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I got a Google alert about this site, checked it out and see they claim to give away "free designs" (fairly common in my industry). They also claim these "free designs" are sponsored by my industry's most recognizable companies, including mine! I'm NOT sponsoring anything like this, so I click on my company's name, I'm taken to a page with a thumbnail of the design, that says "This design is sponsored by Company XYZ - Click for more information". I click and get a page showing a larger view of the design, with links to download it in various formats. (I downloaded one but haven't opened it yet). Then at the bottom of the page it says "You will be redirected to the sponsor's site it 20 seconds." and sure enough, I get redirected to my site.
I plan to write a cease and desist letter to the registered owner of the domain, but since they are far outside the US I want to do more. Should I report this to the major search engines? Is there anything else I can do to protect my company's reputation and search engine rankings from unscrupulous sites such as this one? Thank you for any and all suggestions.
Failing that, a class action means costs shared.
Also contact your country's department of trade - depending which country the scammers are in, some are being leaned on to control their scammers. Others don't care!
Can you tell me if I have anything to worry about with the search engines? I know the "you can't control who links to you" line of thinking, but do the search engines really think this way? And what about the redirect? Would it help or hurt if I blocked referring from this site? I'm thinking that blocking the referrals might send a clear message to the search engines that I do not approve of what they're doing.
Thank you again!
Also, if you can convince their hosting company that they've lifted your content w/o permission, you may be able to get the host to shut them down. May be a stretch, but if they've grabbed enough of your content, and depending upon exactly how they're using it, it's a possibility.
DMCA's are another route but again, it depends on just how it's used, and you don't want to file false claims.
I sorta think it's something you should first contact the site about and perhaps if that doesn't work, their hosting company, and failing that, just monitor the situation. Chances are it won't create problems anyway.
Thank you again!
