One major issue we bloggers especially those who are popular tend to face is Plagiarism. You publish an article, and you get your exact replicates on other blogs almost immediately. This really discourages bloggers a lot from blogging because most times, the people who copy your content end up ranking higher than you in search engine result. This is one major problem that amazes me about Google Search Engine Ranking Algorithm.
- Must Read: Ways To Become A Popular Blogger
Most content thieves use a lot of ways to get hold of your content of which one of them is using your RSS Feed, framing your page on their and direct copy pasting methods.
To fix that of RSS Feeds, i normally would set my Feeds to Summary, so they only get an excerpt of the post with a link to my article.
To fix that of the iFrame content thieves, I wrote a detailed article on how to stop your site from framing content thieves.
Now to the last one which is how to go about people who copy your content directly to their blogs without a link back, there are ways this is handled.
- Must Read: Why I Prefer WordPress To Blogger
1. Reporting the said blog to Google. If the blog is hosted on blogger, Google would automatically delete the copied content page from the content thief’s blog. But if it is on a self hosted WordPress blog, then Google would de-index the page from Google Search Engine.
2. You can file a report to the bloggers host against copyright infringement and s/he stands the chance of been suspended from their host.
Today, I’ll be teaching you how to request a URL removal by filing a report to Google using the Google DCMA Webmaster tool.
How To Report Copied Content To Google
When I wrote an article on the 20 Ways To Make Money Blogging, before I knew it I got pingbacks and also saw various blogs with my article ranking higher than my blog, I used this procedures and they worked for me. I’m glad i’m now ranking higher than them. Here is what to do.
Firstly visit the Google DMCA Page Here
Steps To Reporting A Blogger Hosted Blog
Select Blogger/Blogspot as shown below in the image
Select “I have Found Content That May Violate My Copyright“.
Follow the image below, then click on This Form to continue.
Fill in the form and then submit the form. You will receive a message from Google Team telling you they would work on the issue. In a matter of about 2 Weeks, you’ll receive a confirmatory mail that the link has been deleted. If you visit the link, it would no longer be available.
Steps To Reporting A Self Hosted Hosted Blog
If you wish to report a self hosted blog or a website copying your content to Google, select Web Search and follow steps. It’s quite easy if you read and follow instructions.
I hope this guide helps you fight against content thieves. Feel free to add your views using the comment box below.
6 Comments
Wonderful post,but why would you want to remove the url from search engines when there is a link bak to the original source?
Hi Ebima,
I don’t mean removing an article that has a link back to your blog. This is meant for content thieves who do not link back to their source. It sure helps reduce the competition in terms of ranking. I hope you get it. 🙂
Thanks Oscar for writing this post.I was looking for this article from 2-3 days.Now i am going to report google about content thief who copy my blog content.
It’s cool to know you find it useful. 🙂
Reporting to Google is a great move to counter plagiarism.There are a lots of content leechers around who feed upon the hard work of others.Such sites and people should be severely dealt with.
Thanks for your feedback in form of comments Joe, i’m glad you find my articles interesting. Hoping to get more from you.