What to Do if Someone Copies Your Blog Post

Plagiarism is a massive problem in the online world. People routinely copy other people’s content and feel like it’s ok.

This happens in every online area, unfortunately. I went viral in 2023 for “dog math” on Tiktok – a trend I started where my dog wore my glasses and spouted off some faux-girl math related to dogs.

People were inspired by it, but someone straight up tried to rip it off and use my exact same script.

I’ve had it happen with blog posts, emails, courses – basically anything you publish online.

And it fricken sucks.

I’m going to walk you through what to do if someone copies your blog post – whether or not its ranking on Google. And no, none of my suggestions involve some Godfather-horse-head-in-a-bed vengeance. So let’s put that out of our minds ASAP, okay?

The Best Thing to Do if Someone Copies Your Blog Post

The best course of action is, unfortunately, inaction.

99% of the time, if someone copies your blog post, they won’t rank on Google and they’ll get no traffic.

So it’s not worth your time to do anything.

I see it all the time with new sites finding backlinks to their site from another site who copied their post verbatim and kept all the internal links. It’s usually a domain that looks something like wjflogsengbliensiuge.com.

It’s clearly spam and not going to rank.

So we leave it alone.

Google has been very public saying that they don’t like duplicate content – so much so that most people worry about even having a sentence the same between blog posts (spoiler alert: that’s fine. But don’t be copying full sections).

Now, it can take a minute for Google to figure this out. So of course I’ll share more tips in the next sections about how to take action when the copied content is actually hurting you.

I don’t even look at these spam sites with their consonant-heavy domains anymore. I’d spend 99% of my time trying to combat them if that was the case.

That’s time better spent writing new content that will actually help my site and my users.

You will never grow more traffic from spending all your time fighting spammers.

Personally, I’d rather grow traffic than lose out on the 1-2 views that site might get.

And most of those views are coming from you going to look at it. So don’t help them by giving them ad revenue!

File a DMCA Takedown

If someone is outranking me for my keyword with the copied blog post or are profiting in some way (i.e. repurposing it to sell their product or affiliates), then I’ll step in and file a DMCA takedown.

A DMCA stands for “The Digital Millennium Copyright Act“. It’s a US copyright law from 1998 that essentially sets a precedent for copyrighted materials to be removed from the web.

A takedown is a request per the DMCA that asks/demands the site owner remove the infringing content under penalty of law.

Although it’s a US law, it’s pretty globally applicable now. People tend to accept it regardless of the location or use the term to cover their own copyright laws as well. It’s in everyone’s best interest for there not to be spam online.

If you find your content on another website – this includes a course, freebie, etc. but we’ll talk specifically about blogs here – you can file a request for it to be removed from the web.

You don’t need a lawyer or a paid service. All you need is to do is follow these steps:

1. Find the URL of the copied blog post and take a screenshot of it is possible
2. Find the contact information of the owner of the site (preferably an email). Also grab their hosting and domain registrar information – most host’s will try to remove these types of sites
3. Find the source URL (this would be the URL of your blog post). Be able to clearly explain how this information is your copyright. Do the photos feature you? Did you write the post?
4. Draft a DMCA Takedown notice (see below for a template I use)
5. Send the DMCA Takedown to the site owner, the host, and the domain provider via email
6. Follow up in 14-30 days if no word back

DMCA Template

Note: I am NOT a lawyer or any other sort of authority on the DMCA. This is just a template of emails I have sent in the past that worked well for me. I am not providing any guarantees here nor can I provide legal counsel.

File a Google Request

If the content outranks yours on Google, this is especially important to do!

File a request directly with Google to have the infringing material removed ASAP.

Here is the form to do so.

You will need:

• The URL of the infringing material (screenshots help too) – this needs to be a URL to the specific blog post, not their homepage
• The URL of the content on your site – the specific blog post, not your homepage
• The reason why you’re filing (in this case, it’s copyright infringement)

I’ll be honest, this doesn’t work that well.

It’s not a perfect system and I’ve had Google tell me a picture of me (that I took and put on my blog) being used on someone else’s website (with no credit or permission) isn’t a copyright violation more times than I can count.

They’re really annoying about it.

But if they’re outranking you, it’s worth trying.

I would do it at the same time as a DMCA since it’s the same information – I find DMCAs more effective.

Contact Their Ad Network

Most blogs that steal content aren’t in this business out of the goodness of their hearts. They’re trying to make money, so they slap ads up ASAP.

Advertisers don’t want to be associated with copyright infringement, so they’ll withdraw their ads if that’s the case.

Mediavine and Raptive are especially clear about this.

Most of the ads will have a logo in the corner showing if they’re Ezoic or Mediavine. You can also check their Privacy Policy page and Command + F (Ctrl + F) for popular ad network names.

Lastly, you can right click and “Inspect” the code on a Mac. Again, you’ll search the page to find the ad network name in the code.

I send them an email similar to the DMCA Takedown, but expressing that they may want to stop working with this person as they are known for infringing on copyright and it could put their ad partners in legal jeopardy for being associated with them.

Name and Shame

Naming and shaming isn’t super effective, but it is an option.

I regularly see people in Facebook groups posting about a site that’s stealing content and telling others to check to make sure theirs isn’t on there.

I don’t recommend that form of name and shame, as it’s just giving them traffic and ad revenue.

Instead, I recommend calling out the individual owner if you know who they are. And really I think it’s only effective to name and shame if you do know who they are.

People have shamed LoveTheMaldives.com for eons for their crappy, AI generated content. Has that changed any rankings? Nope. A Google update did that. But it did give them traffic from thousands of bloggers going to check them out.

I didn’t link them there for a reason – I don’t think you should go look at the site. It’s the usual spammy AI bull, so save yourself the time.

If you’re in the same circles with someone who is stealing your content or has copied something you did verbatim – or 90% – it can be effective to name and shame.

They probably won’t apologize, but they likely will remove the content to prevent the bad press.

Get Them Removed From Groups

If you notice someone in the same group as you has been stealing your content, contact the administrators.

No one wants a thief in their group – unless it’s named something like “Thieves R Us” 🤣.

We had an issue with this in my free Facebook group. It was resolved when the person removed the article thankfully – a case of AI misuse more than anything.

Always always always contact the individual first. Give them a chance to fix it. If they don’t within 30 days, contact the group admin and let them know.

Most will remove the person (but they’ll basically always check that you contacted them first).

What to Do if Someone Used AI to Rewrite Your Blog Post … Barely

Unfortunately, as AI becomes more common, so does AI misuse.

I’ve seen COUNTLESS examples of people doing this – in fact some people like the “SEO heist” guy were very public about it.

The problem comes in when they start promoting the content well on socials or ranking on Google.

This is what happened in my free Facebook group.

A newer blogger used an AI writer and it basically just rephrased a competitors blog post. The outline was 95% the same – it kind of looked like when you’re in 3rd grade and just learn how to use the thesaurus in Microsoft Word.

The few things that had been changed were so clearly changed in this way to just barely look new.

The pieces of the post that were “new” were just AI gibberish. It said something like “curtains shouldn’t be sheer or opaque” [actual topic and sentence changed to protect those involved’s privacy as it was fixed]. …those are basically the only two options.

Clearly it meant not sheer, and it was even more clear that it was AI written and not edited.

In this case, what do you do?

Basically the same as if someone had copied your post.

Contact the person directly and give them a chance to remove the infringing content.

Then contact their host and domain provider if not (here, I give more leeway for it potentially being an accident than with a straight copy).

Then contact any group admins (that’s how I found out about the issue above) to have them removed from the group if they don’t.

Sometimes it is malicious, but I often prefer to assume that it’s just a mistake.

I always say AI is just a tool. It itself isn’t inherently evil. But the way people use can be.

A calculator can be used to compute our way to the moon, or you can use it to write “boobs”. It’s all in how you use it, and unfortunately many people will choose to write boobs over going to the moon.

Is it Actually Plagiarism or Just Similar Content?

There are only so many ways to say “the War of 1812 was in 1812”.

You cannot claim copyright for someone using a basic sentence, targeting the same keyword, or having a similar outline isn’t enough to take any of these actions.

Anyone writing a list of the top 10 things to do in Toronto will have fairly similar things on it. Since most top 10s are generic, they’ll likely include the CN Tower within the top 5.

At the time I’m writing this, I Googled it and the majority had it as number one. The rest all had it within the top 5 things to do.

That’s not plagiarism, it’s just commonality.

But if the text explaining it was exactly the same, that’s where you can take action.

The same goes for outlines explaining how to do something.

My friend runs a deck building business. He’s not going to start a deck by putting patio furniture on it. That’s always going to be the last step.

Same goes for the mocktail site that I sold. If I wrote a post about how to make a virgin mimosa, there’s really only 2 steps: pour in the fake sparkling wine/sparkling water, and pour in the orange juice. (That’s why recipes legally can’t be copyrighted, by the way. Although please don’t steal recipes.)

Just because every search may have the same steps, doesn’t make it plagiarism.

Really think critically about a site that has similar content to yours.

Consider:

• Are you just reporting it because you’re mad it outranks you and you don’t want to do the work to outrank it?
• Is this the only or most logical way to structure an outline?
• Is the way they said X thing really the only logical way, or simple way, to say it (yes, someone could say “the War of 1812 was 30 years before 1842”, but why would they?)?

If any of the above are “yes”, then it’s likely not plagiarism and more likely that it’s just commonality.

Don’t let personal feelings get in the way of the facts here. Think objectively before you take any of the steps I outlined earlier.

Tips to Prevent Future Content Theft

This is in no way meant to victim blame. No one should steal your content. That’s not fair of them at all!

But there are some things you can do to help prevent it a bit. These help somewhat but nothing will fully prevent content theft.

1. Set your RSS feed to “summary” not “full text” (found under “Settings” -> “Reading”)
2. Set up a Google alert for your blog name/URL. This helps you spot issues with this sooner. I do the same for my course names (a key reason to name your course something unique!)
3. Always internal link. This way if someone steals your content and “scrapes” it – that’s when they just copy it exactly as is – this will include links back to you. You can then find them, but it’ll also show Google that it’s really your content.

More extreme options like removing your RSS feed, putting blocks on your content or in your code, and a myriad of plugins on your site won’t help much. It’s more likely that you’ll hurt your site putting these in place improperly or having them conflict than that you’ll prevent someone from stealing your content.

And many of the things people do, like installing a plugin to prevent copying content or right clicking, actually break accessibility tools.

I always believe karma will get these people in the end, so it’s not worth us spending our whole lives trying to report all of these.

Instead, focus on creating great, helpful content that will foster your community and keep your audience coming directly back to your blog for information. That is the better use of your time.

Need help coming up with new blog post topics? I’ve got a massive list of ideas for travel bloggers to help you out!

Read More About Writing Blog Posts:

• Free SEO Content Writing Checklist for Bloggers: 25 Essentials to Include
• What is SEO Writing?: Beginners Guide to SEO for Blogs (with Examples!)
• 28 Best AI Copywriting Tools (SEO + Blogger Tested!)
• I Grew a Blog to 1.7k Pageviews with 12 Posts and 0 Backlinks. Here’s How!
• How Long Should a Blog Post Be for SEO?
• How Many Blog Posts Before Launching Your Blog?
• What to Do if Someone Copies Your Blog Post
• What is the Ideal Blog Post Title Length for SEO?
• How to Write SEO Blog Posts Title Your Audience Will Click

Like this post? Share it with others!