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
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • 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
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • 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.

      • 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. On-Page Optimization
    4. Stolen Content reposted on other sites. How does this affect ranking?

    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.

    Stolen Content reposted on other sites. How does this affect ranking?

    On-Page Optimization
    6
    8
    3275
    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.
    • brianflannery
      brianflannery last edited by

      Visitors often copy and paste my content and post it elsewhere... on Facebook, on Tumblr, on forums and sometimes on competing websites... but they don't link to me.

      How does Google treat this duplicated content?

      What is the best way to handle it? File DCMA claims or ask them for a link?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • justin-brock
        justin-brock @JVRudnick last edited by

        JVRudnick, your story reminds me of this cool new site you can use to see whether the NSA are watching you: http://AreTheNSAWatchingMe.com/.

        Also reminds me of the T-shirt I wore yesterday.

        ePQ7IPQ.jpg

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

          As usual, Egol perfectly answered...but thought I'd just add....

          That just a year ago, I did file a DMCA and eventually wound up (honest!) talking to someone from Homeland Security in the US as the firm I was after apparently was being "watched!" While I do believe we're all being watched, that experience did worry me a bit...

          My content was taken down - but by the .gov of the firm in which the owners of same lived - least that's the answer I got...if you can trust that anything you hear from the ones in charge is believeable.... <knocks on="" desk="">testing testing...you guys still listening in???

          :-)</knocks>

          justin-brock 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • CommT
            CommT last edited by

            I think Egol has covered it.

            We recently did a DMCA, and it was really quick. Our case was cut and dried though, we're financial services so have to hold a record of everything we publish for our regulator so it was really easy to prove. I did dob the other company in to iStock photo as well though because they are still showing an image we paid for and it's cropped exactly the same as the way our designer did it so we can only assume the other company did steal it.

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

              As long as it wasn't that boss of yours forcing you to work!

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
              • EGOL
                EGOL @KeriMorgret last edited by

                This question was about one of my personal rants.  I couldn't help myself.  🙂

                KeriMorgret 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                • KeriMorgret
                  KeriMorgret @EGOL last edited by

                  It's Labor Day weekend. Shouldn't you be chasing down a BBQ grill and a beer instead of Q&A questions EGOL? 🙂

                  Appreciate your thoughtful answers on a holiday weekend!

                  EGOL 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                  • EGOL
                    EGOL last edited by

                    Visitors often copy and paste my content and post it elsewhere...

                    Congratulations!   You must have great content!

                    ... but they don't link to me.

                    Those weasels!

                    This happens with my content a lot.  It makes me mad.

                    How does Google treat this duplicated content?

                    They claim that they know where the content originated, but they are either overestimatin' their abilities or just lyin' about them.   Some people will argue in Google's favor but they don't know what they are talkin' about.  (If you are one of these people, I'll not argue with you, you can keep belivin' it.  I know I am right.)

                    What is the best way to handle it? File DCMA claims or ask them for a link?

                    These weasels probably don't have public whois and no contact info on their website.  If they do have contact info on their website it is probably phony.

                    If you can send them a message (and a human reads it) the message will probably be ignored, maybe even laughed at.  If you get a reply it will probably be the verbal equivalent of being flipped off.  Some people just don't understand copyright.  Some people understand copyright or are located where they can abuse the copyright of people in your country.  They have built a business out of stealing your content and mine.  They often have thousands of websites with your content and mine. They are making tons of munny.

                    If you file a DCMA, you better have absolute knowledge that the content truly belongs to you and that they are not displaying it under a valid "fair use", because they can sue you if you play this the wrong way.

                    The remaining people who steal your content, just don't know that they are stealing.  They think that anything on the web is fair game.  A lot of the stolen content is on legit websites.  They hired an SEO who hired someone else, in a country where copyright is not thought about, and they grabbed your content, slapped it on somebody's website and said that they wrote it just for the client.

                    Good luck.  Be careful.  Find a way to keep the blood pressure down.  Buy a punchin' bag.    My experience is, chasing weasels only gets you tired, most of them are only out after dark and you will never find them.

                    So, you can see that I think that this is harmful and it is really hard to do anything about it.

                    ADDED:  Got so busy in my rant I forgot to answer....

                    How does this affect ranking?

                    If you have a healthy, vigorous site, having a few pieces of stolen content on other websites will probably not hurt you if they are weak websites.  However, it can tank your rankings if the content is on strong websites - stronger than yours.  Also, it can kill your rankings if it is on lots of weak websites.

                    Examples:

                    I was selling some products that were made in China.  My content got grabbed by hundreds of Chinese websites publishing in English.  My rankings tanked.  Tanked.  The result was that I gave thousands of dollars worth of outdoor gear to Goodwill.

                    I had several articles about commodities (like what is traded on exchanges).  They ranked in the top three of google for searches on those commodities.  Tens of thousands (I am not joking) of spam commodities websites grabbed my articles or pieces of my articles and republished them.  My articles disappeared from google even though I had held those great rankings for a couple of years and they were on PR6 pages.  Fortunately, they have recently returned to good rankings and I am making money from them again but lost great revenue for a couple of years.

                    KeriMorgret 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 5
                    • 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

                    • rootandbranch

                      Does using Yoast variables for meta content overwrite any pages that already have custom meta content?

                      The question is about the Yoast plugin for WP sites. Let's say I have a site with 200 pages and custom meta descriptions / title tags already in place for the top 30 pages. If I use the Yoast variable tool to complete meta content for the remaining pages (and make my Moz issue tracker look happier), will that only affect the pages without custom meta descriptions or will it overwrite even the pages with the custom meta content that I want? In this situation, I do want to keep the meta content that is already in place on select pages. Thanks! Zack

                      On-Page Optimization | | rootandbranch
                      0
                    • CalicoKitty2000

                      Reducing number of site pages?

                      Hi, I am looking through my site structure and I have a lot of pages left over from the days of article keywords.  Probably 7 or 8 years ago, someone sold my husband on article key word pages.  I have slowly gotten rid of a lot of them as they have fallen out out of the ranks.  I would like to get rid of the rest, probably 5 or 6 pages.  Will it hurt my rankings to delete pages and redirect them?  My customers really like the simplicity of our site and I want to keep it that way, plus clean up flags that Moz is telling me is a problem. I think its easier to keep less pages top notch than have to worry with a lot of them.  Especially since my customers aren't viewing them. Thanks in advance!

                      On-Page Optimization | | CalicoKitty2000
                      0
                    • Bee159

                      Word Count - Content site vs ecommerce site

                      Hi there, what are your thoughts on word count for a content site vs. an ecommerce site. A lot of content sites have no problem pushing out 500+ words per page, which for me is a decent amount to help you get traction. However on ecommerce sites, a lot of the time the product description only needs to be sub-100 words and the total word count on the page comes in at under 300 words, a lot of that could be considered duplicate. So what are your views? Do ecommerce sites still need to have a high word count on the product description page to rank better?

                      On-Page Optimization | | Bee159
                      0
                    • accessintel

                      Thoughts on archiving content on an event site?

                      I have a few sites that are used exclusively to promote live events (ex. tradeshows, conference, etc). In most cases these sites content fewer than 100 pages and include information for the upcoming event with links to register. Some time after the event has ended, we would redesign the site and start promoting next years event...essentially starting over with a new site (same domain). We understand the value that many of these past event pages have for users who are looking for info from the past event and we're looking for advice on how best to archive this content to preserve for SEO. We tend to use concise urls for pages on these sites. Ex. www.event.com/agenda or www.event.com/speakers. What are your thoughts on archiving the content from these pages so we can reuse the url with content for the new event? My first thought is to put these pages into an archive, like www.event.com/2015/speakers. Is there a better way to do this to preserve the SEO value of this content?

                      On-Page Optimization | | accessintel
                      0
                    • cheaptubes

                      Duplicate content penalty

                      when moz crawls my site they say I have 2x the pages that I really have & they say I am being penalized for duplicate content.  I know years ago I had my old domain resolve over to my new domain. Its the only thing that makes sense as to the duplicate content but would search engines really penalize me for that? It is technically only on 1 site.  My business took a significant sales hit starting early July 2013, I know google did and algorithm update that did have SEO aspects.  I need to resolve the problem so I can stay in business

                      On-Page Optimization | | cheaptubes
                      0
                    • cbielich

                      How to use canonical with mobile site to main site

                      I am pretty sure that the mobile version of the main site needs to be the same canonical link from what I understand. I am trying to find good docuementation that supports this. Even better if its from Google or Matt Cutts. I have a main domain like http://www.mydomain.com the mobile version of this is http://www.mydomain.com/m/ Should my canonical be rel="canonical" href="http://www.mydomain.com"/> for both these pages?

                      On-Page Optimization | | cbielich
                      0
                    • Dino64

                      Duplicate Content from on Competitor's site?

                      I've recently discovered large blocks of content on a competitors site that has been copy and pasted from a client's site. From what I know, this will only hurt the competitor and not my client since my guy was the original. Is this true? Is there any risk to my client? Should we take action? Dino

                      On-Page Optimization | | Dino64
                      0
                    • GOODSIR

                      Is content aggregation good SEO?

                      I didn't see this topic specifically addressed here: what's the current thinking on using content aggregation for SEO purposes? I'll use flavors.me as an example. Flavors.me lets you set up a domain that pulls in content from a variety of services (Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, RSS, etc.). There's also a limited ability to publish unique content as well. So let's say that we've got MyDomain.com set up, and most of the content is being drawn in from other services. So there's blog posts from WordPress.com, videos from YouTube, a photo gallery from Flickr, etc. How would Google look at this scenario? Is MyDomain.com simply scraped content from the other (more authoritative) sources? Is the aggregated content perceived to "belong" to MyDomain.com or not? And most importantly, if you're aggregating a lot of content related to Topic X, will this content aggregation help MyDomain.com rank for Topic X? Looking forward to the community's thoughts. Thanks!

                      On-Page Optimization | | GOODSIR
                      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.