Entire WeHaveKids Niche Site Has Been Plagiarized

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   Glenn Stokposted 4 years ago

   I found that the entire domain has been copied. I filed DMCA takedown notices for four of my hubs. If you have hubs on WeHaveKids, your hub has been plagiarized and you should file too.
   
   All the hubs are located under the main domain arttek . spb . ru
   (spaces added for obvious reasons).  That domain is hosted by Cloudflare.
   
   Look for your hub on that domain by replacing “wehavekids.com” with “arttek . spb . ru” (without the spaces). Then report it using the following online form:
   
   https://www.cloudflare.com/abuse/form
   
   Cloudflare claims that they are not a hosting provider, but they will send you further instructions to follow up with the proper abuse contact. It's a two-step process but it works. I've dealt with them before.

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 4 years agoin reply to this

      I've got 3 hubs on that niche site.  Will report them tomorrow.  Thanks for letting us know...have seen nothing from the team on this yet.

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      KCOposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      Reported my 2.
      
      Thanks for the heads up!

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 4 years agoin reply to this

      I looked at the cloudflare form you linked to and I have no idea as to how to provide some of the info they request.  Would a standard DMCA form not work?

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         theraggededgeposted 4 years agoin reply to this

         What info is causing the problem? I've just done three of mine. I included the URLs of the infringing pages. Then in the other box, I stated that the three articles were copied in their entirety and included the Wehavekids URLs. That's all that's necessary. Plus your details, of course.

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 4 years agoin reply to this

      I checked all three of my articles on We Have Kids and none of them seem to have been copied, so apparently they didn't copy every single article.  Either that, or I'm searching incorrectly.  First I did a google search on the titles and then I searched excerpts from all three articles..found no duplicates at all.

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         wildernessposted 4 years agoin reply to this

         I did the same, with the same results.  But when I go to the thieve's site and then to the subsection wehavekids has put my hub in I do find the hub.  Check the hub (on HP) for the section of the niche it is posted in and use that to search the offending site.

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            TIMETRAVELER2posted 4 years agoin reply to this

            So why aren't they showing up on Google search?  Is it possible Google did not index them?

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               Natalie Frankposted 4 years agoin reply to this

               This is crazy.  HP needs to do something even if it's just a single niche site that's been copied. You're saying all of HP has been copied and put up elsewhere?  Filing reports for every article with the stolen URL, original URL and details when you can only list a maximum of 10 each time would be a nightmare.  Though if they aren't indexed who do they think is going to view them?  Who is actually viewing them?  Yuck!

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                  Shesabutterflyposted 4 years agoin reply to this

                  I agree. I've filed 4 dmca's and I'm already over it. It's too tedious and time consuming. I believe it is all the niche sites. Every single article I've searched as Glenn suggested is coming up including poems and others that are not "how to" or "why for". I've looked at delishably, wehavekids, letterpile, owlcation, soapboxie and pethelpful. Those are all the niche sites I am on. The site is too low quality for me to actually peruse and figure out what is all there.
                  
                  At this rate it's going to take me all night. Not that I feel it's worth it. As someone already mentioned not everyone is going to be able to submit DMCA's. Not everyone follows the forums and others have stopped writing completely so those of us that do file are going to be few compared to all the articles they have cloned. There has to be something HP can do. Everything from their sites was cloned not just articles that belong to us.

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                     TIMETRAVELER2posted 4 years agoin reply to this

                     Report the problem to Google.  They can remove the ads and thus remove the reasons for copying.

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                  theraggededgeposted 4 years agoin reply to this

                  Not indexed by Google. However, that doesn't mean it's not indexed by Eastern European and Russian search engines/directories. Google is not the only search engine. They use Yandex and others.
                  
                  Artek is a town or city in the Crimea.

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                     TIMETRAVELER2posted 4 years agoin reply to this

                     If that's the case, I wonder if filing DMCAs would make a difference because many countries do not support complaints against plagiarists...and Russia is definitely one of them.

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                  TIMETRAVELER2posted 4 years agoin reply to this

                  Legally HP cannot file DMCA reports because the content does not belong to them.  However, they CAN contact Google about this problem and try to get them to remove the plagiarism.

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                     Jeremy Gillposted 4 years agoin reply to this

                     My hubs are spread out over a few niches, but if the site I write for (Hobbylark) was stolen, I'd have to file at least 100 DMCAs. That'd be ridiculous.
                     
                     Is there no way HP could implement a feature where you give them "ownership" in only the single area of filing DMCA complaints?
                     
                     Hubs being stolen is more common than some think, and it'd benefit both us and HP to have help with getting the stolen content down faster. Good catch with this one, and thanks for the heads up.

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                        TIMETRAVELER2posted 4 years agoin reply to this

                        This is never going to happen because you would have to sign ownership of all of your contents to HP, which most writers will not want to do.  Furthermore, the team would not want the workload involved in doing such filings even if writers chose to do so.  Your work is your responsibility, which means it is up to you to do your own DMCA filings.  Fortunately, it's been common for these off the wall sites that steal entire sites of others to be quickly removed, as has been the case here.

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                           Natalie Frankposted 4 years agoin reply to this

                           I understand that.  It just seems that as the owner of the sites themselves, and given they stole not just individual articles but layout, navigation (? not so up on stuff like this but they had popular hubs etc on the side you could click on and be taken to them), the landing pages etc. that do belong to HP and given the copyright notice they even stole on the bottom that HP would have some recourse to having the sites themselves taken down without having to file for individual articles.  It seems like individual authors filing for individual articles, something that really has no teeth if they take them down, even if as in this case, it results in the site being taken down it doesn't serve any deterrent to others doing this sort of thing nor to the these people who may just change the name and go from a different IP address and do it all over again. We can't catch every site that is plagiarizing our articles and in this case I don't if anyone else got anything from HP but I know I didn't have anything at all under copied articles, nor have I ever had a notice there despite having to file a number of DMCA complaints in the last year and half or so.  Thank goodness Glenn got a notice or we might still not know about it.  I don't know if they stole traffic from us but still, we don't need people copying our articles and HP certainly doesn't need people copying all of the sites in their entirety.

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                           Jeremy Gillposted 4 years agoin reply to this

                           Hmm, it might sound like I'm just being lazy and want others to do my work for me, but getting a DMCA from an expansive business like HP is probably more intimidating than from a singular author, and more likely to result in the stolen material being removed.
                           
                           I've had instances where the site I've messaged about stolen articles actually tried to bargain with me, and at times I thought they might simply refuse to take down the stolen content.

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                              TIMETRAVELER2posted 4 years agoin reply to this

                              When this happens it's time to contact Google about the problem and/or warn that you'll be filing a lawsuit if they refuse to comply.

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               wildernessposted 4 years agoin reply to this

               It may not be indexed.  Or it could be very low in ranking, although I would expect a snippet search to show up if there aren't multiple copies elsewhere.  It didn't for me - the only thing that contained the search phrase was my own hub.

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                  TIMETRAVELER2posted 4 years agoin reply to this

                  Exactly.

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         theraggededgeposted 4 years agoin reply to this

         They are all there. The whole site has been cloned. Follow the instructions given by Glen.
         
         Here's one of mine so you can follow the format (remove spaces)
         
         https:// arttek.spb.ru/ education/Home-School-Educating-Deschool

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      HoneyBBposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      They even copied Hubpages copyright at the bottom.

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         Natalie Frankposted 4 years agoin reply to this

         Yikes - will look for mine and file.  Thanks for this.  It seems like HP should do something given it's the entire niche site and not everyone who wrote on it will see this, become aware or even still be writing on HP so their articles will remain there.  What chutzpa!

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            Natalie Frankposted 4 years agoin reply to this

            Filed.  How on earth did you find it, Glenn?  It seems you have to know it's there to know it's there so to speak.  Thanks for catching it.

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               Glenn Stokposted 4 years agoin reply to this

               HubPages reported one of my niche hubs stolen on that site, then when I looked I discovered the entire niche was stolen. Google only started indexing some of the copies on that site. But the Russian search engine already was way ahead, possibly helping the thief make money from it.

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   poppyrposted 4 years ago

   Thank you very much. Cheeky barstools!

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   Butterfly67posted 4 years ago

   This has actually opened up a whole can of worms as I googled a snippet from one of my articles and it came up with 91 matches (mine was on top) and the rest of it was pretty much all spam!

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   paradigmsearchposted 4 years ago

   We spend more time doing DMCA's and SEO than we spend writing articles.

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   wildernessposted 4 years ago

   Thanks, Glen.  I've filed on both of mine.

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   Lorelei Nettlesposted 4 years ago

   Thanks theraggededge! I searched google and looked at the site but did not see my article. I also took a snippet of my article and it still didn't show up. When I took your link and added my title however it came right up.
   
   It makes it difficult when they don't show up on web searches. Frustrating!

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      theraggededgeposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      I'm pretty sure we've had problems with this site before. We asked the HP team to take a look but I don't know if anything was done.

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   gerimcclymposted 4 years ago

   Thanks for the heads up, Glenn. Just filed my report.

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   theraggededgeposted 4 years ago

   It's not just We Have Kids either. I've checked another one of mine on Paired Life. It's there. And another on Exemplore -- my highest traffic hub.
   
   I bet they've got the whole network cloned.
   
   Edit: LOL even the Maven key is there.

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      Shesabutterflyposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      How are we suppose to dmca every single article we have? That will take hours. Can't HP do something since it's their network sites in there entirety that have been cloned?

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         TIMETRAVELER2posted 4 years agoin reply to this

         File a complaint with Google using this link
         
         https://support.google.com/legal/answer/3110420?hl=en

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   theraggededgeposted 4 years ago

   FAO HubPages staff:
   
   
   Cloudflare received your copyright infringement complaint regarding:
   arttek.spb.ru
   
   Please be aware Cloudflare is a network provider offering a reverse proxy, pass-through security service. We are not a hosting provider. Cloudflare does not control the content of our customers.
   
   Accepted URL(s) on arttek.spb.ru:
   https:// arttek.spb.ru/ education/Home-School-Educating-Deschool
   https:// arttek.spb.ru/ education/My-Child-Is-Obsessed-With-Lego
   https:// arttek.spb.ru/ misc/Born-on-911
   
       Hosting Provider:
       -----------------
      
       CONTABO, DE
   
       Abuse Contact:
       --------------
      
       abuse@contabo.de
   
   
   
   We have notified our customer of your report. We have forwarded your report on to the responsible hosting provider.
   You may also direct your report to:
   
   1. The provider where arttek.spb.ru is hosted (provided above);
   2. The owner listed in the WHOIS record for arttek.spb.ru and/or;
   3. The contact listed on the arttek.spb.ru site.
   
   Note: A lookup of the IP for a Cloudflare customer website will show Cloudflare IPs because we are a pass-through network. The actual website is still hosted at the hosting provider indicated above. If the hosting provider has any questions, please have the hosting provider contact us directly regarding this site. Due to attempted abuse of our complaint reporting process, we will only provide the IP of arttek.spb.ru to the responsible hosting provider if they contact us directly at abusereply@cloudflare.com.
   
   Regards,
   
   Cloudflare Abuse

   replyreport
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    DzyMsLizzyposted 4 years ago

    Grrrrr!!!
    
    In other words, not a damned thing is going to change or be done, because web hosts that are so irresponsible as to not check for duplication (as HP does) are unlikely to contact the "pass-through provider."

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    HoneyBBposted 4 years ago

    Does Russia have their own version or knockoff of Google that they may be indexed through?
    
    (not sure if that's what the .ru stands for 'just guessing'.

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       TIMETRAVELER2posted 4 years agoin reply to this

       .ru  stands for Russia

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    MizBejabbersposted 4 years ago

    I checked it out, and the stolen hubs seem to be the "how-tos" and the "why fors". My hub was a personal story that I was surprised to see on Wehavekids, and I don't find it on the stolen site. So apparently this site is only interested in advice hubs.

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       TIMETRAVELER2posted 4 years agoin reply to this

       Maybe that's why my three hubs on that site have not shown up.  Interesting.

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          theraggededgeposted 4 years agoin reply to this

          What are the titles? It looks like they have taken the whole HP network.
          
          Edit: the site might have stopped working/been suspended. I can't get to my stuff on it today

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             TIMETRAVELER2posted 4 years agoin reply to this

             Then it's probably been taken down already.

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    Shesabutterflyposted 4 years ago

    Wanted to add they also have all of the articles on hp even those that are currently unfeatured on the HubPages main site.

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    HoneyBBposted 4 years ago

    So my views are up but my impressions with google adsense are down...so wondering if this has something to do with people checking pages to clone.

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       Natalie Frankposted 4 years agoin reply to this

       I don't think they bothered checking pages - they just evidently cloned all of HP.  I wonder if any Maven sites were copied.

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    theraggededgeposted 4 years ago

    Talking of other search engines, I've just discovered two more thieving plagiarists by pasting some text into Yandex. One on Scribd, the other on Youtube using my text as their description. Google didn't pick them up.

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    Chriswillman90posted 4 years ago

    Is this actually affecting anyone's traffic?
    
    Google is pretty good at indexing the original source material while sidelining duplicates.

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    Stacie Lposted 4 years ago

    I can't get it."the site cannot be reached" is the message I get.

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    Glenn Stokposted 4 years ago

    Success!
    
    Thanks to everyone who followed up with the two-step process I suggested when I started this thread, the entire site has been taken down.
    
    As I mentioned, I dealt with Cloudflare before. They are only a pass-through network, but as theraggededge posted above, they responded with the actual hosting provider and the abuse contact for each of us to send the takedown notice to. Your efforts worked. It’s is gone.

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       Lorelei Nettlesposted 4 years agoin reply to this

       Thanks Glenn for the heads up!

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          Natalie Frankposted 4 years agoin reply to this

          Thanks goodness!  I had just started filing the rest of them when I saw this.  So glad it's over.

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    makingamarkposted 4 years ago

    Why doesn't HubPages set up the HP site and each of the niche sites with the code which prevents the sites being seen by any ISP located in Russia? (and/or any other country which has proved problematic for this sort of behaviour)
    
    It works - and saves this sort of hassle happening again in future

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       theraggededgeposted 4 years agoin reply to this

       Yep, if US sites can do it for Europeans, they can do it for Russian ones, and Chinese

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