Finding out that someone is copying your blog posts can be a terrible thing and can cost you a lot of website traffic. But, what simple actions do you need to take to get the copies deleted and your traffic back up again?
By Keith Lunt, © HowToStartMyBlog.com

Recently I was notified that posts from one of my blogs were appearing on another blog, who was claiming them as original works. I had noticed that the traffic on that blog was dropping off rapidly over recent months and when I searched on sentences in my posts, the stolen content always appeared above my own. Google was favouring the reproduction over the original.

I reacted and thankfully most of the posts were removed. But a week later I had to do it all again as there were still some posts being displayed. In all, I spent almost a full day sorting the problem. By the end of it I had learned from my mistakes and knew how to do it better.

How is it done?
First of all it helps to understand how the content is robbed wholesale. In short, it’s the RSS feed. There are plugins available to do the job and I discovered which he was using, not that the information helped me. One answer is to just syndicate a summary by RSS, but is that as good for readers?

Don’t react too quickly.
If you discover this is happening to you, do not over react. Most bloggers stealing content are at it a few times a day, so show a little patience and follow these steps:

1) Add a new post to your blog – It seems daft when you know they will steal it, but that’s the point. Add to the post a copyright statement, your name and if you want your website address. Embed it deeply, say after the introduction paragraph. For example, By Keith Lunt, © HowToStartMyBlog.com.

2) Watch the offending blog – At some point they will access your RSS feed and steal the new post. Once they do that they have a post on their website which clearly shows it is copyright of you.

3) Find out who their hosts are – Just do a whois search on their URL and this will lead you to their hosts.

4) Search for a DMCA template email – This is the official complaint form. It sounds difficult, but it isn’t. Most of the content is just legal wording and then you provide the links to the copied content and the original content, using the recent post as evidence that they are stealing from you.

Once the DMCA email is sent to the abuse department of the hosts they have just 24 hours to sort the problem. In my experience it took just 40 minutes for the final posts to be removed. Better still, it is putting the onus on them to find any other stolen content.

What I wouldn’t do.
What I would not do again is to approach the website owner directly. Straight away they are alerted and will drop your RSS feed, but they can leave the older content up and then how do you prove who has the original?

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