Hub copied multiple times

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   innerspinposted 11 years ago

   Not a happy bunny. Following on from finding one of my hubs copied, and filing a DMCA, I've been checking other hubs. One that I did kind of expect to do well has never quite got the traffic I'd hoped. Have just done a check, and found the entire text and my title on six other sites.
   
   I am so cheesed off that these people think it's okay to do. It's taking a lot of time to track down the hub, still haven't found it on two of the sites, but Google says it's there. At least three sites come under wordpress.  One pretends to be about flowers for weddings, another on electronics, another on biking. Each have managed to find a page for my non-related hub.
   
   Guess I need to file a DMCA on each individual theft? It would be easier if it was possible to send all six to Google. Man. Going to go and curse quietly in a corner. Needed to vent with people who will understand.

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      L.L. Woodardposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Very sorry to hear about this, Innerspin. It is darn frustrating to produce quality content only to see that thieves are the ones who benefit. Hope you're able to get it handled with Google sooner than later.

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      theraggededgeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      If they are using Adsense, report them and they'll have their account closed. That'll hurt 'em!

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      moonlakeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Same thing happen to me but Google won't do anything with them if their on wordpress. It's disgusting that they can get away with this and when they show up as number one on search it causes our hubs not to get as many views.

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         mistyhorizon2003posted 11 years agoin reply to this

         If the stolen content has no adverts on it Google still have a section of their form that  allows you to request the article be dropped from search engine results, and they will do that if your links prove it to be a copy of your work.
         
         Try this link and select 'web search' as the option in cases where you want the copied article to cease appearing in Google SERPS.
         
         http://support.google.com/bin/static.py … page=ts.cs

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         innerspinposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Why won't Google do anything about things on wordpress? There's a lot I don't know.

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            mistyhorizon2003posted 11 years agoin reply to this

            I think Moonlake was under the impression Google wouldn't do anything about stolen content on Wordpress.com (note that is not the same as a conventional site created using a Wordpress theme). On Wordpress.com adverts are not allowed, so it was reasonable to assume Google wouldn't do anything about copied content on there because they can't close the copiers Adsense account if they don't actually use one on the site in question. However, what many people don't know is that Google will remove the copied article from their SERPS if you file the appropriate complaint (I linked to the correct place to do this earlier here). If the copied content does not show in the results, then it prevents people from easily finding the stolen content and reading the copy instead of your original version.

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      tamarawilhiteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Where are you finding these stolen articles?

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2. 87

   innerspinposted 11 years ago

   Well, all of the copies are on wordpress. Strangely, I haven't yet found any adverts. It's becoming obvious these people, (or this person,) knows they are doing something illegal. False links, false copyright claims, comments disabled. Click on the author's name and you zoom off at a tangent. All of them are entire copies of my work, minus pictures. The only consolation is that I felt the message was important. So it is out there. Sheesh. I have to go to bed now, it's late.
   
   Thank you for your support, it's appreciated.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      That makes it easy.  If they're all on Wordpress.com, complain to Wordpress.com.  They're very responsive.
      
      As Misty says, that's assuming they really are on Wordpress.com.   If you see "powered by Wordpress" on a blog, it usually means they're using Wordpress software, not Wordpress.com.
      
      The thing with complaining to Google is that they just remove the blog from their search results - the offending blogger still exists.  If you can complain to the host or to Adsense, you have a chance that the blog will get taken down.

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      1. 87

         innerspinposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Hmm. I did have a look at wordpress.com and then again at the sites. They seem to be using wordpress rather than .com. Botheration. I've filed with Google as I can't get any joy finding anyone responsible. They are confusing networks of pages, seemingly intent on hiding something.
         
         Now I'm tempted to rethink my own title, change the hub a bit, and try to beak away from the copiers. I think they just want pages of writing to cover whatever else they're doing.

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3. 63

   Gail Meyersposted 11 years ago

   I had the same experience with multiple hubs cut and pasted, including ads and comments.  Google is taking them down.  My traffic had dropped by nearly 90% and now I guess I know why.

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4. 78

   Frangipanniposted 11 years ago

   So disappointing that people would be sooooo lame!

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5. 67

   LisaMarie724posted 11 years ago

   That's awful.  How do you find out if someone else is using your hub?

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      innerspinposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      There are a couple of ways to find out, LisaMarie. I Googled two sentences from my hub, placed within quotation marks. Ping. Up popped half a dozen results. After checking, they were all the complete hub copied on different sites.

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   mary615posted 11 years ago

   I'm sorry this has happened to you.  I had a similar experience with three of my Hubs copied and pasted verbatim (even my family photos).  This was from a guy on Blogger.   As soon as I started looking at his blogs, I began to recognize fellow Hubber's work.   I filed a complaint and he is gone for now, but he will probably be back.  I don't think there will ever be a way of completely stopping these thieves. 
   I don't even bother to check to see if mine are copied anymore.  I know that is a bad attitude.  I just get all upset, file complaints, and they will probably just come right back.

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      wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, they will come back.  Keeping up the fight is just a part of running a business as a free-lance writer, or so I tell myself.

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   Marketing Meritposted 11 years ago

   I found some of mine in a Craigslist Ad...any suggestions as to why someone would want to do this?

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   lovebuglenaposted 11 years ago

   Wow! That is outrageous! Why would someone steal someone else's writing and publish it on another site word for word? But I am curious...if someone is copying your content word for word and publishing it on another site wouldn't your hub be flagged for duplicate content and be unpublished by HubPages?

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      innerspinposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I did get there first! Yeah, it's something that concerns me. Also it could affect search engine ranking, I would think. Still not sure what's motivating people to set up these fairly complex sites. No adverts that I've found. Maybe they're not approved yet.
      
      Another copied hub I've just filed a DMCA over is on a site with lots of links to a Russian site offering viagra. There are unrelated topics with the link in the comments section. The site is supposedly run by two American universities. All a bit confusing.

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         wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         While the algorithm is not perfect and mistakes are made, HP does a pretty good job of determining which site was first before unpublishing your hub.  It happens, but they are also very good about getting it right back up.  I've even got one hub that has carried an HP notice that it is original; there was a problem a year ago with duplicate but they took care of not unpublishing the hub.

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   Roger Harrisposted 11 years ago

   Spammers and scammers are getting cleverer every day. I've had to deal with copyright issues since I published my first photography website in 2000, not to mention books and articles I have written. Google will pull anyone from Adsense if they are found to be violating Google's TOS. So a way around this is to create the content and embed links in code, hidden in database files. Wordpress is most vulnerable to this kind of attack. Google "pharma hack" and you'll see what I mean.
   
   For their part, organizations such as Hubpages must be seen to support and vigorously defend copyright issues, because it is damaging their reputation and bottom line as much as any of their contributors.

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10. 87

    innerspinposted 11 years ago

    Yay, all copies have been removed! It was worth the hassle of fiing a DMCA. Next time I'll know what to do. It'll be interesting to see if my traffic alters, fingers crossed.

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       Sean Evansposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Can you lead me in the right direction as to how I can look and see if my work is being copied.  I've thought about this for some time and in particular 1 HUB I feel is copied for sure.

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       1. 87

          innerspinposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Hi, Sean Evans, after reading tips from other hubbers, I typed a couple of sentences from a hub into the Google search bar, putting them within quotation marks. This means the exact words are searched. One hub showed up on another site, a second had multiple copies.
          
          http://hubpages.com/learningcenter/how- … -complaint explains how to file the DMCA,
          mistyhorizon also put a link  earlier in this thread which is very helpful.
          
          I couldn't find the people who had copied the work, or the who runs the sites, so filed with Google. Considering that was Friday night, I'm pleased with the result. I'd bookmarked the copies, now when I go to the pages it says no longer available.

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11. 61

    wjack2010posted 11 years ago

    Usually on the bottom of the search results in Google is a Report function, if that isn't there, go to the Help section regarding copyright content.
    
    Also, if it is found on Bing, you can contact their customer service, they will remove it within 24 hours, they're great at dealing with reports, and am very happy with their speed.

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12. 70

    entreri28posted 11 years ago

    I thought from an SEO standpoint duplicate content had no value. I was pretty sure google checks which is first and then gives no ranking to later postings. I have always heard this, but apparently it is not true if you are finding stolen content ranking above the original. It is odd that they have no ads either. I'm certainly no SEO expert.
    
    My only guess is that they are creating lots of spam sites with your hubs. Basically, they are creating sites with lots of content. Not content that is necessarily related, but content nevertheless. The spam sites are just meant to rank for lots of keywords. The spam sites are just meant to boost the ranking of their money sites. Somewhere in their web of links are their real sites with ads or whatever monetization method they have chosen. If you could find those sites(which probably have alternate adsense IDs) you could really stick it to them. I'm sure Google will catch on sooner or later and their plan will no longer work. Underhanded tactics never work very long.

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       innerspinposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       entreri28, they didn't outrank me, but having the copies out there can't be good. It would be interesting to know just what's behind the sites.

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       Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Google checks which version has the most "authority", and that's not necessarily the one that was first.

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    DzyMsLizzyposted 11 years ago

    Interesting, and bothersome.  However, with 200+  hubs, all I can do is hope they are not being copied.  I don't have the time or energy to go searching out sentences from each on Google to see if any or many have been swiped.
    If only there were some "one stop search" utility on Google, that would make life easier, but I'm sure that's too much to ask....

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       Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       It can be done and it is, but you have to pay for it.

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          DzyMsLizzyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Ah, of course--as with everything in this country, including justice--you get what you can afford to pay for.  The rest of us are SOL.   

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    Marcy Goodfleischposted 11 years ago

    FYI - Wilderness has posted a few threads here that have useful information.  Based on what you're saying, it sounds like your hubs may have been copied by the same person who copied some of mine and numerous hubs of others on our site.
    
    Check for a thread about Dan Gordon.
    
    We found our copied hubs by putting a snip of text in quotes (any original sentence from inside the hub) and doing a Google search.  In most cases, several sites popped up - but no ads, and sometimes not even the text of the hub would be in the links!  From what we can tell, the sites are registered to Dan Gordon, or else registered through a Proxy service.
    
    Those of us who have filed DMCAs are finally getting some results.  The sites (violating sites) are using our hubs to drive traffic through back-linking.  You will see hyperlinks on odd words, and they link to other site (tons of them in any one incident), and there are layers even deeper than that. It's very confusing, and also very tiring.
    
    Good luck!  And please, please, check for the forum thread about this guy - lots of helpful information there.

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