Bad Backlinks and Copied Website

[BCB1121]

Since last fall our rankings have been steadily decreasing in position and now we are no longer showing in Google Local positions. We still have decent organic rankings but Local is our primary concern.

My website: http://www.petmedicalcenter.com

I did some digging and found a ton of spammy looking domains linking back to my site. I took a screenshot from Google Webmaster Tools - Links to Your Site page. http://screencast.com/t/8yYh65xlOU2y

I am not sure how this happened as I did not add our URL to most of those websites. Also, I found that this website: http://justinchina.co.uk - has copied our entire website. Every time I make an update to the site, that webpage updates as well.

At this point I don't know how to go about cleaning up this mess. Most of those linking domains do not have a contact button and I doubt they would remove my links at my request. Should I use Google's disavow tool? Any thoughts on that? or ideas?

Thanks for your help!

Brant

[billhartzer]

Hi Brant,

It's always a good thing to be aware of all of the links pointing to your website. I would look at the Webmaster Tools link data, but realize that it's not necessarily going to give you all the links. I would also look at Open Site Explorer, Majestic SEO, and ahrefs links, as well. If you find there are links that you think are low quality, I would use the Disavow Tool to disavow them.

If there is a site that has copied your site, then consider filing a DMCA request with Google and the web host to get the content removed. You might look at your site's log files to see which IP addresses are hitting your site and getting the content and try to block it from happening.