Will Google see re-featured articles as older and give them priority?

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   alexadryposted 8 years ago

   OK, I am seeing a worrisome trend that's repeating itself too often. My clients talk to me about one of their dog's behavior problems, so we go over some basics and then I Google the name of an article I have featured on hubpages so to print it out and give it as a hand-out, and it's no where to find on Google. However, I find several articles that are basically copied from me, same title, same topics, just a rehash of my articles, and these copied articles are ranking on first page of Google for the keywords I use. So I go to my account and find that my original article is un-featured. Very sad. So I fix it up and to get it featured again and start wondering what Google will think. Will Google realize I wrote it first and give it a "lift" beating those who copied mine, or will it just stack my re-featured articles behind?
   
   Also, wondering if anything can be done for those who astutely copy articles using different words to defeat plagiarism tools without the decency of putting a link to the original source? Last week found a website and contacted directly, asking at least for a link back to my original to be laced under list of references, and the website owner apologized and gave me a link, but still, not nice that her article is ranking higher than mine. It looks like DMCA's get rejected unless they are copied word by word.

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this

      If you can even find one sentence or image that is an exact duplicate and can prove your publication date, you can file a DMCA and get the article removed.  If it does not get removed, you can then file a complaint with Google and give them the same info.  Articles that are "spun" are difficult to take down, however, and unfortunately, you are writing in a highly saturated arena.  I wish people would behave decently about things like this, but obviously many do not.  Good luck.

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         alexadryposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Thank you so much for the helpful tips Timetraveler2. I will try to file and hopefully will work.

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   EricDockettposted 8 years ago

   You article retains its original published date, so in theory it should be seen as the original by search engines. As to whether or not they will actually sort that out, that's another question. They should, but they may not, or it may take a while.
   
   It also depends on who has copied your work. Large, authority sites will be much tougher to unseat than crummy spam sites. On the bright side, reputable sites are more likely to remove your work if you send them a friendly email. I would never ask for a link, just for them to remove it.
   
   By my experience,  how long it has been out of the search results also seems to play a role in how hard it will be to climb back up. This is one of the reasons it is important to stay on top of un-featured Hubs and get them back in business ASAP. I know it has to be tough with 1200+ Hubs, but a quick sort will show you which ones are in need of attention.
   
   There is always a lag between when HP slaps a noindex tag on your Hub and when crawlers come around and actually see that it should be de-indexed. It's typically a few days at the least, sometimes weeks. If you get your Hub featured again in that time search engines will never know about the noindex and you won't lose your place in the SERP.
   
   As for the DMCA thing, if another article is very obviously similar to yours it should still be protected. I don't know the specifics of your experiences there, but I've not had trouble getting pages taken down when they were partial or really close copies of my work.

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      alexadryposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Hello Eric, thanks for your insight on this. I appreciate your help. Have you had success filing Google DMCA with articles that were re-worded? I haven't had much success in that. When copied exactly word from word no problem, but I tried a couple that were reworded and were obvious copies of mine and they were rejected without explanation.

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         EricDockettposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         I don't know that I've ever had them reject without reason. Sometimes they come back and ask for more info. In the space where it asks you to explain how your copyright has been violated perhaps state that your article has been spun or reworded. Maybe that will make it more clear to them what has happened. (?)
         
         I usually only go to Google when I have no other recourse, and that's typically spam sites.
         
         I also try to keep my Hubs updated on a regular basis, and I've found that helps in staying a step ahead of the low-class jerks who copy our content. I only have a little over 300 total Hubs, so I know that has to be tough with over 1200.

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