Monday, November 7, 2005

Googlewashing: Increasing Google ranking by stealing content

People copy articles you’ve written for the Web and post them as though the material was their own. The problem gets worse when their Web pages get higher rankings in search engines than your own pages do for the same search terms. Andrew Orlowski describe this style of search hijacking as Googlewashing.

Google can’t easily tell which of several duplicate sites is the genuine, original source of the content. If you are also a victim of Googlewashing, Brian Livingston has some very useful advice for you.

If you find copycat sites, it may be useless to complain to the offender directly - if you can even find a way to contact him or her. But you might get results by complaining to the copyist’s ad network or Web hosting provider.
You can use Google or any other search engine to look for unauthorized duplication of your content:

• Look for copies of your last paragraph because many sites legitimately reprint the first one or two paragraphs of your content in the course of linking to your site.

• Make up little-used phrases at the end of your articles to help you zoom in on copycats. Common words and phrases will appear on so many Web pages that copies of your particular work will be hard to find.

Read full article: Prevent Googlewashing From Harming You

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