Some jackass is copying my entire website - help!

50 replies
To my shock I discovered yesterday that someone is copying my entire main website, including all my ebay and amazon affiliate links! They have all my IDs so I have to assume this guy is out to get my accounts with those programs terminated (cookie stuffing, unauthorized campaign, etc). Unless he is still going to change the IDs...the site has began publishing my blog posts one by one since yesterday and its almost complete now. This is the whois information for the domain (which Im not going to write out here as people may click on my affiliate links there):

[Querying whois.verisign-grs.com]
[whois.verisign-grs.com]

Domain Name: ???.COM
Registrar: MELBOURNE IT, LTD. D/B/A INTERNET NAMES WORLDWIDE
Whois Server: whois.melbourneit.com
Referral URL: Domain Names, Web Hosting, Search Engine Optimisation & Web Design
Name Server: YNS1.YAHOO.COM
Name Server: YNS2.YAHOO.COM
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Updated Date: 03-oct-2010
Creation Date: 03-oct-2010
Expiration Date: 03-oct-2011

Domain Name...........????.com
Creation Date........ 2010-10-04
Registration Date.... 2010-10-04
Expiry Date.......... 2011-10-04
Organisation Name.... CHUAN SONG
Organisation Address. RM 802 RUJIA INN
Organisation Address. NO 51 JINNAN ROAD
Organisation Address. CHONGQING
Organisation Address. 089503
Organisation Address. CHONGQING
Organisation Address. CHINA

Admin Name........... CHUAN SONG
Admin Address........ RM 802 RUJIA INN
Admin Address........ NO 51 JINNAN ROAD
Admin Address........ CHONGQING
Admin Address........ 089503
Admin Address........ CHONGQING
Admin Address........ CHINA
Admin Email.......... soaujuqaqa@yahoo.com
Admin Phone.......... +86.2389471102
Admin Fax............

Tech Name............ YahooDomains TechContact
Tech Address......... 701 First Ave.
Tech Address.........
Tech Address......... Sunnyvale
Tech Address......... 94089
Tech Address......... CA
Tech Address......... UNITED STATES
Tech Email........... domain.tech@yahoo-inc.com
Tech Phone........... +1.4089162124
Tech Fax.............
Name Server.......... yns1.yahoo.com
Name Server.......... yns2.yahoo.co

I have tried to contact yahoo abuse department several times yesterday, via their online form as well as direct emails (the addresses I was able to find on the net). But none of that stuff seems to go through to them!
E.g. this is the email I got back from the abuse department after using the online form (Yahoo! Small Business Abuse Form):

The original message was received at Thu, 30 Dec 2010 18:41:11 -0800 (PST) from ems-app4prod.kana.cc.corp.sp2.yahoo.com [98.137.59.83]

----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
<website-abuse@cc.yahoo-inc.com>
(reason: 553 5.3.0 <website-abuse@cc.yahoo-inc.com>... User unknown)

----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to ccmrin1.corp.re1.yahoo.com.:
>>> DATA
<<< 553 5.3.0 <website-abuse@cc.yahoo-inc.com>... User unknown
550 5.1.1 <website-abuse@cc.yahoo-inc.com>... User unknown
<<< 503 5.0.0 Need RCPT (recipient)
Reporting-MTA: dns; mail-relay1.yahoo.com
Received-From-MTA: DNS; ems-app4prod.kana.cc.corp.sp2.yahoo.com
Arrival-Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2010 18:41:11 -0800 (PST)

Final-Recipient: RFC822; website-abuse@cc.yahoo-inc.com
Action: failed
Status: 5.3.0
Remote-MTA: DNS; ccmrin1.corp.re1.yahoo.com
Diagnostic-Code: SMTP; 553 5.3.0 <website-abuse@cc.yahoo-inc.com>... User unknown
Last-Attempt-Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2010 18:41:12 -0800 (PST)
Return-Path: <myaddress@yahoo.com>
Received: from ems-app4prod.kana.cc.corp.sp2.yahoo.com (ems-app4prod.kana.cc.corp.sp2.yahoo.com [98.137.59.83])
by mail-relay1.yahoo.com (8.14.4/8.14.4/mr1) with SMTP id oBV2fBHK082588
for <website-abuse@cc.yahoo-inc.com>; Thu, 30 Dec 2010 18:41:11 -0800 (PST)
Message-Id: <201012310241.oBV2fBHK082588@mail-relay1.yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2010 18:41:11 -0800
To: "website-abuse@cc.yahoo-inc.com" <website-abuse@cc.yahoo-inc.com>
Subject: One of your customers has copied my webpage!!
From: My name <myaddress@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: My name <myaddress@yahoo.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset = "us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Mailer: KANA Response 7.0.1.142.15
I actually had called yahoo small business (from my country so no 1-800 toll free for me) and after pressing zeros several times I finally got to talk to someone live. But the guy just told me to go the abuse help form. So Im trying to find a way to phone/contact the abuse department directly. Anyone have any numbers or email that works? I will also try to use that "domain.tech@yahoo-inc.com" address but right now Im skeptical of how effective any of this is.

I also emailed the admin guy at the address from the whois but Im not sure if that was a good idea. More than likely he will ignore it or whatever. Though who knows, its worth a try. Its likely these type of folks dont expect to get contacted directly.

I also contacted Google spam department so hopefully the site wont end up in the index. But it may for yahoo and bing. This could get me in all kinds of trouble with my affiliate programs and my rankings of course. So I would appreciate any help you guys can offer to me. Im sure Im not the first one here going through something like this....

Would it do anything if I contacted some us government agency or consumer protection? FTC? Or the domain registrar, melbourneit?

Also, if anyone here is a yahoo small business customer maybe you can submit the online report for me? When I go to their contact form I cannot submit anything as I get the message "Sorry, We offer phone and email support only to Small Business customers, and our records don't show any Small Business products associated with your Yahoo! ID."
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/contactus/
Please pm me if you're willing to do this for me.

Thanks ya'll!
#copying #entire #jackass #website
  • Profile picture of the author Trapped
    Did you tried to contact the owner of the site (I see there is an email) ? I had a similar issue, but contacting the owner of the site resolved the issue (perhaps I was just lucky..).

    Another thing you can do (if you use EPN) is include the listings within the HTML template and not the post itself, this way your ads will not appear on RSS leechers sites.

    Just my suggestions..
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    • Profile picture of the author FlashDriveDT
      Originally Posted by Trapped View Post

      Did you tried to contact the owner of the site (I see there is an email) ? I had a similar issue, but contacting the owner of the site resolved the issue (perhaps I was just lucky..)..
      I guess you didnt read this part: "I also emailed the admin guy at the address from the whois but Im not sure if that was a good idea. More than likely he will ignore it or whatever. Though who knows, its worth a try. Its likely these type of folks dont expect to get contacted directly."

      Originally Posted by Trapped View Post

      Another thing you can do (if you use EPN) is include the listings within the HTML template and not the post itself, this way your ads will not appear on RSS leechers sites.

      Just my suggestions..
      Could you elaborate please, a link maybe? I never heard of RSS leecher sites before but it sounds like that the site here is such a leecher. If I stopped my RSS feed would that stop the site? And how do I put the links in the template when each post has different affiliate links?

      Originally Posted by sbucciarel View Post

      Fortunately, it is hosted on Yahoo servers.
      Fortunately? It seems incredibly difficult to get through to a proper yahoo department, abuse or otherwise. Gosh, they seem to have one of the worst customer services out there.

      Originally Posted by sbucciarel View Post

      Contacting them is not enough. You need to issue a DMCA. Instructions are here with a sample DMCA letter

      Domaining Diva » Blog Archive » What You Can Do About "Paypal Dispute Ripoff Artists"
      Interesting idea, but since my website isnt copyrighted I doubt this will help me? I mean all I do is rewrite stuff thats already out there and put some of my own edited images on there. No copyright. Will the DMCA still be able to help me?


      Originally Posted by scottsheen View Post

      I would be interested in how you discovered the site. Was it just blind luck or is there a way to check to see if your sites are being stolen?

      Scott
      Ah, a good question here. Since fortunately the site isnt indexed how was I able to discover it? Well....I dont really want to give it away in case he or she or they may be reading here too (yes, I'm paranoid now). Let's just say it has something to do with the site software thats being used...

      Originally Posted by Adam Roy View Post

      To check for this, just take a whole paragraph or two from your own site, and do a search for that in google in quotes, it'll bring up all the sites using that exact wording, thus showing you who's copied your content.
      Wouldnt help in this case, as I said the site is not in the index (and I wish it remains that way!).
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  • Profile picture of the author rosetrees
    I would definitely contact all your affiliate programs. Keep an eye on his fake site - he may not be bright enough to change the affiliate links and might be wondering why he isn't earning anything.

    Yahoo.com might help, although if he moves the site to a host in China there probably isn't much you can do.

    I recently found a site whose entire content is my articles, minus my links. I got the site taken down, but it reappeared hosted by an eastern european company who didn't reply. I'm not too bothered in this case as this site will never be found in an entire year of Sundays.

    Good luck.
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  • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
    Banned
    Fortunately, it is hosted on Yahoo servers. Contacting them is not enough. You need to issue a DMCA. Instructions are here with a sample DMCA letter

    Domaining Diva » Blog Archive » What You Can Do About “Paypal Dispute Ripoff Artists”
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    • Profile picture of the author Laurie Rogers
      Originally Posted by sbucciarel View Post

      Fortunately, it is hosted on Yahoo servers. Contacting them is not enough. You need to issue a DMCA. Instructions are here with a sample DMCA letter

      Domaining Diva » Blog Archive » What You Can Do About "Paypal Dispute Ripoff Artists"
      Yes definitely issue a DMCA, a lot of people don't really seem to realize there are legal routes for these types of issues.
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      • Profile picture of the author FlashDriveDT
        Originally Posted by Laurie Rogers View Post

        Yes definitely issue a DMCA, a lot of people don't really seem to realize there are legal routes for these types of issues.
        Well I just went to the DMCA site and I would need to dish out $199 to file a DMCA take down. Is this a joke? I should pay for this jerk duplicating me? Shouldnt it be the other way around? Isnt there a free way of filing a DMCA takedown?
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        • Profile picture of the author GuerrillaIM
          Originally Posted by FlashDriveDT View Post

          Well I just went to the DMCA site and I would need to dish out $199 to file a DMCA take down. Is this a joke? I should pay for this jerk duplicating me? Shouldnt it be the other way around? Isnt there a free way of filing a DMCA takedown?
          Just download DMCA form template, fill it out and email it to them. This worked for me in the past, I didn't have to spend any money.
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          • Profile picture of the author FlashDriveDT
            Originally Posted by GuerrillaIM View Post

            Just download DMCA form template, fill it out and email it to them. This worked for me in the past, I didn't have to spend any money.
            I guess I looked at the wrong place, dmca.com, which seems to be just a service to file a takedown for you. Whats the official gov site and email address? Thanks.
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  • Profile picture of the author Adam Roy
    I've been seeing this WAYYY too much lately.
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  • Profile picture of the author Hexor
    Contact your local lawyer.
    Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as "the wrongful appropriation, close imitation, or purloining and publication, of another author's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions, and the representation of them as one's own original work." The modern concept of plagiarism as immoral and originality as an ideal emerged in Europe only in the 18th century, while in the previous centuries authors and artists were encouraged to "copy the masters as closely as possible" and avoid "unnecessary invention.
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    • Profile picture of the author scottsheen
      I would be interested in how you discovered the site. Was it just blind luck or is there a way to check to see if your sites are being stolen?

      Scott
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      • Profile picture of the author Adam Roy
        Originally Posted by scottsheen View Post

        I would be interested in how you discovered the site. Was it just blind luck or is there a way to check to see if your sites are being stolen?

        Scott
        To check for this, just take a whole paragraph or two from your own site, and do a search for that in google in quotes, it'll bring up all the sites using that exact wording, thus showing you who's copied your content.
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      • Profile picture of the author vegasfitness
        Recently, I have begun checking copyscape for duplication of my content. The more articles I put out for RSS, the more I am getting people who strip my credit to claim my content as their own. Writing the webmaster usually stops the matter.
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        • Profile picture of the author FlashDriveDT
          Does anyone know the fax number of the US copyright office to file a DMCA complaint to? I cant seem to find it on their website. Or is it sufficient to just fax it to yahoo webhosting? Thanks.
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    • Profile picture of the author donhx
      Originally Posted by Hexor View Post

      Contact your local lawyer.
      Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as "the wrongful appropriation, close imitation, or purloining and publication, of another author's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions, and the representation of them as one's own original work." The modern concept of plagiarism as immoral and originality as an ideal emerged in Europe only in the 18th century, while in the previous centuries authors and artists were encouraged to "copy the masters as closely as possible" and avoid "unnecessary invention.

      It's always good to contact a lawyer, I suppose. But I would only contact a "local lawyer" if you live in LA, Washington DC or NYC as you need someone who deals with international Intellectual Property Rights, not wills or real estate.

      Just be aware that this is an international case and would likely take hundreds of hours to resolve. Intellectual Property lawyers charge all sorts of fees... but they seem to start at many hundreds of $ per hour. So, is your site worth thousands or tens of thousands of $ in legal fees?

      The best thing to do is try all other remedies mentioned in this thread before seeking a lawyer. Plus, it's not really a plagiarism issue...it is an international copyright issue, and that's different.
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    • Profile picture of the author donhx
      ... or an Intellectual Property lawyer in Berlin.
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  • Profile picture of the author dv8domainsDotCom
    Ping their domain and your own. If the IP matches, the "jackass" is not stealing your content, he is mainly pointing his A-record to your hosting IP (and your web server is doing it's job by serving content ). While you cannot do anything about THAT, you CAN add that domain to your hosting control panel as if you WERE hosting it, and build your own site on HIS domain. (I "own" a couple domains like this). While I cannot say for certain that this is the case, I've seen it more than a few times, and while rare, it is possible.
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    • Profile picture of the author AFI
      Originally Posted by dv8domainsDotCom View Post

      Ping their domain and your own. If the IP matches, the "jackass" is not stealing your content, he is mainly pointing his A-record to your hosting IP (and your web server is doing it's job by serving content ). While you cannot do anything about THAT, you CAN add that domain to your hosting control panel as if you WERE hosting it, and build your own site on HIS domain. (I "own" a couple domains like this). While I cannot say for certain that this is the case, I've seen it more than a few times, and while rare, it is possible.
      Why would someone do this? Just curious.
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      • Profile picture of the author Eric Lorence
        Originally Posted by AFI View Post

        Why would someone do this? Just curious.
        Assuming he knows what he is doing ... it's to steal "instant content" for some domain he is either developing later, or a quick auction scam sale.

        Scams of some kind are usually the reason.
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  • Profile picture of the author FlashDriveDT
    Scrap that, the site is in the index now. Darn it! I guess my spam report to Google was useless.
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    • Profile picture of the author Kay King
      Not a criticism - but if you just found this yesterday you can't expect yahoo/google/etc to jump into action the moment they receive your call or email. You have reported it - but it may take time to get any results.

      Talk about shades of gray.

      "all I do is rewrite stuff thats already out there" -

      And someone steals that copy...and doesn't even rewrite the rewrite...

      who would have thunk it...

      Let us know what happens.

      kay
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  • Profile picture of the author Trent Brownrigg
    Contact anyone and everyone you can to report him. I had this exact same thing happen to me once. The guy finally took my stuff down but it wasn't easy to convince him. The funny thing is he told me he was doing me a favor and didn't know why I cared so much because he left all my links in place. Then he flat out told me he will just go copy someone else's content. I asked him why he doesn't just save himself the trouble and stop using other people's stuff. He said he doesn't have time!
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  • Profile picture of the author cashcow
    Maybe the person is just a dumba** and is going to leave your affiliate links in. I had someone do that to me once and I made a bunch of sales from their work since they ended up outranking me. Wish more people would do that actually.

    Lee
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    Gone Fishing
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    • Profile picture of the author FlashDriveDT
      Originally Posted by cashcow View Post

      Maybe the person is just a dumba** and is going to leave your affiliate links in. I had someone do that to me once and I made a bunch of sales from their work since they ended up outranking me. Wish more people would do that actually.

      Lee
      But thats the problem cashcow. As soon as EPN is seeing clicks coming from a domain not associated with my account I can get terminated! They have become very strict about this sort of thing - so no, I do not stand to benefit from this if he leaves my IDs in. Amazon is probably a bit more lax about this but its clearly against their policies too.

      Originally Posted by Kay King View Post

      Not a criticism - but if you just found this yesterday you can't expect yahoo/google/etc to jump into action the moment they receive your call or email. You have reported it - but it may take time to get any results.
      True, but the problem is that after I had called yahoo web hosting they referred me to the abuse help form. I submitted it and after less than a day I got a delivery failure note of that submission. So I called again and asked the live person to let me speak to someone live from the abuse department. He totally refused and kept referring me to the online help site even though I kept telling him that seems to be of no use for me. "There is nothing I can do" "I do not have a supervisor" "I do no have a manager" and all that jazz... At least I have emailed pretty much every yahoo abuse email address I could find on the net, surely I will get through to them eventually.

      Originally Posted by Kay King View Post

      Talk about shades of gray.

      "all I do is rewrite stuff thats already out there" -

      And someone steals that copy...and doesn't even rewrite the rewrite...

      who would have thunk it...

      Let us know what happens.

      kay
      Yeah, I noticed the irony while I was writing that sentence. But still, this is quite a difference. I do put a lot of work into my site, ensuring that my texts and images are as unique as possible as much as thats possible in my niche. This person is just flat out copying in order to hurt me...or so it seems.
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  • Profile picture of the author Yadira Barbosa
    When you must call to 1-800 number on the USA use Skype!

    Just set the account as you are on USA and the calls are for free, I do this a lot.
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  • Profile picture of the author FlashDriveDT
    I just pinged his and my domain and the IPs are different. His is:
    69.195.92.68.
    Can I send him a virus or DOS attack now? :p
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  • Profile picture of the author BlondieWrites
    These are blog posts being copied? Do you have your settings so that only the blog summary shows up and not the entire post? This sounds like some sort of auto blog program that grabs the content from sites. If the setting is on full text rather than summary, that can happen.


    Cindy
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  • Profile picture of the author ameerulislam10
    As your post is the original and being posted earlier, I don't think you have to worry about plagiarism.

    But thats the problem cashcow. As soon as EPN is seeing clicks coming from a domain not associated with my account I can get terminated! They have become very strict about this sort of thing - so no, I do not stand to benefit from this if he leaves my IDs in. Amazon is probably a bit more lax about this but its clearly against their policies too.
    For this you can send a mail to your affiliate networks and keep them informed about the situation.
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  • Profile picture of the author Janice Sperry
    Interesting idea, but since my website isnt copyrighted I doubt this will help me? I mean all I do is rewrite stuff thats already out there and put some of my own edited images on there. No copyright. Will the DMCA still be able to help me?
    I am with Suzanne on this one that the DMCA is the way to start. From my experience DMCA's work every time. Suzanne has a great sample she linked to.

    Yes your content IS copyrighted. You said you are rewriting so I assume you mean it is now unique. As soon as you publish the material it is copyrighted. It is not a "registered" copyright or trademarked but you do have copyright perotection even if you do not post the (c) symbol.
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  • Profile picture of the author Zentech
    Jeez... best of luck to you. I have no idea how to help, but the people who do things like this are horrible.
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    • Profile picture of the author jan roos
      I've had the same happen to me as well. Site copied with theme, graphics, content and everything exactly the same. All I can say is that these people probably won't make it far in this business because you need to be able to have at least a little bit of original thought to be successful in IM.

      Good luck
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  • Profile picture of the author Colin Palfrey
    Are you sure you don't have an RSS feed coming from your website.

    I was reading this thread and wondered if you realized that last 'S' stands for syndication.

    I am guessing that he has taken your RSS feed and set it to display on his web-page. I expect before long you will see content appearing from other people's RSS feeds as well.

    After he has some filler content on the site he will then start adding posts of his own, similar to yours but original. These will be the ones that get indexed for him, but yours and other peoples will bulk the site out to make it look authentic.

    What I have written above is all conjecture, but I expect I am right.

    So the question becomes: If you have links that you cannot afford clicked from anywhere but your website, why allow an RSS feed to go out. Even if someone reads your post in their mobile phone RSS reader, and clicks through, it will still have been clicked from a page that hasn't been authorized.

    Just putting some ideas out there for you to consider, but I recommend either setting your RSS feed to only show the first sentence, or disabling it all together.

    Cheers,
    Colin Palfrey
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    • Profile picture of the author FlashDriveDT
      Originally Posted by Colin Palfrey View Post

      Are you sure you don't have an RSS feed coming from your website.
      Since I have a blog of course it has an RSS feed.

      Originally Posted by Colin Palfrey View Post

      I was reading this thread and wondered if you realized that last 'S' stands for syndication.
      Huh?


      Originally Posted by Colin Palfrey View Post

      I am guessing that he has taken your RSS feed and set it to display on his web-page. I expect before long you will see content appearing from other people's RSS feeds as well.
      I dont think so. Its been two days and only my own posts are showing. About 200 or so now.

      Originally Posted by Colin Palfrey View Post

      After he has some filler content on the site he will then start adding posts of his own, similar to yours but original. These will be the ones that get indexed for him, but yours and other peoples will bulk the site out to make it look authentic.
      Nope, the duplicate posts, actually the categories, were already indexed in Google. I very much doubt this person will add anything original. The only goal seems to just leech off my website.

      What I have written above is all conjecture, but I expect I am right.

      So the question becomes: If you have links that you cannot afford clicked from anywhere but your website, why allow an RSS feed to go out. Even if someone reads your post in their mobile phone RSS reader, and clicks through, it will still have been clicked from a page that hasn't been authorized.

      Just putting some ideas out there for you to consider, but I recommend either setting your RSS feed to only show the first sentence, or disabling it all together.
      My RSS feed is set to only show the last 17 posts and only summaries (Usually the first 3 sentences). None of the affiliate link show up on that. Its always been like this. Unless of course he has some clever software that bypasses these settings. I do like to have an RSS feed because I always have visitors subscribing to it daily or visiting me through it. So all in all it looks like disabling the RSS feed won't do me much good. His duplicated content is already published now anyway. Thanks for the feedback though.
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  • Profile picture of the author Colin Palfrey
    It looks like I was wrong about his purpose then.

    Okay, so if he isn't doing what I said, where is the profit? People don't do things without believing there will be some pay off, so where is his?

    Simply having a website with your content on it is not worth his trouble. The posts are duplicate content, and if the links are unchanged then he doesn't profit that way.

    Cheers,
    Colin Palfrey
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    • Profile picture of the author GuerrillaIM
      Originally Posted by Colin Palfrey View Post

      It looks like I was wrong about his purpose then.

      Okay, so if he isn't doing what I said, where is the profit? People don't do things without believing there will be some pay off, so where is his?

      Simply having a website with your content on it is not worth his trouble. The posts are duplicate content, and if the links are unchanged then he doesn't profit that way.

      Cheers,
      Colin Palfrey
      It could be a black hat technique. With certain software you can rip off hundreds of sites in just a few hours and re-post them all to free hosting sites.

      There are various BH ways to monetize this like cloaked re-directs, cookie stuffing, malware or using it as a domain farm. This guy may be doing something like that or he may just be a tard.

      Usually they host these parasite blogs on free hosts so they are easy to get removed. If they have black box hosting though it will be much harder.

      To the OP just google "dmca letter template" or similar terms. Thats how I found it.
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    • Profile picture of the author FlashDriveDT
      Originally Posted by Colin Palfrey View Post

      It looks like I was wrong about his purpose then.

      Okay, so if he isn't doing what I said, where is the profit? People don't do things without believing there will be some pay off, so where is his?

      Simply having a website with your content on it is not worth his trouble. The posts are duplicate content, and if the links are unchanged then he doesn't profit that way.

      Cheers,
      Colin Palfrey
      Im assuming that he's trying to push me out of the rankings. Or get me terminated with the affiliate programs so that maybe I give up myself on any motivation to rank for the keywords he wants to rank for.

      See, about a month ago I experienced something curious - the main keyword (which has a large search volume) I was ranking for with my homepage url got pushed down a spot by this chinese newbie "contender" appearing out of nowhere. The site was really thin and flimsy and it was clear that is was a chinese "company". In my estimate this site should have not ranked anywhere near that spot (#3), especially not that fast. It was unusual to say the least.

      Nonetheless, I got outranked and while I found that fishy I figured I just do more backlinks. Eventually I got back to the spot after a couple of weeks but apparently not because of my new links but because that site had completely vanished off page 1. So my guess is the site was employing black hat methods to rank and is now trying black hat methods to get rid of the competition.

      Who knows, I could be totally wrong about this and the two sites are not related to each other - but seeing both come from China Im kinda putting two and two together here.

      What's with these Chinese anyway? (Im talking about the ones who are actually located in China) Do they think that all Americans - and to a lesser degree Europeans - are big dumb fools to be abused, framed, spoofed and ripped off?

      Originally Posted by GuerrillaIM View Post

      There are various BH ways to monetize this like cloaked re-directs, cookie stuffing, malware or using it as a domain farm. This guy may be doing something like that or he may just be a tard.
      He is not doing cookie stuffing, thank god. (At least not that I can detect) I already had that happen to me a few months back though, by some russian forum. That almost got me terminated from EPN. Luckily I was able to get the guy to remove the link in question which was no easy task - since I dont speak russian!

      Originally Posted by gareth View Post

      You should ring the dude up - his number is there

      Just say hi I noticed you have cloned my site and I wonder if you could take it down as I am concerned about blah blah. Don't argue or be nasty.

      Odds are he will either comply or pretend not to speak English so long as you don't argue.
      I thought about that but theres no way Im going to spent one penny on a call to China! (Unless things are getting totally dire) But yeah, he would probably say "Meee no english". LOL. I did leave a comment though on his most recent duplicated post with a nice copyright infringement notice. Its a day later now and it still says "Your comment is awaiting moderation". Go figure.

      Originally Posted by Young Samurai View Post

      This thread is fasinating. The issue itself is maddening, and must be extremely frustrating for the victim.
      I never had someone call any of my threads fascinating. So thanks! At least something good is coming out of this... :p

      Originally Posted by Young Samurai View Post

      I've seen the clone of the site Jan Roos mentioned above - exact replica.
      Well, funnily enough he is not doing an exact replica of mine. The template is a simple boring one and he also has blank spaces showing where my images should be - because I have hotlink prevention on. I guess he really isn't the smartest...thank god.

      Originally Posted by Young Samurai View Post

      I wish you every success in trying to resolve the problem and await to see how it pans out.
      Thanks a lot! Things are looking a bit better today because I got a few ticket responses back from yahoo saying they have investigated the site and have taken the necessary action. I have no idea what that action is because right now the site is still online - but hopefully it is what I expect it to be: Taking it down!

      Originally Posted by Adam Struve View Post

      This happened to me awhile back. The person made the mistake of hotlinking a javascript file from my site so I renamed it and changed the code on my site. Then made it so the javascript file they were hotlinking did nothing but redirect their traffic ot my site. After about 2 weeks they noticed and stopped copying me.
      Haha, thats great. Unfortunately I dont think I can turn those affiliate links into immediate redirects to my site. I do need to find a way to mask my affiliate links with some sort of code in them that ensures they only work on my own domain. Is this possible? Im really a noob what such things are concerned and prefer to shun this type of stuff - because Im actually for transparency and prefer my visitors to see where any link will take them, especially if its affiliate (EPN prefers that too). But thanks to the black hatters and evildoers I guess we can scrap such idealistic nonsense. So if anyone has a good link or tutorial on how to generate such links I'd appreciate it. Thanks!
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  • Profile picture of the author gareth
    You should ring the dude up - his number is there

    Just say hi I noticed you have cloned my site and I wonder if you could take it down as I am concerned about blah blah. Don't argue or be nasty.

    Odds are he will either comply or pretend not to speak English so long as you don't argue.
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    • Profile picture of the author Young Samurai
      This thread is fasinating. The issue itself is maddening, and must be extremely frustrating for the victim.

      I've seen the clone of the site Jan Roos mentioned above - exact replica.

      I wish you every success in trying to resolve the problem and await to see how it pans out.

      I'd probably try contacting him directly as the last commenter suggested.
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      Kyle
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    • Profile picture of the author paulie888
      Originally Posted by gareth View Post

      You should ring the dude up - his number is there

      Just say hi I noticed you have cloned my site and I wonder if you could take it down as I am concerned about blah blah. Don't argue or be nasty.

      Odds are he will either comply or pretend not to speak English so long as you don't argue.
      That is a great way to scare someone into compliance. These scammers typically think they're safe, secure and anonymous on the internet, so calling them will definitely rattle their cages. If you get an answering machine, don't hang up - leave a stern message and warning for them to hear. Chances are high you'll see your duplicate site taken down in short order if you do that.
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  • Profile picture of the author Adam Struve
    This happened to me awhile back. The person made the mistake of hotlinking a javascript file from my site so I renamed it and changed the code on my site. Then made it so the javascript file they were hotlinking did nothing but redirect their traffic ot my site. After about 2 weeks they noticed and stopped copying me.
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  • Profile picture of the author cma01
    If the copykat is linking back to your web site, I wouldn't stress about it and just say, "Thanks for the backlinks."

    If there isn't a link back to the original source, force one by creating a manual link in the intro paragraph back to your post URL using your keyword as anchor text since he isn't stripping the links within the content.

    Just make sure you have a system in place to index your content so Google sees it on your web site first and it really isn't an issue. I actually set up satellite sites like this to automatically publish an excerpt from every post on my main site.

    As for the issue with the affiliate links, I would start using something like Pretty Links within the posts themselves so where ever the click is coming from, it is still going to be redirected from your domain.
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    "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something."
    ~ Plato
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    • Profile picture of the author FlashDriveDT
      Originally Posted by cma01 View Post

      As for the issue with the affiliate links, I would start using something like Pretty Links within the posts themselves so where ever the click is coming from, it is still going to be redirected from your domain.
      Interesting plugin but from the looks of it, it doesnt do what I need it to do the most. And that is preventing the (cloaked) affiliate links to work on another domain. Anyone know a plugin that can create such links? Or how to do it manually? I know there is a script out there that can do this within a cloaked link but I can't find it right now...
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  • Profile picture of the author Trapped
    I guess I missed the part where you mentioned you had contacted the prick already. While for the EPN ads to be in the template file (i am not sure if you use a plugin or you manually add the links), however, drop me a PM and I will see if I can help you.

    However, I am not sure what CMS u use (or blog platform), but if you use wordpress it can be easily controlled through custom fields.
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  • Profile picture of the author leclaims
    Yes, unfortunately this is happening far too much lately. The fact that people are too cheap to purchase their own content or create their own is very concerning for internet marketing and those who are making an honest effort at becoming successful with it.
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  • Profile picture of the author elf25
    Just send the DCMA take down notice to the company that is hosting the offending website. I image they'll take over from there and whack his site and account.
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    • Profile picture of the author FlashDriveDT
      To given an update: Since yesterday the site is offline! Was about time.
      I had faxed and emailed a DMCA copyright infringement notice to yahoo web hosting as well as Google Thursday last week. On Saturday I got an acknowledgment by yahoo and it took them 5 more days to have the site removed. I guess thats the normal time span.

      Unfortunately the site still shows up in google's index, this I dont understand. Would it take google longer than a week? I also didnt receive any acknowledgment by them. Oh well, since the site is offline now it should get out of the index soon enough. Or so I hope! How long does that usually take?

      Moral of the story: When you're faced with someone duplicating your site, dont waste time and energy with contacting the admin, web hosting, google etc. Instead, fax a proper copyright infringement notice right away. Thats what will bring results and I think thats what most here advised anyway. Although, I suppose one should always email the admin for sheer protocol.

      In order to not have to worry about this kind of crap in the future can someone please point out some resources for me how to mask custom affiliate links with a script that prevents them from working on other urls? I guess this can only be done via a redirect to your own site? Any help is appreciated, thanks ya'll!
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      • Profile picture of the author Dwight Anthony
        Nice man, good result. I bet he was just doing some black hat or grey hat technique and scraping content from your site. Glad you got him shut down though. Just to easy to steal content these days. Someone needs a plugin to stop all these bots from scraping content, emails e.t.c. Anything is possible. If something like copyscape can be invented, I'm sure they are more brute force methods to protecting your content or at least makes it a heck of a lot harder.

        Originally Posted by FlashDriveDT View Post

        To given an update: Since yesterday the site is offline! Was about time.
        I had faxed and emailed a DMCA copyright infringement notice to yahoo web hosting as well as Google Thursday last week. On Saturday I got an acknowledgment by yahoo and it took them 5 more days to have the site removed. I guess thats the normal time span.

        Unfortunately the site still shows up in google's index, this I dont understand. Would it take google longer than a week? I also didnt receive any acknowledgment by them. Oh well, since the site is offline now it should get out of the index soon enough. Or so I hope! How long does that usually take?

        Moral of the story: When you're faced with someone duplicating your site, dont waste time and energy with contacting the admin, web hosting, google etc. Instead, fax a proper copyright infringement notice right away. Thats what will bring results and I think thats what most here advised anyway. Although, I suppose one should always email the admin for sheer protocol.

        In order to not have to worry about this kind of crap in the future can someone please point out some resources for me how to mask custom affiliate links with a script that prevents them from working on other urls? I guess this can only be done via a redirect to your own site? Any help is appreciated, thanks ya'll!
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        • Profile picture of the author FlashDriveDT
          Originally Posted by danthony View Post

          Nice man, good result. I bet he was just doing some black hat or grey hat technique and scraping content from your site. Glad you got him shut down though. Just to easy to steal content these days. Someone needs a plugin to stop all these bots from scraping content, emails e.t.c. Anything is possible. If something like copyscape can be invented, I'm sure they are more brute force methods to protecting your content or at least makes it a heck of a lot harder.
          That would be the day! Actually, thats a really good idea. Surely there must be some sort of protection plugins available? From what I understand copsyscape and the like works by simply feeding off your RSS feed. But Im sure there are other methods too. Since this would use an algorithm that should be recognizable, there should be a block available against it. No?
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