Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • SEO Q&A
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • Case Studies
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      What is your Brand Authority?
      Moz

      What is your Brand Authority?

      Check yours now
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • SEO Q&A

        Insights & discussions from an SEO community of 500,000+.

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • Case Studies

        Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Technical SEO
    4. Sites Copying my Content Ranking Higher

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Sites Copying my Content Ranking Higher

    Technical SEO
    6
    23
    3022
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • ben1000
      ben1000 last edited by

      A number of sites are copying - either 100% word for word, paragraphs, or sentences of my content and are ranking higher.

      Some sites are doing this with permission/properly and are linking back to my article Others are not linking back or giving credit.

      Some of these sites, in some cases are ranking higher than me in Google results.

      What can I do?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • diywm
        diywm @ben1000 last edited by

        It will make an impact. I have had authorship set up for months now and it has made a difference to click-throughs.  Basically I have more traffic now than before.  And I believe this is partly due to the photo in the SERPs.

        We put an authorship plugin together for WordPress as we needed to implement authorship on our own sites and client sites.  It's free - you can try it if you feel you can't or don't want to do it manually.  http://www.authorsure.com.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • clotairedamy
          clotairedamy @ben1000 last edited by

          Ben, you can read this thread.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • ben1000
            ben1000 @ben1000 last edited by

            Thanks. Is that an automatic thing if I meet the guidelines? Cant see how to sign up for it..

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • clotairedamy
              clotairedamy @ben1000 last edited by

              Take a look at First Click Free from google.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • ben1000
                ben1000 @ben1000 last edited by

                Thanks.

                I'm going to try to set up the author profiles and see what happens with that. I gain something from most of the people sharing my content (not as much as I lose from them ranking above me) so I'd rather just find a way to get myself above them 9 times out of 10 and that seems like a great option. Hopefully that will reduce any impact of Panda changes?

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • Paul78
                  Paul78 @ben1000 last edited by

                  Hi EGOL,

                  I am having the same issue also, these websites are not out ranking me for a particular keyword, however if I copy and paste the first few paragraphs of text into Google on one of my product pages lots of other websites are above my listing that has copied my content, even though my page has higher authority and PR.

                  Should I be worrying about this?

                  Kind Regards

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • clotairedamy
                    clotairedamy @ben1000 last edited by

                    do a search for "wp content protect",   you'll have to be cautios because those plugins can harm your seo strategy.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • avassa
                      avassa @ben1000 last edited by

                      Agreed, he needs to evolve a strategy that is based on 2 things:

                      a) Claiming authorship of his original content

                      b) Devising ways to prevent content theft

                      At the same time, if his site was inflicted with a Panda-penalty, he will make a lot of gains using authorship.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • EGOL
                        EGOL @ben1000 last edited by

                        One of the easiest ways for you to rank higher than those sites would be to setup author profiles and claim yourself as the author of the original content.

                        I believe that this is a very good idea.  However, I am confident that it will not solve the problem.  Google is not giving strong weight to claimed authorship at this time.

                        Your strongest weapon is DMCA actions and to stop giving others permission to use your content.

                        Your site could be suffering from Panda ranking reductions as a result of your own content being wild on the web.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                        • ben1000
                          ben1000 @avassa last edited by

                          Ok. Thanks... you think this would make a big impact in general with search engine results?

                          diywm 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • avassa
                            avassa last edited by

                            That is correct.

                            ben1000 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • ben1000
                              ben1000 @avassa last edited by

                              Headshot and real persons name?

                              Thx

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • avassa
                                avassa last edited by

                                It wont work without a proper headshot.

                                ben1000 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • ben1000
                                  ben1000 @avassa last edited by

                                  But is there a way to set it so that it wont show my name/picture?

                                  Thanks

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • avassa
                                    avassa last edited by

                                    The author profile is just a way to authenticate yourself to Google. If you have the ability to set profiles for other people of your company, you should be fine.

                                    ben1000 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • ben1000
                                      ben1000 @avassa last edited by

                                      Can I do author profile without using my name? I have stuff written by other people/don't include my name on the site.

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • ben1000
                                        ben1000 @avassa last edited by

                                        It must look different where you are. I get the exact match domain, haaretz.com, then a couple of copies of mine, and then mine.

                                        I'll look at the author profile.

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • avassa
                                          avassa last edited by

                                          There is not a simple solution for your particular case. Your site ranks below an exact match domain and another site that is haaretz.com. It would be very difficult to rank above chriscornell.com as it is an exact match domain.

                                          Haaretz.com has a domain authority of 91, while your site's domain authority is 40. Until you tell the search engines that the content posted on haaretz.com is originally yours, it would seem difficult for your site to outrank haaretz.com

                                          As a first step, I will setup an author profile using g+. That should give you more visits since your author profile information should include headshot as well.

                                          Besides this, I don't thin there are many options that are available off the table. You will need to work on improving your site's overall authority.

                                          ben1000 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • ben1000
                                            ben1000 @clotairedamy last edited by

                                            Thanks. I'm using Wordpress, what would you suggest?

                                            clotairedamy ben1000 4 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                            • ben1000
                                              ben1000 @avassa last edited by

                                              Thanks for the reply. The site url is www.touristisrael.com and an example is if you Google:

                                              "Chris Cornell in Israel" or

                                              "Chris Cornell in Tel Aviv"

                                              Do you mean author profiles on Google +?

                                              EGOL avassa Paul78 ben1000 4 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                              • avassa
                                                avassa last edited by

                                                Do you mind sharing your site's URL? One of the easiest ways for you to rank higher than those sites would be to setup author profiles and claim yourself as the author of the original content. It would be a way to tell Google that it's your content.

                                                It may take a few weeks time for things to settle down.

                                                ben1000 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                                • clotairedamy
                                                  clotairedamy last edited by

                                                  Try using some plugins to protect your content if you're using any cms, it's not enough but it's a start...

                                                  ben1000 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                                  • 1 / 1
                                                  • First post
                                                    Last post

                                                  Got a burning SEO question?

                                                  Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                                                  Start my free trial


                                                  Browse Questions

                                                  Explore more categories

                                                  • Moz Tools

                                                    Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                                                  • SEO Tactics

                                                    Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                                                  • Community

                                                    Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                                                  • Digital Marketing

                                                    Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                                                  • Research & Trends

                                                    Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                                                  • Support

                                                    Connect on product support and feature requests.

                                                  • See all categories

                                                  Related Questions

                                                  • Mediaholix

                                                    Does anyone know the linking of hashtags on Wix sites does it negatively or postively impact SEO. It is coming up as an error in site crawls 'Pages with 404 errors' Anyone got any experience please?

                                                    Does anyone know the linking of hashtags on Wix sites does it negatively or positively impact SEO.  It is coming up as an error in site crawls 'Pages with 404 errors'  Anyone got any experience please? For example at the bottom of this blog post https://www.poppyandperle.com/post/face-painting-a-global-language the hashtags are linked, but they don't go to a page, they go to search results of all other blogs using that hashtag.  Seems a bit of a strange approach to me.

                                                    Technical SEO | | Mediaholix
                                                    0
                                                  • HappyApple84

                                                    Hey guys, for some reason my homepage has gone down in rankings though other pages on my site have not.

                                                    This is not something I have ever seen before. The site is still indexed if I search for it directly, but not in top 100 rankings for keywords even though sub-pages are ranking for the given keyword. Changes I have made recently include site transfer to wordpress, force redirect http to https removal of www by redirect and adding new property instance in Google Search Console. I have checked htaccess file and sitemap and all seem fine. ideas? Site: https://dublinSEO.co

                                                    Technical SEO | | HappyApple84
                                                    0
                                                  • HiteshP

                                                    Duplicate content on job sites

                                                    Hi, I have a question regarding job boards. Many job advertisers will upload the same job description to multiple websites e.g. monster, gumtree, etc. This would therefore be viewed as duplicate content. What is the best way to handle this if we want to ensure our particular site ranks well? Thanks in advance for the help. H

                                                    Technical SEO | | HiteshP
                                                    0
                                                  • melen

                                                    Staging site and "live" site have both been indexed by Google

                                                    While creating a site we forgot to password protect the staging site while it was being built.  Now that the site has been moved to the new domain, it has come to my attention that both the staging site (site.staging.com) and the "live" site (site.com) are both being indexed.  What is the best way to solve this problem?  I was thinking about adding a 301 redirect from the staging site to the live site via HTACCESS. Any recommendations?

                                                    Technical SEO | | melen
                                                    0
                                                  • BestRide

                                                    How to create site map for large site (ecommerce type) that has 1000's if not 100,000 of pages.

                                                    I know this is kind of a newbie question but I am having an amazing amount of trouble creating a sitemap for our site Bestride.com.  We just did a complete redesign (look and feel, functionality, the works) and now I am trying to create a site map.  Most of the generators I have used "break" after reaching some number of pages.  I am at a loss as to how to create the sitemap.  Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

                                                    Technical SEO | | BestRide
                                                    0
                                                  • pugh

                                                    Mobile site ranking instead of/as well as desktop site in desktop SERPS

                                                    I have just noticed that the mobile version of my site is sometimes ranking in the desktop serps either instead of as well as the desktop site. It is not something that I have noticed in the past as it doesn't happen with the keywords that I track, which are highly competitive. It is happening for results that include our brand name, e.g '[brand name][search term]'. The mobile site is served with mobile optimised content from another URL. e.g wwww.domain.com/productpage redirects to m.domain.com/productpage for mobile. Sometimes I am only seen the mobile URL in the desktop SERPS, other times I am seeing both the desktop and mobile URL for the same product. My understanding is that the mobile URL should not be ranking at all in desktop SERPS, could we be being penalised for either bad redirects or duplicate content? Any ideas as to how I could further diagnose and solve the problem if you do believe that it could be harming rankings?

                                                    Technical SEO | | pugh
                                                    0
                                                  • Justin45

                                                    Changing images on site without losing ranking

                                                    A number of images on my site rank very well under google image search but need to be replaced with updated versions. If I keep the file name and pixel dimensions identical will switching the image effect my rankings? Thanks!

                                                    Technical SEO | | Justin45
                                                    0
                                                  • rosstaylor

                                                    Bing rank drop off for multiple sites

                                                    Hi Mozzers, Seeing some wacky stuff going on on some sites I manage. In more than a few, the ranking on bing has dropped basically overnight from page one spots to not being found on the first 100 positions. Anyone else seeing similar results? Some of the sites are fairly new, some have been around for ages, some are wordpress, some are not. I've been searching for some news of a big change on bing, but keep reading about bing dropping the thin sites during black friday. In one example, I had the site set up in BWT for a while, and had a look at the data. The reports show that the pages are crawled, the index summary shows pages indexed, and there seems to be no crawl errors, but rankings are absolutely gone. Also, I can't see the sites in bing if I search "site:example.com" in bing. Here's 2 examples, the first would make sense since it's pretty thin as I havent added much content yet: http://homewindowtint.org but this one doesn't make sense to me. Sure there's a few errors, but to be dropped like a rock seems weird http://www.ahmedandsukaram.com

                                                    Technical SEO | | rosstaylor
                                                    0

                                                  Get started with Moz Pro!

                                                  Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                                                  Start my free trial
                                                  Products
                                                  • Moz Pro
                                                  • Moz Local
                                                  • Moz API
                                                  • Moz Data
                                                  • STAT
                                                  • Product Updates
                                                  Moz Solutions
                                                  • SMB Solutions
                                                  • Agency Solutions
                                                  • Enterprise Solutions
                                                  Free SEO Tools
                                                  • Domain Authority Checker
                                                  • Link Explorer
                                                  • Keyword Explorer
                                                  • Competitive Research
                                                  • Brand Authority Checker
                                                  • MozBar Extension
                                                  • MozCast
                                                  Resources
                                                  • Blog
                                                  • SEO Learning Center
                                                  • Help Hub
                                                  • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                                                  • How-to Guides
                                                  • Moz Academy
                                                  • API Docs
                                                  About Moz
                                                  • About
                                                  • Team
                                                  • Careers
                                                  • Contact
                                                  Why Moz
                                                  • Case Studies
                                                  • Testimonials
                                                  Get Involved
                                                  • Become an Affiliate
                                                  • MozCon
                                                  • Webinars
                                                  • Practical Marketer Series
                                                  • MozPod
                                                  Connect with us

                                                  Contact the Help team

                                                  Join our newsletter
                                                  Moz logo
                                                  © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                                                  • Accessibility
                                                  • Terms of Use
                                                  • Privacy

                                                  Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.