Analytics on Another Website That Stole Our Code/Content

[JamesBang]

Hi there,

Someone has copied an old version of one of our websites and so have our analytics code on there. Is there any way to stop this affecting our analytics results or do we just have to use a filter on our analytics results?

Also, what's the best way to have this other website not use our code and content? We can't contact the person directly and so would like Google to drop them from the search engine listings. What's the best way to contact Google to try and make this happen? We obviously don't want our own site rankings affected by this scenario.

[carpediem]

You'll want to add a filter excluding their domain in your Google Analytics. Go to: Analytics Settings > Profile Settings > Create New Filter. You give the filter a name and and choose 'exclude all traffic from a domain' from the drop-down list and enter the domain name of the other website in the field below the drop-down menu.

You may have better luck contacting the website's hosting provider and proving to them that the site content was stolen and they can notify the website owner. Good luck with Google.

~Danielle

[rfrazee]

Contacting the website's hosting provider is a very good way, but you are going to have to show that your site was up there first. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your perspective) most hosting providers put the burden of proof on the plaintiff (in this case you).

One way to do that is using the wayback machine, Internet Archive: Wayback Machine which may be able to show that it has an archived copy of your site up and running prior to any archived version of the other site.

Good luck.

[spiderbait]

Originally Posted by rfrazee

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your perspective) most hosting providers put the burden of proof on the plaintiff (in this case you).

Of course, proving their theft just might be a whole lot easier than it is for the average person, since they've got your Google Analytics account number embedded in the stolen pages

[Dubbya]

Start by implementing the domain filter, then file a complaint at Google so that their site gets booted.

Next, contact them with a cease and desist email, tell them you're the copyright holder on the stolen content and ask them to remove the site within 48 hours. File a complaint under the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act.)

File a DMCA Complaint at Google
Digital Millennium Copyright Act

Write your Cease and desist letter:
How to File a DMCA Complaint

Good Luck!

.02

[Web Design Company]

You should implement the domain filter first and then lodge a complaint with the website hosting provider of that other site, which has stolen your content.

[dburdon]

James,

take a screen shot of their page and a copy of the source code. given they've got your analytics code it shouldn't be too difficult to prove they've screen scraped you.

[claybutler]

All great advice. Also contact Google , Yahoo and MSN as well. I've successfully had site's that were stealing my content removed from the index of these three search engines. You case is very easy to prove. Also download some of the offending pages right way (or the whole site) for your records.

[B0B]

Do all of the above. Sometimes thieves like this don’t copy your images to their server. They use your server bandwidth. If they do rename one of your images and make one with the old name, with image text saying “This site stolen from YourName.com”. It’s easy for them to steal your bandwidth too with a global find and replace. Someone came up with the name “transclusion” which I thought was cute. But it doesn’t sound like these guys are smart enough to do it. You probably would never have caught it if it wasn’t for Google Analytics. I found it once digging through server logs. Even then it took a long time to find the thieves. Good luck.

[geoffreygag]

Google has a "negative database" within google

filter excluding their domain in your Google Analytic

[flhu]

Reminds me of this one competitor who once copied so much content from my site... including the "Buy Now" button, which linked to my site's shopping cart.

[MrGamm]

Contact a lawyer. I have heard plenty of success stories. Sometimes it only takes firm letter from a trained professional to solve the problem.

Don't let somebody screw you. It just means that more people will screw more people down the road. Stand up for yourself.

As for Google. 5 years ago they didn't have a single drop of their own content now did they?

[amar]

Originally Posted by flhu

Reminds me of this one competitor who once copied so much content from my site... including the "Buy Now" button, which linked to my site's shopping cart.

== This is heights of web content copying

[subsystems]

One of my former customers had their former webmaster reuse snippets of HTML from their site and one of the IMG tags on his site pointed to an image on my former customer's site. We weren't using that graphic any longer so I replaced it with a parody of the product he was offering. It was almost a year before he corrected his IMG tag.

The funny part is that product was the reason he got fired by my customer and why I took them on as a customer in the first place.

Back story:
My former customer has a company selling custom women's wigs. The old webmaster wanted to offer a video of how to cut and style a wig for which he would get a commission from the owners and from the video producer we suspect. According to my customer the video was poorly made and full of erroneous information. So my customer told the former webmaster that they wanted nothing to do with the video and could not endorse it. The dumb part was he already signed an agreement with the video company and was offering it for sale on the website under a sub-folder. It was not tied into the rest of the website. Don't ask me why he didn't put it on his own domain.
I saw the video early on but didn't know they weren't actually selling it themselves. They had hired me to backup their website without their old webmaster knowing. So I'd ftp into their server and make weekly backups.
Anyway a customer called and wanted info on the video which alerted the owners that he was selling it on their domain. So he got fired.

Because he reused HTML snippets when offering the video on his own domain, the IMG tags pointed to my customer's website like I mentioned.
Avoiding the actual name of the video it was something like Hair for You. So I replaced the image of the video box with a picture of a woman in a pink bunny suit with rabbit ears. It took the guy almost a year to notice the bunny image and fix the IMG tag.
The guy was pretty incompetent. I don't think he ever did a view source on any pages. Some of the IMG tags on the site pointed to files on his local C: drive. So he couldn't see the problems from his computer. For everyone else they got "the webmaster is an idiot" red x.
I had to scrap their entire website and start over it was such a mess. Over 300 static HTML pages done in MS Frontpage. I replaced what he had with a custom shopping cart system only needing 11 or so pages. Eventually they were able to offer over 1500 products with no hand coding of anything. Just add the products to the database and upload the product images. They were so happy. They could even change any or all prices with a single admin page. "Raise all prices 10%, Click" What a radical difference in the day to day operations. Their sales went up 20 fold and they went from 1 part time employee to 2 full time employees. So that is 5 times the efficiency.

I'll bet the guy at first thought I'd hacked his website. What was he going to do? Sue me for his incompetence? Fun times.

[Dubbya]

Originally Posted by flhu

Reminds me of this one competitor who once copied so much content from my site... including the "Buy Now" button, which linked to my site's shopping cart.

The question is, did it generate any sales? LOL

[Terry Van Horne]

Google tracks the chillingeffects.org complaints and I think the other SE's do as well. This will also get the thiefs host worried as ultimately the host is responsible for everything on their server whether they put it there or not. Threatening to include them in a lawsuit with the backing of Chillingeffects.org should get most hosts to sit up and listen. Lastly to proove your content is the true copyright holder check the wayback machine. If you aren't blocking it they will have all your content likely indexed and dated. If you're incredibly lucky you can also find out when the other site added your content.

[GP200]

Just fire and forget your complaint otherwise it will take on a life of it's own, like this thread.

If your website is successful in any way this will happen. You need a closure stategy in place and name /shame, do it by the proper sources and ignore adice from "experts" who tell you they think they know, or tell you what gets thiefs worried.

I've got to say our Terry above is a prime example of people who think they know just because they hung around long enough and troll out the same bad advice as they did 5 years ago. It is doubtful this has happened on the same scale to him.

Terry just to explain and not having a go. But the bad guys that really harm have their own servers, those that can hurt you will not remove content following your advice. On a low level i guess you could be right. I only have experience of the type of complaint the OP describes with real websites, with real traffic.

Dubbya told you the steps to take.. i'd take them. Don't rely on the wayback m/c...it can be distorted.

[Terry Van Horne]

GP200 it seems you have had a bad experience. I agree, there are people that do that with their own servers and there likely isn't much you can do about it. That being the case you'd think the postee would have included that in the post. I gave what I thought was actionable advice that would answer the postees questions about proving ownrship and Google does act on Chillingeffects.org compalints. Where's the bad advice? I also didn't say thiefs get worried I said the host does. So you may be right in that I was misguided in assuming that there was a legitimate host.

I don't appreciate being called a troll... you don't call people a troll if you don't want to have a go! Most of your post was just saying I don't know what I'm talking about. You don't know me or my experiences. I've handled "copyright punks" like this more than once and you haven't got a clue what sites I've built or managed so... you're just talking smack! Here's some advice go into your lame profile and block me!!!!! Then you won't have to read my bad advice!!!!!

[GP200]

No, not a bad experience, just experience. Sorry you reacted like that. Even with their own servers you can do something.

You don't know what you are talking about, so best to say that and not pass on advice you cannot be sure of. But no matter, best stick to facts. I realise you were trying to help, apologises.

[JamesBang]

Hi everyone, thanks very much for your help. It has become clearer as to who these people are and we are going to get in touch.