SEO & Duplicated content which may seems plagiarized

by peek
4 replies
Hi,

I know Google doesn't value websites with duplicated content. Here is my concern :

in 2013, I created a good website for my company, let's call it A. In 2015, my business partner decided to leave the company to me and later started his own company (B), a direct competitor.

In 2016, unable to create a good website, he simply bribed my web developer to duplicate my website. The developer agreed, even though I was still his client. I sent them a legal notice to cease and desist. In retaliation, they shut down my website (the web developer had control of my website through a hosting contract).

I have of course initiated legal proceedings for intellectual property theft and breach of hosting contract. But in my country the court system is very slow. So as of now, A's website doesn't exist anymore, you can only find its archive on the Wayback Machine, and all my content is ruthlessly published on B's website.

Now, I am creating a website for a new company, C. I want to reuse my old texts from A's website. But since it's already used on B's website, it may appear that C's website plagiarizes B's website. Will my new website be penalized by Google for plagiarism ? It would be a cruel given that i'm actually the copyright owner, and that my business has actually suffered a lot from the deactivation of my website in 2016.

I have screenshots of the old website's archives (both Wayback machine and internal back up on my computer) as evidence for the court, but how can i reach Google and make sure my own content will not be deemed plagiarism ? Or should i rewrite everything (not sure I have the time) ?

Thank you in advance for your advice.
#content #duplicated #plagiarized #seo
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  • Profile picture of the author Kay King
    You are asking legal questions and the forum does not provide legal advice.


    As a practical matter....why use 'text' from 2013 or 2016....rewrite - make it more useful, make it more current...make it your own and publish it to copyright it. Continue the legal battle by all means - and don't ever give a ddeveloper anything more than a temporary password....and get your own hosting that is in YOUR name and no one else's.



    Harsh lesson but learn it well and protect yourself going forward. I would not even consider using the old text on a new site if it were me.
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    • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
      Originally Posted by Kay King View Post

      You are asking legal questions and the forum does not provide legal advice.


      As a practical matter....why use 'text' from 2013 or 2016....rewrite - make it more useful, make it more current...make it your own and publish it to copyright it. Continue the legal battle by all means - and don't ever give a developer anything more than a temporary password....and get your own hosting that is in YOUR name and no one else's.



      Harsh lesson but learn it well and protect yourself going forward. I would not even consider using the old text on a new site if it were me.
      You forgot to add ... "and put in place a non-compete agreement for all partnerships you engage in in the future".
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  • Profile picture of the author savidge4
    So lets break this down... Site A was up first. Then Site B got set up and used the same content. At this point "in Theory" site B was filled with duplicate content, and probably not ranking well. You "Friends" deleted site A. At this point, Site B is no longer containing duplicate content and possibly is ranking better.

    Enter you trying to fix all of this and creating site C. IF you were to use the same content as site A that can only be found on site B.. your site ( Site C ) would be duplicate content.

    Forget any other kind of logic you want to throw a this.. Site A this or that and now its site C... blah blah blah... Google could care less. If you place the exact same content on site C you will be duplicating site B.

    The short answer is DONT DO IT. re write the content - stop wasting your time, your energy, or another waking thought. Wish your past work relations the best of luck with what they are doing, and just build bigger badder and better and take them down legit.

    Rewrite the content and move on... as if it never happened, you are probably not old.. you have many years ahead of you. Life is full of ups and downs. There are evil people in this world and then there are saints. Be a saint.

    Hope that helps!

    If you need help moving forward with your efforts let me know. I will do what I can.
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  • Profile picture of the author tomirae
    Just a thought, you should still own the domain that Site A resided on, correct? If so, why create a new Site C, just rebuild Site A, which has a longer relationship in existence with Google, if you need to reset access through the domain company (ie Godaddy), then I would start there. That way you have an aged domain, with improved content. Just hire a new developer.
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