Dear Friends,
I received a threat from a competitor, this person threatened to blacklist my site because we have better placement results in Google. It it possible for him to do this? This person has no moral values and obviously do not believe that competition are healthy!

Your suggestions are valued ! Please advise what i can do ?

My website www.automedia.co.za - competitors website www.vehicletraders.co.za (competitor is an ex-employee)

Will it help to open a case against him? If you have ANY ideas, please, i am kinda desperate, he said i will see in 2 - 3 weeks, it is his life's mission to destroy my hard work ! For NO reason.

Thanks!
Cargirl

Ignore the idiot!

Thanks Chris! I believe this guy has the means to cause damage, his plan is to copy our site and then have google blacklist us, and then he says by the time i have gone to court, it will be too late for us. And all this cause we beat him in google.. due to hard work! - i appreciate your time )

Well if they can't properly promote their own site in the search engines, how the hell do they expect to be able to promote a copied site so it can beat an already apparently established site??

There is no need to go to court for copyright infringement, you just file a DMCA to their hosting company and to Google.

Hi Chris, i am a bit clueless - as you might notice ) .. but, is it possible that they can create a copy of our site, (that was the threat) they will take our html,, create an exact copy and wait for google to blacklist us .. is this possible? Are there any way a programmer can harm us from the outside? Thanks for your time ) Cargirl

Are there any way a programmer can harm us from the outside

Only if your server has a vulnerability that can be exploited to gain FTP or CMS access.

they will take our html,, create an exact copy

This bit is not a problem, anybody could copy your site and put it online.

However: This bit

and wait for google to blacklist us

is far more unlikely.
For one: there is no penalty for duplicate content.

two: For the copy to displace your site in the SERPs it will have to be better promoted than your site is and have better linking authority than your site does.

Thirdly: Depending on where your site is hosted you can lodge a DMCA report and/or send a Cease and desist notice for copyright infringement to their hosting providers and have the offending site taken down.

you are my superstar! thanks for the info, now i will sleep better ! i feel inspired and positive! thanks!!!!!

I wouldn't be so sure that they can't somehow do damage. I don't think it will work to just copy your website content. If they are motivated enough they may find other ways to sabotage you. Just keep promoting your website and carefully watch what this person does. If they do copy your website or attempt anything else like that, report the issue to their web host and to Google. If you do keep building trust with Google, it will be tougher for their attempts to have any affect.

Ask him to do whatever he can and I am sure he would ruin his own domains.

Well, they could get in the way, at least a little bit, though.
For example, the competitor could buy (or register free) domains in which they could post your website. Now, as dumb as this might seem, Google really doesn't like stuff that gets repeated and might get in the way with your results (although your website is chronologically first). They could also make minor changes to these copies with false or/and unethical information. I've seen that before.

I've also been a witness of something even cheaper - people being hired to post crap in forums and blogs about companies.

But in general, I don't think this guy would invest so much of his money/time to do that

thanks for your messages! im thinking and thinking, i agree that he will most probably do himself more harm. The worst is that he is only a small shareholder of the site and i do not think that the company can afford to be blasphemied by a refugee runaway, but, i think his heart is black enough to want to! his only reason .. hmm .. well if coca cola does not like pepsi, it does not mean that they will try to blow them to pieces!

He cannot handle competition! and with this i am not saying that we do not make mistakes, we only try our best. Hopefully we win. And it is not this easy, we are only 1 programmer (that does not understand english) and 1 "cargirl" ))

thanks again for all the comments and help!

Originally Posted by chrishirst

Thirdly: Depending on where your site is hosted you can lodge a DMCA report and/or send a Cease and desist notice for copyright infringement to their hosting providers and have the offending site taken down.

Chris,

I am probably mistaken, but I think that is the plan of the competitor.

How will Google know the rightful owner of the content?


Bompa

I guess, they would assume the owner is the one who published it first?

Anyway, the DMCA would only be effective in USA and I don't think this guy works in an American company

The term commonly used is "google bowling". Google say that its not possible. Many people in the black hat forums disagree. Me? I know nuttin'!

Believe or not there is a way how you competitor can drag you down. The only thing that he must do is to buy some links from porn and pirate sites and to make them point at your site. Many people will say that this is impossible but it is. Before couple of months in a SEO competition one of the competitors do that thing to other participant. The effect was loosing SERP. So Google's algorithms are not so great...

Don't read anything into the "SEO competitions" these are short lived sites or pages where the "ranking" would fluctuate any way. What happens with them bears little or no resemblance to the behaviour of established sites/pages.

Certainly IF a lot of your links are poor quality ones, then the addition of more links with very different anchor text could outweigh the existing anchor text.
It's not the fact that your standings have been "damaged", merely the fact that the "weight" has shifted to different focus.
If your site is well promoted with reasonably good linkage, any buying links as sabotage will have minimal or no effect.

Don't be so sure. It's called "google bowling" There is a lot of things a competitor can do to mess with your google position.

I have had it done to my website.

Duplicate content will definitely mess with your google position.

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