’t enough to make a writer or a website owner scream, you can also get in SEO trouble for having duplicate content, even if it wasn’t at all your fault.
Unfortunately, this is a more common problem than most realize.
If this happens to you, it is important to stay calm. There are things you can do to fix the problem and get your content back to being your content.
Stolen content can significantly damage a brand’s image in several ways:
Loss of Trust and Credibility:
When a brand’s original content is stolen, it can make the brand appear weak and vulnerable. Customers may question the brand’s ability to protect its intellectual property and maintain its integrity.
Damage to SEO and Online Visibility:
Duplicate content can confuse search engines, which may result in lower rankings for the original source. This can result in a loss of organic traffic and visibility, which is crucial for brand awareness and growth.
Dilution of Brand Identity:
A brand’s content often reflects its unique voice, style, and values. When that content is stolen, it can be used to promote other brands or products, diluting the original brand’s identity and message.
Stolen content can really hurt your brand’s digital business footprint.
Legal and Financial Implications:
Dealing with stolen content can be time-consuming and expensive, requiring legal action and resources to protect the brand’s intellectual property.
How to Stop Someone from Stealing Your Content
Below are some of the different ways to approach the issue of copied or scraped content.
Generally, you will be able to solve the problem with one of the following tips, but sometimes, it takes going a few different routes to get your original content back on the top of search engines.
Visit the Google DMCA page
This is one way to try and get the duplicated content off of Google. Once you click on the link, you simply follow the steps provided.
You will be asked to fill in bubbles that describe your problem, fill in your contact information, copy and paste the URL of the original content, copy and paste the URL of the scraped content, and then wait for an email from Google. In most cases, this takes the content down from the search engine, and that problem is solved!
Email the Site Owner
This is one way to solve the problem on your own. In some cases, a site owner may not realize that someone is duplicating your content. This is a great way to make sure that this site doesn’t duplicate your content over and over again. In many cases, the site owner will answer and immediately stop duplicating your content. If you were to go straight to Google, you could potentially be filling out a form over and over again. You can use Whois.com to find the owner of the website.
These are the two most effective ways to make sure that your content is not copied. However, many people don’t even realize that their content is being copied in the first place. It is important to catch people copying your content early before they outrank you and start stealing your traffic. Consider some of the ways you can tell if someone is copying your content:
How to Know If Your Content is Being Copied in the First Place
There are several different tools available to help a website find the content scraper. Below are some of the most popular:
CopyGator. My favorite part about this tool is the fact that you can put a CopyGator stamp on your website, and if someone is copying your content, the badge turns red! This makes it easy to know if someone has re-published your content without permission. You don’t have to continually check; the tool does this for you.
Copyscape. This is one of the most popular tools to check for plagiarism. It is easy to use and will let you know what you can do if you do find that someone is copying your content.
Screaming Frog. Click on “Page Titles” or “Meta Description” and then filter down to duplicate to see other pages with the same title or meta description. This doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve been copied, but it gives you a good place to look.
Check Manually. If you still have the article, simply copy and paste a paragraph into Google and see if anything comes up. This method isn’t perfect, but it’s an excellent start
All of these tools should give you accurate results and work with whatever type of website or blog you run. Have you ever had to report someone for copying your content? How did you discover that your content was being scraped? Did you eventually get the content removed from Google? Let us know in the comments!
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