Someone Copied a Hub of Mine - Has this happened to you?

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   melbelposted 13 years ago

   Two of my best hubs have been going down in traffic over the past few months. I'm an SEO writer, and one of these two hubs of mine is on an SEO topic. I'd noticed that this hub had completely lost ALL rankings in Google. It had done very well in the past, and I couldn't think of anything that I'd done in promoting the hub that would have hurt it. I'd always put it on the back burner, thinking that one day I would look into the cause of its demise.
   
   I was wandering around HubPages tonight (this morning?) when I found a REALLY interesting hubber who mentioned a website in his/her profile that is supposed to check your hubs to see if any of them have been copied. I signed up because I was bored, not because I had any reason to be suspicious, really. Anyway, two hubs of mine have been completely copied word for word. They were copied by two different people. The SEO hub, is on some "expert's" SEO blog who talks about his great SEO techniques and whatnot. I find this ironic, because the BIGGEST no-no in SEO is stealing content because not only is this just not-nice, but you get a duplicate content penalty which can paralyze your whole site. I sent a DMCA warning this individual.
   
   The other individual is a blogger user. The hub he copied WAS my highest AdSense earner. I noticed that this hub has seen a decline in traffic. I hadn't had the time to look into its demise either. Okay, so this hub wouldn't bring me millions --- only about a dollar or so a day, but now it only brings me maybe three dollars a month. I contacted Google (since they own Blogger) about it since the individual seems to really have abandoned his blogging effort and has not left contact information. However, this same individual has plastered the article on Yahoo Answers so I had to contact Yahoo to have them removed. And, to top it off, at the end of each Yahoo answer he plasters my ENTIRE hub on, he credits himself and links back to his blog.
   
   Has this ever happened to you?

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      Mark Knowlesposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Yes. But - seeing as you are an seo writer - do you really think the fact that your work has been copied and pasted elsewhere is the reason your hubs dropped in traffic?

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         melbelposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Well, the authors who have copied and pasted the article to their blogs have not only put them in their blogs but posted them in various other locations. This particular hub has been rendered as useless as any PLR article.
         
         I realize that since my content was published first that I do not get penalized as much as I could, but it still hurts.

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            Mark Knowlesposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            You genuinely think that if I set up a few disposable yahoo accounts and plastered my competition's pages on a few forums and blogs - it would adversely affect their ranking, thus improving my own?

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               melbelposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Oh, no, I don't think that these particular bloggers' rankings were improved. They hurt their own ranking by posting copyrighted content. It's no biggie, because over the course of time where those hubs have fallen in traffic, I have gotten some new hub "pets." It's just kind of lame that someone posted my content claiming that it is their own.
               
               All I have to do is improve upon my hubs and bolster my own standing here. It'll be cake but really, this is just about the suckiness of having ones content copied rather than rankings.

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                  Mark Knowlesposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  Well, I agree with that. Having been writing online for some time now - my stuff is copied all over the 'net.

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                     melbelposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                     It's definitely a compliment, you know, in a way. It's just, though, when someone says they are an "SEO expert" and uses completely copied content on their blog -- it's just not only stupid on their part for their own SEO efforts, but it's sad that a company that prides themselves in their SEO work can't write their own article but instead steals it from some little guy/girl who probably makes like $1.50 on it per day, just so they can convince customers they are great at SEO because I don't know... maybe they felt the article drove their point home? Nonetheless, I doubt they rank -- for their own site. Furthermore, if they are so keen to copy, I bet they are, at best, grey-hat.
                     
                     It feels really good, though, when someone uses a small portion of my content and quotes me. That happens a lot, but doesn't make up for the bummer that complete scraping gives me. Oh well, though. I went my DMCA, hopefully they will remove it. Either way, I won't let it stop me from writing and enjoying what I do on HubPages and on my blogs. It's not the first time it's happened, but just the first time here on HubPages and really just the most shocking since the guys appended "his" article with "for more information visit my blog at http://www.website.com."

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   Mark Ewbieposted 13 years ago

   I'm a bit miffed, because as yet no one seems to have copied any of my stuff.  I feel like a failure.
   
   On the other hand, no one's found it either - so that's a plus point.
   
   Maybe once they find it, they'll copy it.

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      melbelposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      You know, you have a really unique style of writing. It would be harder for someone to copy if they are looking for a business line because you have a very personable touch in your writing. That's a compliment, by the way... writing too businessy gets really old to read very quickly.
      
      That being said, I knew of this guy on an old social network for bloggers that still exists, but I personally consider it defunct. Anyway, his blog was about everything monkeys and was actually a very interesting and amusing read. Then the ACTUAL writer sent a DMCA to the social network and EVERYONE knew about it. The monkey writer (well the one that stole content from an author) disappeared without a trace. Good riddance, right? So while you may not see your stuff on a business blog or something of that nature, you never know if someone may rip your whole personality. That being said, you seem like an interesting read, so keep up the good work. I could let the fact that I've been copied stop me, but you know what -- the person who copied me is obviously hurting more than I. They obviously can't write and I guess I've got the trump card on that one. I can't let the fact that someone might copy me, scare me away. Plus, all I have to do is send a DMCA notice. HubPages (and really the entire internet) gives our stuff a published date so we can prove we wrote it first.

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         Mark Ewbieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Thankyou for your nice comments Melbel. 
         
         I apologise for a joky response to what is of course a serious and possibly upsetting matter - but it's what I do.

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      saleheensblogposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      wait for the gay hamster release?

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         Mark Ewbieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         It's done, but I can't link to it here, because of forum rules.  Strictly speaking it's not really about gay hamsters, more about the problems with gay animals of all kinds.
         
         It's number two on my 'Best' list (God knows how they do the scoring!).  I hope I haven't broken any rules by saying that.

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