We Just Found Out One Of Our Writers Has Been Plagiarizing - Now What?
-
I just found out one of the writers we employ has been simply copying and pasting content from other websites into our clients' websites. She's been doing this for about six weeks.
We are going to speak with our clients to apologize and let them know that the problem is being rectified, but my question is how to best address this issue from an SEO standpoint? I know that the content needs to be rewritten, but those links are now six weeks old - is it best to remove them altogether and start from scratch, or just rewrite the content under the old link?
Are there any steps that I'm missing to solve this?
-
Thanks for the input, I appreciate it!
-
There is no reason I know of to delete the pages. Just rewrite the content and make sure you have a valid sitemap. Things should be just fine.
-
Agreed - looks like you caught it fairly soon - so as long as you act fast you should be fine.
-
Hi Rachel,
My advice is to take a look at your analytics to see if the articles are generating traffic or links to the site. If they are, I would keep the same URL and just rewrite them. If the articles are not contributing traffic or links to the site, there's no harm in just removing them, then rewriting the articles and putting them on another URL.
Hope that helps!
-Trung
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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.
Related Questions
-
Best place to find quality freelance writers?
I have a substantial writing project. One long piece (giveaway PDF), 20 or so follow-up pieces. About a specific medical condition. Where do I find a writer to work with?
Content Development | | Byron_W0 -
Using one domain for email and another domain for your website, but redirects...
We are rebranding and our new name is fairly lengthy. We own all main domain versions of our brand name - .com, .new and .org - There is a very high search volume for the new brand name as it is a merger of 2 popular existing brands so want to take advantage of that and use our full name within our website domain name. However, since the name is a little long as mentioned - 25 characters - we also own the 3 character acronym of the new brand so we are debating on using the acronym for our new email addresses. ie name@abc.com so it is user friendly. We would obviously redirect the acronym email domain to point to the longer website domain. Are there any negative SEO effects if we do that? Use the longer domain for the website and shorter acronym for our email? Thank you
Content Development | | shpala1 -
How much should I pay for one hour of content creation work?
Hi I have recently been looking for some new content creators to work with. And I recently asked a blogger that I know of how much he would charge for some content creations. I told him that I'm looking for some good compelling content that is about 400 to 500 words. And he told me that he would charge $180 an hour. I sorta feel like that's a bit to much, but I don't want to jump to conclusions without any advice from you all. I'm very well versed in my SEO and do most of the work for my site. But I think a fresh touch would really be helpful.
Content Development | | LittleDog1 -
What is the easiest and most scalable way to add links from one page to a related page entry?
We have a Spanish language reference site, and want to link related entries to each other. For example, the entry for "home" can link to the page with the entry for "home away from home." What is the best and most efficient way to do this at scale?
Content Development | | CuriosityMedia0 -
We want to move Content from one domain to another
We have a large amount of unique content on a domain we are no longer using/promoting. Its been sat there for a couple of years. Its literally wasted content on a non used or promoted domain. We want to move it to a busy site of ours. Are there any best practices or pitfalls we should be aware of?
Content Development | | Simonws0010 -
I want to swop a site to an existing domain. i.e. it was http://A.com and now want it to be B.com...please help
The company I have started working for as two main websites. The main website (A) is out of date and not very functional but has the companies prime domain name. The other site (B) has their ecommerce engine. I'd like to make B the prime site i.e. take over A's domain name. Huge warning bells are going off regarding the SEO of this decision. Any advice or suggestions in how to go about this without destroying the company's SEO would be greatly valued.
Content Development | | SoutherlySwell0 -
How quickly should one add content?
I'm building a content site (the model is AdSense revenue) around a certain niche, and I'm currently paying for about 6 articles to be contributed per week. I have the capacity to be paying for a lot more articles, however, so I'm wondering what, if any, factors exist to recommend building the site up slowly as opposed to throwing on e.g. 100 articles over the next week? Those I can think of are: 1. Going slowly leaves room for better keyword optimization etc. 2. Google seems to favor aged domains/content, so 100 good articles now certainly isn't as advantageous as 100 articles 2 years from now. All that being said, I still feel like the benefit in terms of traffic of adding more content now - since I can - might outweigh these considerations. Does anyone have any thoughts?
Content Development | | ZakGottlieb710 -
My WebSite has two sections with overlapping, or redundant articles on the same topics. Google is only listing one or the other article in Search Results. What should I do to have both pages (similiar but unique content ) to be listed?
My Web Site has two sections with overlapping, or redundant articles on the same topics. Google is only listing one or the other article in Search Results. What should I do to have both pages (similar but unique content ) to be listed? Example: http://www.womenshealthcaretopics.com/pregnancy_week_12.htm http://www.womenshealthcaretopics.com/pregnancy_12_weeks.html
Content Development | | docjamesmd0