Someone mirroring one of my sites

[flood6]

I just found out that a directory one of my sites is listed in is mirroring the site. You can see the site listed here: http://www.smokesoft.net/programs/retail.html you click on "Dark Jade" (the last link on the page as of this post) and it takes you here: http://www.smokesoft.net/djade.html ; a fully functioning version of my site.

When I first noticed this I had some concerns about security, what if someone mad a transaction through this mirror, would it be secure? I thought about it and decided it wasn't a big concern because the directory was for affiliate programs, not likely to be converted to Asian imports consumers.

But then I was just looking at rlrouse's site (http://www.rlrouse.com), reading about duplicate content, when another thought occurred to me. Could I end up taking a hit on the SE's for having duplicate content?

I haven't contacted smokesoft because I have the feeling I may be over-reacting, and I wanted to get some opinions from around here.

Anybody want to pitch in their $0.02? Any advice here would be great.

[rlrouse]

I haven't contacted smokesoft because I have the feeling I may be over-reacting, and I wanted to get some opinions from around here.

I don't think you're over-reacting at all. Your page was copied word for word.

Your page has PageRank and the copy is PR0, so if anyone gets a duplicate content penalty it will most likely be them. But with Google you never know. IMO you should send them a cease and desist email and tell them to remove it immediately to protect yourself and your site.

[cyanide]

At first it almost seems a compliment that they chose your site to list on theirs. Obviously they like it. They're probably just trying to enhance they're own site.

In my opinion I don't think they meant any harm. Your copyright and credits remain intact.

In fact, upon further review, they didn't even really copy it. They basically stuck your URL inside a frame. You can see at the top, that the url doesn't change. In a way trying to pawn the site off as their own, well maybe.

Any way I agree, send a friendly email thank you but no thank you

[cyanide]

BTW, how did you find out?
Was it in your log files ?

[flood6]

Thanks for the input.

I can't get too heavy-handed with them, because I'm pretty sure I contacted them to have my affiliate program advertised in their directory (I contacted several, and it was about two months ago, I can't even remember what I had for dinner last night). I imagine that at the time, they were either not using the frame/mirror thing, or I didn't investigate it very much before contacting them.

I only noticed because I was looking through the people who had registered as affiliates to take a look at their sites (he had registered about two months ago).

I went to his/my site and surfed around a little to create some logs to look at. The software I use to track users didn't show a refering URL, and showed my IP as the person using. The log software in the control panel offered by my host has the previous day's logs, so that was no help. I looked at the raw logs (which I don't do very often, looking at space delimited files is bad for my sanity) and it shows the requests coming from my IP, I half expected to see his webhost as the requesting IP.

Anyway, I think I am going to send him an email saying "Thanks, but, no thanks", as you both suggest.

Thanks again for the input.

[cyanide]

Well, I hate to see you lose an affiliate.
Maybe just ask them not to frame your site, they can still link to it.

Actually the other concern in the frame is that visitors won't see the https or padlock if you are using SSL and may be hesytant to buy from you.
Actually you can use that in your email to them, because it would affect them (commissions).

So it would be in their best interest not to frame you

[flood6]

Well, I found another solution. I added a javascript "frame buster" script to my header. I found several (many didn't work or had odd side effects), I basically keystone-copped my way into putting one together that worked the way I wanted.

PHPNuke comes stock with a FrameBuster script in the header, but when I tried that one, it didn't work in this case.

Anyway, the one below works great in this case, because it really doesn't change the way smokesoft wanted his site to operate while keeping my site outside of the frame. It also passes his affiliate ID number so that if anyone does get sent to my site from his and places an order, he will get the commission.

Here's the script I used:



<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!--
if (parent.frames.length > 0) {
parent.location.href = self.document.location
}
// -->
</script>


See it in action here: http://www.smokesoft.net/programs/retail.html

You can see what happens when you click on "Dark Jade" compared to "ModaSac", for example.

Cheers.

[cyanide]

Ahhh, good job !

nice fix

[MrLeN]

Hey, I just found the same thing..

So I came to this threadto complain too!

http://www.toolsdigital.com/~admin/

It kinda looks like mywebsite at:

http://www.mrlen.com

..do you think it's a copy?

..could it be a coincidence?

I found the site by looking in my stats :(

MrLeN

[cyanide]

MrLen:

Yep they sure have a copy of your page on their site.
They even kept the images pointing from your site