Our hired SEO company is selling us duplicate content. What is the best practical approach?

[CamiloSC]

Our company has hired an SEO company for our website. I have discovered that the blogs that our SEO company sells us (at a high price) are also being published on similar industry sites across the nation. Not only is it unfair that our blogs that we published 3 years ago in our website are identical, word for word in another site as a recent year post, but we are now ranking for duplicate content.

does it matter if our copied blog is on a website who's business in 2000 miles away?

should we report our SEO company?

should i warn these other business who perhaps do not know about my find?

What is the ideal course of action?

All your comments are greatly appreciated.

[Adam_Cochran]

I think this is one of the first times I get to put my degree in Philosophy of Ethics to use here at Moz!

Your SEO company isn't an SEO company at all it's a blackhat chopshop and they are screwing you over.

Yes that duplicate content is devalued, possibly even to the point that it could have a negative impact on your rankings and therefore ultimately your business. Regardless of how far away your business is from the other Google still sees it.

Should you report your SEO company? If you mean to a marketing firm rating site, or the Better Business Bureau, then yes in a heart beat. There 'service' is a gross miss-practice that is harmful to your business and the last thing that you want others to fall prey too.

Should you warn these other businesses? I would - personally I think it's the right thing to do, some of them may have been aware of it and just opted for cheap and dirty content, others may be in the same boat as you where they had no idea this was happening. If the tables were turned I imagine you would want them to do the same for you!

What is the ideal course of action? From an SEO standpoint delete the content on your site that is duplicate. If its on other blogs that linkback to you try and reach out to those webmasters and get the content removed, if you can't get in touch with anyone try the disavow tool - be honest in explaining what happened and try and get as many links removed as possible. Then build up new fresh and unique content to replace the purge.

From a business stand point immediately halt all further services from this company, have a lawyer review any contracts you may have signed to see if they are in breach of contract anywhere or if you take full liabilities. If you are not claimed fully liable they still may be accountable for negligence and negative impact this had on your business (obviously not worth taking them to court over but great leverage to seek a refund). Reach out to the other effected companies and give them a good Samaritan's heads-up; too many people think SEO is a dirty game so be the good guy! Beyond that clean out house of the bad SEO and work at rebuilding the good!

Sorry to hear about your rough experience!

[CamiloSC]

Thank you Adam.

I do value SEO and its integrity. I always practice in a white hat method and ask questions when in doubt. I appreciate your comments and I will notify those other companies.

Your comments about duplicate content being devalued is what I expected. Every blog was posted on our site first and then appeared on other sites 2-3 years after it was posted on our site. Those other site owners have the right to know what they purchased and I will let them know.

[CharlesDaniels]

You need to contact your SEO company and ask them what is going on.  It's very possible that they wrote you original content that someone else has stolen for their own.  If that is the case then the SEO company hasn't done anything  wrong.  Stealing content is a huge no-no.  Make sure you know for sure before dropping a nuke on them.

[CamiloSC]

Thank you Charles. I agree, sadly, I have found other clients of our current SEO company that have our copied word for word blogs. Its clearly verified as both of our websites have the same link to the same SEO company on our footers. I will keep you all posted once we deal with this issue in the next few days.