Odd copycats

1. 94

   Dolores Monetposted 10 years ago

   I have been looking for copies of my hubs by placing the first line of my hub in quotes in the Google search bar. Most of the results feature the single line, then content that has nothing to do with the topic. I also wound up on pages that not only don't feature the quoted first line, but are lottery sites and other off topic sites. What does this mean? Can I file a DMCA on these?

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   1. 68

      lisavollrathposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I don't think you can file a DMCA for one sentence, and honestly, I think it would be a waste of good time if you did. The sites you're pulling up are just spam sites, and they probably won't have any effect on your hubs.
      
      A better way to search for duplicate content is by hub URL, using Copyscape.com. I've been running a duplicate check there on each of my transferred Squidoo articles as I edit them.

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2. 62

   Marketing Meritposted 10 years ago

   I'm pretty sure it's some form of blackhat technique and, as you say, the phrase often does not appear on the site.  I'm not sure how it's done, but the site will simply match whatever term is being searched for. Usually, we're not aware of this, as those sites typically will not rank high enough. However, when you're searching for a long phrase, such as the first line of your hub, then the number of matches is limited.
   
   DMCA is a non-starter as usually, the matching text is script generated. Don't worry about it Dorlores, as Lisavollrath has already said, these are spam sites. Just concentrate on identifying  those sites that have genuinely copied your content.

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3. 66

   Glenn Stokposted 10 years ago

   Dolores, Is that first sentence unique? If not, then you may be picking up matches of that sentence that others may have legitimately used.
   
   I do similar searches to find plagiarized copies of my hubs, but I use a sentence from somewhere in the middle of my hubs.  I even put them in my "Google Alerts" when I write  new hubs, so I'm notified if Google finds a match any time in the future.
   
   Another thing: When you're searching with Google, make sure you select "hide private results" in the top right corner of Google.

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4. 94

   Dolores Monetposted 10 years ago

   Okay thank you! But the next question is, why would an exact copy of a long sentence, used word for word come up in a Google search when the site features a totally unrelated topic?
   I swear, sometimes I feel like the longer I'm on here, the less I understand.

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   1. 62

      Marketing Meritposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      They are essentially driving traffic to their site and hoping for some conversions.

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   2. 66

      Glenn Stokposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      What I'm saying is that there is always that possibility that the sentence appears in their unrelated article. While it's true that the longer the sentence, the less likely this will occur, you still may not have used a unique sentence. I usually use two sentences from the middle of my hubs, and I put them in quotes. This reduces the changes of false matches too.
      
      I know you said you don't see your sentence in the hub that came up in the search, but did you do a search for it or did you just eyeball it. You may have missed it.  I can't imagine how Google would give you SERPs on non-matching text strings unless you did not use quotes around the string.

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5. 90

   moonlakeposted 10 years ago

   I've had the same thing happen. I don't know why it does and it's my exact words not theirs. I know that they didn't ever come up with that sentence. I don't file a DMCA because I don't know how you do it when it's not on the website.

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   1. 66

      Glenn Stokposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Moonlake, There's no point filing a DMCA infringement complaint if you don't see your hub on that page. As for the question of why it came up in your search, see my reply to Delores where I elaborated on my thoughts on that.

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