Mimicking a successful website

This is what most successful marketers are doing. The key is that you aren't copying content or blatantly ripping off things which you seem to understand. Following a business model that is working is probably the smartest thing you can do.

Are you talking "look and feel" of the site, or matching the content as well? I like the look and feel of someone's Kindle site. Therefore, I am modelling one of my sites with a different product line based on that one. When I see a really impressive looking blog, I don't hesitate to scan the source code to see if the template is available. Two of my favorite templates were found that way.

I like someone's Christmas Toys blog, but I am not going to steal his header image. I might have one created similar, but not the same.

Image isn't everything. Find out what really makes that site successful. Is it the keywords? backlinks? topic? Learn as much as you can and add all that to what you are doing.

Good luck
Buck

Yeah Slade you're right. I would want to give an example of the Chinese here, who have produced replicas of not only Nokia's phone but have also produced apple iPhone 4's replica, recently. To my wonder, nobody can judge whether it is branded or a replica until and unless you find 'made in china' on it. If that is morally and ethically right, then how can we say that creating a web replica is wrong? The only thing we need to avoid is the content and that's all.

Haha so true. Find something that works and do something similar or the same.

I trying to do so, but needs lots of time to learn web design

Hmmm.... it is the game of business... Sometimes, people who's into business, do tend to forget about what is moral, ethical and legal as long as the business is earning and making money.

But in some cases like with this particular issue, of course it is understandable that we do really look and idolized those of whose on the success limelight. So there's nothing wrong getting any ideas from it, as long as you have your own concept and contents too.

Well the line between inspiration and copyright violation here is wafer thin and can even vary in degree depending on the local legislations

With digital products I've seen many creators take liberties with copying that no people in their right minds would ever think about doing with a physical product. After being in this marketplace for a while, you start seeing double as everything becomes vaguely familiar and you get this sense of deja vu, as though you've seen something very similar somewhere before.

With that said, it's not wise to virtually copy someone else's website or product. It opens you up to copyright lawsuits, and in addition to that being original and creative is probably going to bring you many more sales than another "me-too" type of product.

Paul

Taking a good project and improving it, or tweaking it is a good thing. Never rip off someone elses ideas or products, but creating a competitive alternative is nature of business.

Look down your local high street and the fashion ideas you see in the "bargain stores" will have come from catwork high price items the year before. Look at AMD processors compared to Intel, look how search engines adopt similar concepts that others have been successful with.

You only have to look in the ready meal section of a supermarket to see that products are similar from store to store, even the photos can be very similar.

Business brings innovators and copycats. Copy cats tend to make money faster because they dont have the R&D to pay off or fund and can get into the game quickly. They dont have market position #1 to begin with, but when your market is global, you dont need to be #1 to make big bucks. You can then begin to innovate as you learn your craft.

There are "products" being sold today that are just recycled material from 1901 That in itself should 'speak to you' about marketing and what people want to buy.

The golden key in Internet Marketing is to not create what you think is needed but what your market is telling you they want. i.e what they buy every second of the day.

Maybe the guy is learning how to make as a good website as you already have?

Have you contacted this person already?

Morally and ethically, it is wrong to rip off someone else's site. However, you can model what you do after a succesful one with a clear conscience, especially if you are modeling the basic features of the site. Many sites tend to look the same because they are based on wordpress.

What n4pgw Buck was saying about looking at source code is very helpful. once hou have a site you like, go to the view menu of your browser and select "source" from the dropdown menu. You will get the actual html code that executes in the browser to display the page. You can search within it or scan manually and find out a lot about how the page was generated. Look for "Generator" or "Theme" and if it is a wordpress site, you will probably find out which theme it is.

Way back when I was doing web sites for a living (before wordpress), the day I knew I'd "arrived" on the web designer's scene, so to speak, was when I discovered a complete ripoff of one of my sites. Yes, they changed SOME of the content, but the majority was there, and upon inspecting the source, I found they hadn't changed any of the meta-tags, and my name and primary site were still embedded there. As they say, "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery", but you can imagine I wasn't amused at a complete rip-off.

I think it should not be problem, cause always real is real.

One of the easiest website to copy is google, and it is also most successful.

Haha, can you copy and become successful like that. No way!

It seems no harm to me, except who copy this site is wasting his/her time.

You can take example of youtube, facebook yahoo, hotmail. etc.

I will never bother about this things any more.

Once one of the actor, told that the guy who can act like any actor can make happy to audience, but he cannot be super star.

I think I am done.