Sites Copying my Content Ranking Higher

[avassa]

That is correct.

[ben1000]

Ok. Thanks... you think this would make a big impact in general with search engine results?

[EGOL]

One of the easiest ways for you to rank higher than those sites would be to setup author profiles and claim yourself as the author of the original content.

I believe that this is a very good idea.  However, I am confident that it will not solve the problem.  Google is not giving strong weight to claimed authorship at this time.

Your strongest weapon is DMCA actions and to stop giving others permission to use your content.

Your site could be suffering from Panda ranking reductions as a result of your own content being wild on the web.

[avassa]

Agreed, he needs to evolve a strategy that is based on 2 things:

a) Claiming authorship of his original content

b) Devising ways to prevent content theft

At the same time, if his site was inflicted with a Panda-penalty, he will make a lot of gains using authorship.

[clotairedamy]

do a search for "wp content protect",   you'll have to be cautios because those plugins can harm your seo strategy.

[Paul78]

Hi EGOL,

I am having the same issue also, these websites are not out ranking me for a particular keyword, however if I copy and paste the first few paragraphs of text into Google on one of my product pages lots of other websites are above my listing that has copied my content, even though my page has higher authority and PR.

Should I be worrying about this?

Kind Regards

[ben1000]

Thanks.

I'm going to try to set up the author profiles and see what happens with that. I gain something from most of the people sharing my content (not as much as I lose from them ranking above me) so I'd rather just find a way to get myself above them 9 times out of 10 and that seems like a great option. Hopefully that will reduce any impact of Panda changes?

[clotairedamy]

Take a look at First Click Free from google.

[ben1000]

Thanks. Is that an automatic thing if I meet the guidelines? Cant see how to sign up for it..

[clotairedamy]

Ben, you can read this thread.

[diywm]

It will make an impact. I have had authorship set up for months now and it has made a difference to click-throughs.  Basically I have more traffic now than before.  And I believe this is partly due to the photo in the SERPs.

We put an authorship plugin together for WordPress as we needed to implement authorship on our own sites and client sites.  It's free - you can try it if you feel you can't or don't want to do it manually.  http://www.authorsure.com.