What Do You Do When Your Content Is Copied?
Posted under: Yesterday myself and Jude were lucky enough to be at Ascot Races courtesy of Gala Coral and Tradedoubler. It was a lovely day, good food, great chance to catch up with the Coral people and meet a couple of other people in the industry. The horses were useless this time, but the most interesting result was away from the race track.
One of the affiliates at the event told me about their site and asked if a reciprocal link was a possibility. This morning I looked at the site, and one thing’s for sure this guy is no expert at bingo! Why? Well the first article I read was my own from Bingo Blog. There’s a few odd changes here and there, but essentially the bulk of the content was taken from my original Paddy Power Bingo post.
Below is just a fraction of the article – just to demonstrate what’s happening!
The original version from Bingo Blog….
… and the rip off version …
And here’s another from Bingo Blog….
… and another rip off version …
Was it just a couple of articles?
No, it was loads and looking through the rest of their “news” it seems like content from other top bingo sites is just being lifted and regurgitated, with minimal adjustment, on a daily basis. Not impressive and a total rip off!
So what do to?
Well it just so happens I know some of the other sites being ripped off, and now they know about this so called expert. Let’s face it why should we all be trying to write unique content just for another affiliate to steal it – and earn money off the back of it too? However that’s just a bit of good fortune (or bad luck for the copier) but what should you do if you find your articles being half inched?
The easiest way to deal with content copying is email those involved and ask them politely to stop doing it, and possibly remove all copied articles from their website. Naming and shaming isn’t a bad approach either – but perhaps it’s worth giving them the opportunity to trot out a “sorry, we paid someone to write this stuff for us” excuse first!
Another option is to inform your merchant partners and let them know just how one of their affiliates is potentially damaging your business. Whilst the merchant may not (initially at least) go as far to kick off any affiliate from their rosters, they may take your side and rattle a few cages so that the offender plays fair. The last thing a merchant wants is to lose your promotions.
If the content being copied is being uploaded to a service such as blogger then you can file a complaint in respect to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Make sure you provide full and detailed reasons when submitting this form and that you’re 100% about your allegations.
There’s always the legal eagles route too. If you believe you’ve been ripped off take screen grabs of everything – your site included – to clearly demonstrate where there’s a problem. You may find that just one solicitor’s letter may be enough to scare someone in to action, especially if there’s a threat of compensation and clear evidence of their indiscretions.
Sadly being copied is a factor of affiliate marketing, especially blogging and article writing, and it will always continue to happen. Whilst sometimes you just have to turn the other cheek, e.g. when one article has been “inspired” by your own site, other times, e.g. when your content and that of other sites you know is being blatantly copied, proper action needs to be taken.
I don’t know how these people can live with themselves. I’ve had all sorts of copiers, from the blatant site cloning people to the people that just copy your new content and site features.
The site cloners and the cut n paste people are easy to deal with. If you contact their host they normally take the site down pretty quickly. The host is not willing to risk legal action over the £5 a month these people are paying them.
What’s more annoying for me are the people that ‘follow’ your site, copying every new idea or development you make. There’s nothing you can do about this, but it’s copying all the same. I even saw one guy that launched a new site ‘inspired’ by one of my own, using the same SEO techniques, the same email marketing company, the same PR company and virtually the same press release that I did 2 years before.
Some people are just incapable of original thought. You see posts on the A4U forum all the time from this type of person, asking how they’d go about launching another price comparison site for credit cards and the like. If the motivation was to build a better site than the sites already out there, they might have a chance, but invariably the motivation is the money.
Its quite difficult to know how much copying of your content is happening unless as you’ve experienced, you get an (unlucky) coincidence and find out that way.
I don’t know where I read this, but with content that is crucial to your site, I think there is the possibility of sandwiching an ‘odd’ phrase or combination of words inbetween critical facts and then regularly Googling it.
The idea being that if the facts are ones that a copier couldn’t leave out easily, they may well copy them in a short phrase, not realising that you’ve ‘bugged’ the phrase.
Should have to do it, but if you’ve really gone to town on unique content on an area of your site, then I guess its defensive; plus the bad pennies will gradually become known to merchants and genuine affiliates alike.