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A few days ago I noticed that I lost half the traffic for my website overnight. Investigation showed that someone had made a perfect clone of my website (more info here), and that Google in its infinite wisdom had decided that my site is no longer relevant and replaced my site with the clone site on the first page of its search results!

I filed a DCMA complaint, and the offending site was delisted from search results a few days later.

However, I'm no longer on the front page of Google. In fact, for my main keywords, my main site is no longer in the search results at all. One of my "long tail" pages shows up on the 2nd or 3rd page, but the main homepage no longer shows up.

Will this be resolved in time, or is there something else I need to do about it?

EDIT: In response to the query of "maybe you just lost ranking for some other reason": I figured out that the clone is implemented as a a proxy so I can see its traffic as well. My site's traffic dropped the exact same day the clone started getting traffic, i.e. when it started showing up in Google's search results.

The question of "Why was this site even listed by Google" is a very valid question, and it would seem that Google is not so clever as they say they are, but that seems off-topic. At the moment I'm just trying to get my old position back.

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CaptainCodeman
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  • I wouldn't see why your site got punished in the first place... if site B, C, D, E and F copy site A... Site B, C, D, E and F are marked duplicate, not A. It's likely you've been hit by their everyday Google's algorithm rather than a punishment for duplicate content. – Simon Hayter Jul 02 '14 at 12:57
  • @bybe No, I have the stats, since the clone is acting as a proxy I can see its traffic as well. My site's traffic dropped the exact same day the clone started getting traffic, i.e. when it started showing up in Google's search results. I'll add this to the question – CaptainCodeman Jul 02 '14 at 13:02
  • @bybe Yes the duplicate site should have been marked duplicate, but for some reason it was not. – CaptainCodeman Jul 02 '14 at 13:06
  • And you know that how? asides your rankings dropping which could be a coincidence. How did you test that? – Simon Hayter Jul 02 '14 at 17:20
  • Rankings have been stable for a year, if they happened to drop the exact same day the clone came up due to other causes, I should go play the lottery. – CaptainCodeman Jul 02 '14 at 18:47
  • Apart from the fact normally only one person wins the jackpot on the lottery while thousands of sites each month drop in rankings due to Google's various updates. Whats the URL of the site in question? – Simon Hayter Jul 02 '14 at 20:27
  • @bybe I'm not giving out the URL of a valuable site on here where it can be copied again, thanks. I think you are more interested in arguing than adding something of value. – CaptainCodeman Jul 02 '14 at 20:45
  • I’m actually trying to help and establish what you’ve been punished for, to assume that you’ve been punished without any evidence other than a drop in rankings due to a site copying your content is poor investigating to say the least. Google has many algorithms that detect duplicate content and the only way you’d get a mark against your site A gets indexed after site B. You could have been hit by someone spamming low quality links for a long length of period. Copy websites has no money in it… the money is in ‘SPINNING’ content so Google can’t find it, which makes me believe more to it. – Simon Hayter Jul 02 '14 at 20:54
  • Another thing could be that you might of changed from non-www to www. and not add the new site too GWT. As GWT would be reading non-www which would show a massive drop in rankings ;) – Simon Hayter Jul 02 '14 at 21:15
  • @bybe I have not changed anything on the site for over a month. Google's "many algorithms to detect duplicate content" have obviously failed, because this site is a perfect clone that appeared after mine but is being ranked. There is no spinning; the HTML code is the same, word-for-word. I don't know why he did it, maybe he intends to change something later on. – CaptainCodeman Jul 02 '14 at 21:21
  • Link spamming is a possibility, but it still seems an unlikely coincidence that the clone started ranking the exact same day the real site lost its rank. It seems Google has somehow marked my site as duplicate. – CaptainCodeman Jul 02 '14 at 21:24
  • I understand your reasoning, I just find it odd... it's not that I don't believe you it very well could be that Google for some reason has marked you as the duplicate but it is my understanding and own experiences that this only happens if a site goes off for a period of time or the if the site who's cloning is being indexed faster than yours... Google works on a first served basis so it very well could be that some pages are marked duplicate depending on when they crawled your site and when they crawled thiers... If you do change your mind linking the site then please do so and I'll take peek – Simon Hayter Jul 02 '14 at 21:32
  • You could always delete it after, its doubtful that anyone would even bother cloning on here, there's no personal gain from it.. it's silly ;) – Simon Hayter Jul 02 '14 at 21:32
  • @bybe My site has been indexed for over a year whereas the clone has been up for 2-3 weeks, so it is impossible that Google found them first. What would you be looking for in the site if I gave you the URL? – CaptainCodeman Jul 02 '14 at 21:37
  • I'd be checking for backlinks on it and checking canonical links, as well as seeing how Google is reacting on tail long keyword searches and other things. – Simon Hayter Jul 02 '14 at 21:40
  • @bybe I don't have canonical links. I learned about them just a couple days ago, tried to put them on, but the copycat website does a search and replace of my domain to his domain so that doesn't seem like it's going to work. Most of my long tails are still ranking (many are still #1) but for the main keywords I've been bumped down. I'll do a proper check for spammy backlinks. Thanks for your input. – CaptainCodeman Jul 02 '14 at 21:50

2 Answers2

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This is called Proxy Hacking, and for some inexplicable reason sometimes Google keep the proxy duplicate instead of yours.

Check those sources for further readings, which are really useful:

http://www.seofaststart.com/google-proxy-hacking/

Block their IP addres in .htacces and possibly implement a solution for bad bots and proxies.

I found a solution in PHP right here: http://www.seoegghead.com/blog/seo/how-to-guide-prevent-google-proxy-hacking-p210.html

And here is the code: http://www.seoegghead.com/blog/simplecloak-v2-php-implementation

PHPstart
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  • Thanks for this, I didn't know that it was such a common problem! I can easily block the proxy IP; but my site is still unranked/delisted.. would that be resolved over time or do I need to do something else to get ranking again? – CaptainCodeman Jul 03 '14 at 08:52
  • The best thing is to implement a solution. If your site is under attack it's the only way to go. Check the code on the link I listed, basically it's done in sort to serve a copy of your page with a NOINDEX metatag if the request comes from a proxy / bad robot / scraper. – PHPstart Jul 03 '14 at 08:57
  • Normally you'll see that the proxy page will be then delisted from g.index – PHPstart Jul 03 '14 at 08:57
  • When the proxy page is delisted, will my site show up in the search results again? At the moment it's gone, even when I search for an exact sentence which is only on my page. – CaptainCodeman Jul 03 '14 at 10:15
  • Usually yes, if that's the only problem causing your loss in rankings. Figure out if there could be any other cause of penalty (backlinks profile, spam links from unknown sites ... , algorithm changes, penguin, panda, etc.) – PHPstart Jul 03 '14 at 10:28
  • Thanks, I'll do that. For the duplicates which are not proxies and therefore not blockable on my side, do you know if a DCMA work in the same manner to reinstate my ranking? – CaptainCodeman Jul 03 '14 at 10:44
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    Yes, DCMA is the best way to go, but keep in mind that more proxy could offend your site again... After having blocked the proxy and filed the DCMA complaint: put some fresh new content in your website, eventually slightly modify some already indexed content. Get a new link to force google and friends to recrawl and reindex your website. That should help too. – PHPstart Jul 03 '14 at 11:25
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Earlier, we discussed blocking the proxy. Since your DCMA complaint did not do what you or I expected, I would suggest redirecting these access to a page that explains the situation in a very short paragraph and offer a link to your site. This should very quickly short-circuit the problem and begin to drop the hijacker in the SERPs. I would be sure to use keywords such as copyright, content theft, and so on. Once this begins, you should begin to rise in the SERPs but I suspect it could take 30-60 days to really begin to bounce back. It could take longer to regain your positions in the SERPs pre-offense.

Personally, if you are in the U.S., I would take all of your evidence and hire an attorney. It does not cost too much to file a suit. You may find one who will work on a contingency (free to you). This is a federal offense and you should be able to not only collect damages, but punitive too. If you are not aware, just filing a federal civil law suit is a big deal for the accused and they face tens of thousands of dollars just defending the suit. You will be in a position of power as they will want to settle rather than go to court which may result in criminal charges as well. In civil cases where guilt is found or admitted to, the court is required to report any crime. This is a copyright issue as well as possible fraud and theft. And these are not light offenses. A judgement in your favor may result in near automatic jail time for the offender. That puts you in a very powerful position to recover losses plus some with little work on your part.

closetnoc
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  • I'm in the UK, do you know if the rules are different here? – CaptainCodeman Jul 02 '14 at 18:49
  • Yes they are, but I suspect that you will still have good protection. I do not know the law in the U.K. I do know the law well enough in the U.S. – closetnoc Jul 02 '14 at 23:36
  • Thanks, I'll contact a local attorney and see what can be done! – CaptainCodeman Jul 04 '14 at 08:11
  • You are in the U.K. and I am sure something can be done. If website owners stand up and pound these guys into the ground, they may think twice. I know that in the U.S. anyone can file a federal law suit against a foreign entity. Collecting is another matter however. I wish you the best on this. This is clearly one of the most abusive copyright and clearly intended cases I have ever heard. – closetnoc Jul 04 '14 at 15:09