undefined
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.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • 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.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    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
3.0k
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 Jul 4, 2012, 6:02 AM

    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 Aug 16, 2012, 10:40 PM Aug 16, 2012, 10:40 PM

      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
      • topic:timeago_earlier,about a month
      • clotairedamy
        clotairedamy @ben1000 last edited by Jul 4, 2012, 9:36 PM Jul 4, 2012, 9:36 PM

        Ben, you can read this thread.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • ben1000
          ben1000 @ben1000 last edited by Jul 4, 2012, 9:22 PM Jul 4, 2012, 9:22 PM

          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 Jul 4, 2012, 8:57 PM Jul 4, 2012, 8:57 PM

            Take a look at First Click Free from google.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • ben1000
              ben1000 @ben1000 last edited by Jul 4, 2012, 2:14 PM Jul 4, 2012, 2:14 PM

              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 Jul 4, 2012, 12:54 PM Jul 4, 2012, 12:53 PM

                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 Jul 4, 2012, 12:47 PM Jul 4, 2012, 12:47 PM

                  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 Jul 4, 2012, 10:45 AM Jul 4, 2012, 10:45 AM

                    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 Aug 9, 2013, 6:44 PM Jul 4, 2012, 10:28 AM

                      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 Jul 4, 2012, 9:42 AM Jul 4, 2012, 9:42 AM

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

                        diywm 1 Reply Last reply Aug 16, 2012, 10:40 PM Reply Quote 0
                        • avassa
                          avassa last edited by Jul 4, 2012, 9:40 AM Jul 4, 2012, 9:40 AM

                          That is correct.

                          ben1000 1 Reply Last reply Jul 4, 2012, 9:42 AM Reply Quote 0
                          • ben1000
                            ben1000 @avassa last edited by Jul 4, 2012, 9:38 AM Jul 4, 2012, 9:38 AM

                            Headshot and real persons name?

                            Thx

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • avassa
                              avassa last edited by Jul 4, 2012, 9:37 AM Jul 4, 2012, 9:37 AM

                              It wont work without a proper headshot.

                              ben1000 1 Reply Last reply Jul 4, 2012, 9:38 AM Reply Quote 0
                              • ben1000
                                ben1000 @avassa last edited by Jul 4, 2012, 9:34 AM Jul 4, 2012, 9:34 AM

                                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 Jul 4, 2012, 9:33 AM Jul 4, 2012, 9:33 AM

                                  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 Jul 4, 2012, 9:34 AM Reply Quote 0
                                  • ben1000
                                    ben1000 @avassa last edited by Jul 4, 2012, 9:31 AM Jul 4, 2012, 9:31 AM

                                    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 Jul 4, 2012, 9:15 AM Jul 4, 2012, 9:15 AM

                                      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 Jul 4, 2012, 7:56 AM Jul 4, 2012, 7:56 AM

                                        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 Jul 4, 2012, 9:31 AM Reply Quote 0
                                        • ben1000
                                          ben1000 @clotairedamy last edited by Jul 4, 2012, 7:48 AM Jul 4, 2012, 7:48 AM

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

                                          clotairedamy ben1000 4 Replies Last reply Jul 4, 2012, 9:36 PM Reply Quote 0
                                          • ben1000
                                            ben1000 @avassa last edited by Jul 4, 2012, 7:48 AM Jul 4, 2012, 7:48 AM

                                            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 Jul 4, 2012, 2:14 PM Reply Quote 0
                                            • avassa
                                              avassa last edited by Jul 4, 2012, 7:29 AM Jul 4, 2012, 7:29 AM

                                              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 Jul 4, 2012, 7:48 AM Reply Quote 1
                                              • clotairedamy
                                                clotairedamy last edited by Jul 4, 2012, 6:11 AM Jul 4, 2012, 6:11 AM

                                                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 Jul 4, 2012, 7:48 AM Reply Quote 1
                                                • 1 / 1
                                                1 out of 23
                                                • First post
                                                  1/23
                                                  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

                                                • Jane.com

                                                  Will Google crawl and rank our ReactJS website content?

                                                  We have 250+ products dynamically inserted and sorted on our site daily (more specifically our homepage... yes, it's a long page). Our dev team would like to explore rendering the page server-side using ReactJS. We currently use a CDN to cache all the content, which of course we would like to continue using. SO... will Google be able to crawl that content? We've read some articles with different ideas (including prerendering): http://andrewhfarmer.com/react-seo/
                                                  http://www.seoskeptic.com/json-ld-big-day-at-google/ If we were to only load the schema important to the page  (like product title, image, price, description, etc.) from the server and then let the client render the remaining content (comments, suggested products, etc.), would that go against best practices? It seems like that might be seen as showing the googlebot 1 version and showing the site visitor a different (more complete) version.

                                                  Technical SEO | May 24, 2016, 8:33 AM | Jane.com
                                                  0
                                                • eglove

                                                  Does my "spam" site affect my other sites on the same IP?

                                                  I have a link directory called Liberty Resource Directory. It's the main site on my dedicated IP, all my other sites are Addon domains on top of it. While exploring the new MOZ spam ranking I saw that LRD (Liberty Resource Directory) has a spam score of 9/17 and that Google penalizes 71% of sites with a similar score. Fair enough, thin content, bunch of follow links (there's over 2,000 links by now), no problem. That site isn't for Google, it's for me. Question, does that site (and linking to my own sites on it) negatively affect my other sites on the same IP? If so, by how much? Does a simple noindex fix that potential issues? Bonus: How does one go about going through hundreds of pages with thousands of links, built with raw, plain text HTML to change things to nofollow? =/

                                                  Technical SEO | Mar 31, 2015, 11:06 AM | eglove
                                                  0
                                                • KempRugeLawGroup

                                                  Do quizzes hurt your site? Thin content?

                                                  We did a 10 question quiz awhile back relating to something we were sponsoring, and it had a decent response. However, considering quizzes just aren't that long, does that contribute to making the site's content thin? Obviously, it's not a major problem at the moment, but if we did more of them would this be an issue? If there's no real issue, I'd prefer not to no-index them, but I'd love some feedback to help make the decision. Thanks, Ruben

                                                  Technical SEO | Sep 11, 2014, 1:53 PM | KempRugeLawGroup
                                                  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 | Aug 27, 2013, 6:26 AM | pugh
                                                  0
                                                • FDFPres

                                                  Google ranking my site abroad, how to stop?

                                                  Hi Mozzers, I have a UK based ecommerce site, that sells only to the UK.  Over the last month Google has started ranking my site on foreign flavours of Google, so I keep getting traffic coming to my site from Europe, America and the far east that we could never sell to, and as a result bounce is going up and engagement is going down. They are definitely coming to the site from google searches that relate to my product type, but in regions I do not service. Is there a way to stop google doing this?  I have the target set to UK in WMT, but is there anything else I can do?  I worried about my UK ranking being damaged by an increasing overall bounce rate. Thanks

                                                  Technical SEO | Feb 27, 2013, 2:34 PM | FDFPres
                                                  0
                                                • tdsnet

                                                  UK website ranking higher in Google.com than Google.co.uk

                                                  Hi, I have a UK website which was formerly ranked 1<sup>st</sup> in Google.co.uk and .com for my keyword phrase and has recently slipped to 6<sup>th</sup> in .co.uk but is higher in position 4 in Google.com. I have conducted a little research and can’t say for certain but I wonder if it is possible that too many of my backlinks are US based and therefore Google thinks my website is also US based. Checked Google WmT and we the geo-targeted to the UK. Our server is also UK based. Does anyone have an opinion on this? Thanks

                                                  Technical SEO | Nov 28, 2011, 7:45 PM | tdsnet
                                                  0
                                                • dsexton10

                                                  Content loc and player log tags for XML video site maps

                                                  I need a little help understanding how to create two of the required tags for a XML video  site map for Google. 1. video:content_loc2.<video:player_loc< p=""></video:player_loc<></video:content_loc> Google explains their Video XML Site map requirements here:
                                                  www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=80472
                                                  Using the example on this Google Web Master Help page (where they explain all six of the required tags) , here are examples of the two  tags I need help with: video:content_locwww.example.com/video123.flv</video:content_loc> <video:player_loc allow_embed="yes" autoplay="ap=1">www.example.com/videoplayer.swf?video=12...video:player_loc></video:player_loc> The video I am trying to optimize is located on a page on my site:
                                                  www.mountainbikingmaine.com/races/bradbury_hawk.html
                                                  This page has an embedded Vimeo video. So I don't have the video file on my domain. It is on Vimeo. Here is source code from my page that I think provides the information I need to create the two tags that Google requires. <iframe src="<a rel=" nofollow"="" href="http://player.vimeo.com/video/24580638?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0"" target="_blank">player.vimeo.com/video/24580638?title=0&...amp;portrait=0"</a> width="400" height="533" frameborder="0"></iframe> [vimeo.com/24580638">Bradbury](<a rel=) Mountain Maine Hawk Migration Count from [vimeo.com/user3219915">dan](<a rel=) sexton Using this source from my site, can you suggest what to put in the two tags? Thanks! Dan

                                                  Technical SEO | Aug 14, 2012, 12:04 AM | dsexton10
                                                  0
                                                • Christy-Correll

                                                  Impact of 401s on Site Rankings

                                                  Will having 401s on a site negatively impact rankings? (e.g. 401s thrown from a social media sharing icon)

                                                  Technical SEO | Aug 29, 2011, 8:13 PM | Christy-Correll
                                                  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
                                                • Local Citation 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.