Duplicate Website.. Please Help!
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Hi,
My Client's Website has been duplicated, exactly the same website theme and etc. It's like a mirror site and my client couldn't figure out who duplicated his website. Actually, it has been hit by Penguin update last May and didn't fully recover yet, because of unnatural links but there's a little improvement with its ranking. I have already fix the keyword stuffed from his homepage with a link to it and the footer links. After fixing it about a week, its ranking is moving up a bit from page 14 to page 8 but it's not stable. Sometimes it go back to page 10 then back to 8. But there still a lot of unnatural links pointing to his website using its targeted keywords to much. I guess the main issue here are the duplicate site and unnatural links pointing to his website.
By the way, here's the original site of my client www.apparelus.com and here's the duplicate one www.fs-biz.info/
Thanks!
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I see.. That's what I told to my client that it would take a few months for his website to get fully recovered. But, he's really pressuring me that he wants to get on top of Google back ASAP because his website has a high authority score. I explained to him that it's not that easy to get fully recovered if you hit so badly by Penguin update. He's not thinking that I was just started for almost 3 weeks yet also.
Thanks
Arlene
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Hello Cardigan,
So, how do actually solve this issue if this is the case? I think you got a point!
Thanks,
Arlene
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Hello Mark,
Yes, all the products that we have been uploaded will automatically duplicated from the original site. That is also my suspicion because the site rank on top of Google before the Penguin update has been released. I actually requested a disavow request already from Google webmaster tool last week.
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The perp hasn't downloaded and copied your site. He/she is using domain masking to point the URL to your site. Still, I would consider doing something about it a high priority.
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If the new products are going live, on the duplicate site, as soon as you upload them, then you might have someone who has access your product database or has hacked into it. I cannot see any other reason as to how this is happening.
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It could take up to a few months. Google need to manually moderate the links. I'm sure there are plenty people who are doing the same thing.
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Hi Arlene,
I find this hard to understand though. If you added a product right this minute, would the duplicate site have the same product listed within a matter of minutes?
What I've found is that any site that goes to such lengths is typically a competitor wishing to go down the black hat route of trying to have your website penalized. I have witnessed this and it wasn't pleasant. Thankfully we were able to have the duplicate site shut down within 24 hours.
I would stress how urgent this is to you. This site needs to be deleted immediately.
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Hi Rod,
Thanks for you reply. Actaully, I already requested for link deletetion on webmaster tool using the disavow link tool last week. I uploaded those unnatural links through an excel file. When will actually this would take effect? I requested last week, Wednesday.
Thanks,
Arlene
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Hello Mark,
Actually, when I update the site like uploading some new products an content, the duplicate site will automatically update as well. Well, thank you so much for your suggestion here. I hope this could solve our problem. Thanks a lot!
Arlene
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Hi Arlene, I agree with Mark: I would make filing a DMCA takedown request a priority. Good luck.
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Hi there,
I think is a lot more serious than using the Disavow tool. They have an exact duplicate copy of your website. This is a major concern.
You need to file a DMCA takedown request.
It's also worth reading this - http://support.google.com/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1386831
You can contact Google - dmca-agent@google.com
I would suggest you make this a priority.
Hope this helps,
Mark
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The best way to go about it, is to contact Google and let them know that your site has been duplicated. Google usually chooses the website that has been indexed first but I'm not 100% sure about that. They also take into consideration which website is more active and updates content more often.
If you are concerned about the links that are coming in, you should try to contact the webmasters of those domains and request link removals or no-follow attributes added to links. If they do not reply or refuse to remove the links, you can use the Disavow Tool. But this should only be done as a last resort.
Disavow Link Tool: www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main
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