Employee leaves and sets up a duplicate site

[ukgeezer]

The worst possible situation for any business owner must be when an employee leaves taking not only a copy of the Company website but the customer database and sets up in competition.
My question relates to duplicate content.
Whilst database feeds are used by many ecommerce sites and are therefore similar in content, it is rare for a site to be set up using identical url php extensions and almost identical page layout.
From your experience what penalties can the original site expect to suffer at the hands of Google and what steps should we take to avoid these penalties.
Thanks in advance

[Webdreck]

You should have a well drafted contract of employment that prevents an employee stealing from you.

[seorocks]

the law is on your side for sure..

if the person is using the same exact website as a copy, you could be penalised for spamming and duplication. can't you notify google/yahoo and see what they got to say?

[EArmand]

I've seen a client of ours have 2 of his sites penalized by means of exclusion and no PR for a period of 2 years for this same issue. The sites have now been reincluded but still remain with PR0 and Google traffic is minimal at best.

Consider yourself lucky that you know who the person responsible for this is, because its a whole other level if you don't know who controls the duplicate site or how to reach them. Since you do know who this person is and you probably have all of his contact info in his employee file, you should have your attorney contact him directly instructing him to bring the site down immediately or else face Court action and legal fees against him.

Problems like this are easily solved if you get on the ball right away and be proactive about it... Contacting GYM and letting them know in advance can't hurt either.

[TrafficProducer]

Law may help

Contact your ex-employee, if possible and ask them to stop.

In the UK the Data Protection act could help you ..
(your ex-employee may not be allowed to store such data un-licenced)

Find the Host using whois.

Contact the host an explain the situation.

[MikeinFlorida]

UKGeezer: Fortunately or unfortunately I have been through nearly the same identical scenario you are experiencing. But in my case it was a "friend" who literally stole a website by duplicating one of my former sites.

The law of course is definitely on your side. And this involves copy-write infringement. A good attorney any where in this world can argue that a so-called "poor-mans" copy write is created when the site is launched and you are first with original content and design. That is if you do not have the site officially copy-written all ready.

You have several courses of action that you are able to take. You can go the attorney route, which of course will cost you $$$. You can simply contact this slime ball and ask he/she to refrain from illegally duplicating your site. And you can contact the ex-employee's host, which may decide after an explanation from you to take down the site all together.

Those are bottom line your choices.

I contacted my former friend directly. He refused to abide by my friendly and diplomatic demand to take down the site as it was. And so I took the next step and contacted his host. They chose to take down his site all together. His site's domain name is no longer in his name.

Frankly, I don't know why that was. I was just happy the site was taken down.

Good look on your road to "success." And please let me know what unfolds.

[DrTandem1]

Proprietary information such as client lists, need to protected by a contract with the employee. Some contracts call for non-competition in the same industry and/or market for a set period of time after separation.

As for other intellectual property such as trademarks and copyrights, the material needs to be registered with the appropriate agencies.

"With a written contract you have a prayer... With a verbal agreement you have nothing but air." Collecting on a judgment is another topic.

[ukgeezer]

Thanks for all the responses. I am aware of the legal position with regards to copyright and employment laws. I am more interested in the steps I can take to notify Google, Yahoo and MSN and any other actions I need to take to avoid being penalised for duplicate content.

[TrafficProducer]

Google:-

Google Help Center Send Google feedback

Google Webmaster Help

Google Webmaster Central Your one-stop shop for comprehensive info about how Google crawls and indexes websites. You can learn here how to ensure that your site is easily crawled and indexed and access tools that will enable you to diagnose crawling issues, study statistics on how your site is doing in our index, and tell us how you'd like your site to be crawled and indexed.

Google Knowledge. Google Information.
Google™ is a trademark of Google Inc,

~~~

Yahoo:-

Yahoo!'s Webmaster Resources

Report Search Spam (List the URL that you feel is spam. )

Search Feedback (NOT SUPPORT)
Webmaster comments and suggestions for the Yahoo! Search team.

Yahoo Knowledge. Yahoo Information
~~~~~

MSN:-

Customer Support

How to make a complaint to MSN UK

How to report and resolve problems with troublemakers

Where else can I report online abuse?
How to report troublemakers to MSN

Where else?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Web Master Law. Legal issues for Web Masters

[ukgeezer]

Thanks TrafficProducer
Good list of links, will spend tonight checking these out and get back to the BB with a list of actions that may help others

[DrTandem1]

I doubt the SEs will play judge, jury and executioner in such disputes. If it is clear that a trademark holder claims infringement, then they may take action. Copyright disputes are far more murky.

As for duplicate content, I think you should simply concentrate on your own site. Why? Well, with billions of web pages from millions of sources, there is bound to be quite a bit of duplicate content.

If the SEs were going to filter out duplicate content, to be fair they would need to know which site is the "first" or which site is the "best." That is an impossible task. Besides, if they did just blindly wipe out duplicate pages/sites, it would be a very simple matter to build sites aimed at killing an on-line competitor.

Too often I see posts here that have people reporting such disputes. They will spend countless hours and energy trying to figure out what to do about it. If it is indeed a case of trademark infringement or copyright violation, consult your attorney. Unfortunately, the law is not on your side as many have claimed. You need to prove it, not just claim it to be true. Furthermore, here is some of what such a fight may include:

~Attorney fees
~You need to show damages
~You may lose, even if you are right
~If you win, collecting damages may be impossible
~It may cost you far more to "win" than you have lost due to the theft
~If you succeed in shutting down the thief, there is nothing stopping them or someone else from doing it again and again.

[TrafficProducer]

RE:DrTandem1 is correct :)

This is the concern I think you should also have..

But I guess you could still try making at least a basic contact.

Just how much can you spend on Legal issues.

Taking actions like this could result in bad Public Relations as well... Even if you are legally correct you could be seen as a "Bully Boy".

One idea thay May Help? is to buy your domain URL for 5 to ten years, this is also to be one thing Google takes into account with Page Rank, so you may get a high rank than your ex-employee.

I doubt the SEs will play judge, jury and executioner in such disputes. If it is clear that a trademark holder claims infringement, then they may take action. Copyright disputes are far more murky.

~Attorney fees
~You need to show damages
~You may lose, even if you are right
~If you win, collecting damages may be impossible
~It may cost you far more to "win" than you have lost due to the theft
~If you succeed in shutting down the thief, there is nothing stopping them or someone else from doing it again and again.