Stop website from mirroring content

Forum Moderators: phranque

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Stop website from mirroring content

ocon

1:43 am on Jul 12, 2010 (gmt 0)

I have a new website I'm working on, with a unique name.

I searched Google yesterday by the name, and instead of being listed at the top, another domain was listed in the top spot. (Mine was further below.)

This domain was mirroring my content, and while I don't think it was doing so maliciously, it was presenting my content verbatim on their domain. If I made a change and checked it on their site, it was reflected immediately.

I tried implementing an .htaccess rule, but it didn't help. [webmasterworld.com...]

Now I'm wondering what else I can do to redirect users (and search engines) from their domain to mine.

Maybe the use of javascript?
Or a sitemap setting?
Or some other trick to the .htaccess file?

Thanks

phranque

2:32 am on Jul 12, 2010 (gmt 0)

is this domain on the same IP address as your domains?

you could try adding a rel="canonical" link tag [google.com] in your html document head.

lammert

7:13 am on Jul 12, 2010 (gmt 0)

One thing which might help the search engines to make the right directions is to use absolute links on your websites for references to internal pages. I.e. pointing to http://www.example.com/page.html instead of just /page.html. Even if a visitor or a search engine bot lands on the wrong domain, these absolute links will cause all further browsing and crawling to be on the correct domain.

ocon

7:39 am on Jul 12, 2010 (gmt 0)

Thank you for your feedback. I would have thought it was an ip address or common server thing, but I'm using a dedicated server. And even in that situation, the .htaccess rule would have worked.

I will definitely try adding the rel canonical link tag and use absolute links if they're supported by the software I'm using (MediaWiki). Thanks.

maximillianos

3:14 pm on Jul 12, 2010 (gmt 0)

Something does not seem right here. Are you saying that a another website (owned by someone you don't know) is mirroring your content? While this may not be malicious, it certainly can be illegal if your content is copyright protected.

I would shoot an e-mail off to the owner of that site and request they stop mirroring your content.