The laws surrounding copyright protection on the internet have always been a little blurry and difficult to interpret. One of the most current and difficult issues is search engine performance loss through libel duplication. When someone steals your name or business brand, it is relatively easy to prove liability but when they just copy a page of your website to serve their own commercial purposes how do you get compensation for all the chasing, legal fees and loss of earnings until the duplication issue is resolved?
Having worked in the area of brand reputation management and SEO for over 12 years, the overall feeling is that there is no silver bullet solution but a series of strategies and tactics that can be combined to achieve the required result. The evaluation process, for example, is significant in identifying (duplication checks) the scale of the issue and pinpointing the culprit. That is the most complex part of the process because if you are dealing with a spammer, they would have gone to great lengths to hide their identity. So sometimes employing experts in this field is the only way to discover who is responsible and even then it can be very difficult to establish a motive.
Establishing a motive will be key for the second phase, which has always to do with strategy. Do you approach the offender with a kind message or a legal note? It all depends on who you are dealing with. There is no point in causing a reaction if the initial effort was not a premeditated action, so much as it is pointless to send kind messages to companies hired to damage your website.
Whilst your initial aim is to always avoid going to court, sometimes that can be the only solution for repeat offenders. However, in the case of spam and given the international nature of this issue, bringing someone to court can be a very tedious and costly process. In that case, devising alternative alternative strategies to apply pressure on a local level will be needed and the use of specialist consultants is highly recommended.
So removing libel duplication can have many pitfalls and difficulties but when completed properly it also has great benefits for your website’s performance in search engines. Protect your content and reap the benefits today.
