HELP! Entire Site Copied and Scammed Away...

Thank you for the address Dennis and I hope I will never have to use it. Brandon I am sorry your site was stolen. I hope you will receive restitution/ compensation from this gigantic headache.

Height of it is that I still see some Adsense clicks generated that come to my account and don't know where they came from - whether some blogspot blog that I have forgotten about or someone copied my code (including Adsense ID) - I just have no freaking clue.

And I don't know how to go forward about it too!

Read my post above. The post I'm referring to gives you the how to find host and a sample DMCa

Sure you can. Aside from DCMA requests to the appropriate parties involved from their web host to Google and anyone else who is a party to the copyright violation even if indirectly, if they have Adsense on their site you can click on the Ads by Google link and report their Adsense as spam (given that it's a copy of your own and in violation of copyright). And you can keep reporting it as spam every week or so until Google starts to pay attention.

You can also get your friends in the act, if they too think is spam, and start reporting their Adsense as spam too from their own computers.

Get on Google's Webmaster Forum and start a thread asking for input on what to do about this thievery. Give them the URL of the offending site. The moderators there are not Google employees but they are in tight with official employees and if you make your case there some one or more of them might drop a line to an official Google person who will look into your case. You never know. It's a backdoor way into Google.

You can also send spam complaints to their web host, their domain registrar, their ISP, their grandmother (huh?) and any and every other party you can think of that has anything at all to do with their domain. Lots of places are so paranoid about spam that they will shut him/her down rather than risk being sued under the CAN-SPAM something act.

Get your friends to help. Have them file separate complaints to the same entities saying they know you and they think it's ridiculous what is happening.

If they have affiliate links on their site you can move right along and start reporting their site as spam to their affiliate companies too.

When you do your spam reporting I would throw in a measured and carefully selected reference to some laws that might entitle you to sue. You have to be careful about the wording but few companies want legal entanglements.

Whether you would actually see it as worthwhile to sue or not doesn't matter. It's the perceived entanglement of a suit where you are in the right that will get them to side with you 9 times out of 10.

What you want is to have the company receiving the complaint start thinking that there is some suable, illegal thing going on that they might be on the tail end of if they don't do something. Again you want to make a point but do not threaten. Just lay it out as you see it. Explain that you are the copyright holder and that you hope it doesn't come down to your being forced to take the legal route. That type of thing.

Make a ruckus.

People who steal content don't like attention. The more attention you draw to them the more likely it is that they will not consider what they stole from you to be worth the hassle.

Keep at it until you get your way.

It's your content. You have every right to use any and all available and legal means to protect your rights. And to use the leverage of knowing you are in the right to appeal to those who are involved in providing the thief with their web hosting and anything else.

But...before you do any of that...try and get a hold of the thief and reason with them. Explain what you will do about complaining to everyone and anyone that they are connected with. Give them a chance to undo what they did and walk away gracefully. Give them a time limit. Something like if they don't take down your content in 48 hours or some such that the wheels of your complaints will begin.

Explain that they will get blacklisted by Google, perhaps have their web hosting canceled. Play up all the fears that might be somewhat if not entirely feasable.

Again...thieves don't want the spotlight. Play on that fear.

It's all in how you word things. You will have to think carefully about what to say.

If the thief relents...drop it. If they don't...well...put up your dukes and start a punching. They had their chance and didn't take the easy way out.

I pity the thief who ends up on the tail end of this onslought.

Carlos