Entire site code copied - potential SEO issues?

[MattBarker]

Hi folks,

We have noticed that our site has been directly duplicated by another site. They have copied the entire code, including the JS, CSS and most of the HTML and have simply switched their own text and images onto the template.  (We discovered it because they even copied over our analytics tracking and were appearing in our reports - duh!)

Does anyone know if there are potential SEO issues in copying the code like that, or do duplicate content issues only apply to indexable HTML content?

Thanks!  Matthew

(I didn't want to out them by sharing their URL because it could have been an external contractor that built the site and they probably had no idea.)

[MoosaHemani]

I personally don’t think there is such penalty on duplicate code as it is available on duplicate content...this is mainly because there are billions of people using Wordpress and as it is a CMS so the basic code will be same only JS and CSS is changed from website to website...

Infect, I have seen many people using the same JS and CSS on more than two websites just by changing the design of the website....I personally believe there is no problem from the SEO stand point.. But obviously ethically copying the code of the website is not good!

[MattBarker]

That's a very good point Moosa, thanks for that.

[Cyrus-Shepard]

I agree with Moosa that it's likely not a problem. That said, I think it can be a problem when the "chrome" of closely related sites start linking together aggressively. One tactics spammers use in link networks is using the same content templates again and again, and I wouldn't be surprised if Google used this in their detection algorithms.

On the other hand, Google has also said they look at site structure and design elements when determining if sites on separate subdomains (but the same root domain) should be considered part of the same site for ranking/link purposes.

Regardless, in your case I think you should have little to worry about.