I was having a look through the websites on the bookkeepers forum directory, and came across on in particular. It wasn't that it was exceptionally well designed that caught my eye, but when I started reading the service menu, and the details I thought it was very well written. Then I started to think it was familiar, thats because it's MY service descriptions, word for word.
The person responsible knows who they are, they went to my website and copied and pasted my descriptions. If you are reading this, please write your own. You Re just hi dering both our SEO chances.
Bet the hits on your website just went through the roof Kris with everyone thinking, could he mean me?
The services that you are offering are not out of the ordinary so I'm assuming what you meant was that the wordings in the descriptions of the services are lifted directly from yours which of course is very naughty so if you want to point names and name fingers feel free.
By the way, if you read mine its still mid tinkering. I've taken the front page site under reconstruction off now but its still a work in progress... Then again, I don't really use it for sales so perhaps don't give it the love and attention it deserves.
As an aside I must say that I was very, very impressed with the new clean professional look of your site. Certainly worth more than the £10 per month that your charging and must say that if ever I fancied stoping tinkering with my new age lego set you would certainly have me knocking on your door foldies in hand.
All the best,
Shaun.
p.s. and before any web designers think that they can advertise for free here note that free advertising is hard earned with a lot of helpful accounting related posts. Kris' right to advertise is well earned.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
p.s. the colours chosen made it feel like the Alliance and Leiceter site but as thats now changing to Santander thats no biggy.
I suppose its an issue now with so many sites that every site is going to be a little like another that you may not even of ever visited.
That said though there is little excuse for word for word copies of sites.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Being naturally curious I copied and pasted your about us page and it came up with 3 companies with identical wording (excluding yours) and one that had the services the same. Looks like your pages are definitely popular.
I'm not a fan of naming and shaming but hey ho. It's my KM Bookkeeping site which had been victim. I'm still running it in parallel to the new site for just now. Look at my services, then look at pounds-pence.co.uk/services.php and decide what you think. I've heard from the owner this afternoon saying that parts of his website has been copied from other sites and he has removed those pages. The page copied from my site is still live, but I assume it will be down by the end of the day.
I was angry when I first saw it. Mainly because writting text for websites is not an easy task, and I put a lot of time into it. I can see the temptation to copy others, it almost feels like a victimless crime to many.
Regarding my web design, when I first offered it on the ICB forum I was told £10 a month was a bit expensive and could I give any discounts. I understand that many bookkeepers start on a tight budget, but I do find it surprising that we preach on about owners saving time and money by getting a professional to do their bookkeeping. We know all the reasons and can justify it all. Then many bookkeepers with no experience in design or web development decide that building their own site is the way to go. I have seen a few self designed sites, or using the likes of vistaprint which work well, but the vast majority would be better off with no site at all. I'll probably end up alienating myself saying this but this is our window to the world, if I had no skills in something so important I'd outsource it.
Well, after a heads-up from Liz, I decided to register with Copyscape's Copysentry service where they look at your site on a weekly basis and find people using your text. Oh my goodness what an eye opener it was. I pulled up about 12 websites. The top 6 ranged from 40% of the same text on the page to "that's my website!" One person actually took the working from home article I had on my kmbookkeeping.co.uk website and not only put it on her own website, but submitted it to various directories under her name!
Unbelievably, most of these were members of the ICB! I decided that I would email each with a letter asking them to remove the copied text and an invoice for damages I estimate I've suffered through it. Nothing extravagant but enough to say don't do it again. Almost everyone removed the text straight away. So far 2 people have paid up. I have decided that should the rest not pay up I am going to pursue it through the courts.
As I said on the ICB forum "Myself, I have 2 young children and my partner works part time so I can work part time building my business. I often, like many here, work late into the night when everyone else is in bed. We have a modest house, an older car (just the one) and do our best to make ends meet. When I found that my peers would steal my work it infuriated me. It was even worse when one person thought it was the done thing. As I look out of the window I see my neighbour isn't using his car, would it hurt if I went and used it? Of course it would, it's not mine. Why do we think of intellectual property any differently?"
The bit that really annoys me is that I spend countless hours on my websites design and content and some people think they can just steal it like a loaf of bread from Tesco. Actually, that's probably untrue, because I don't imagine any of them would steal a loaf. Bizarrely many think if they say sorry it's all ok, yeah sorry that they got caught.
If you can't tell, I'm still pretty hurt and angry about all this, but the word of caution is really to keep an eye on your website, leaflets etc, because people will steal your hard work where they wouldn't steal a fiver.
Kris
-- Edited by kjmcculloch83 on Tuesday 30th of July 2013 06:47:34 PM
When you start talking about court cases though Kris just be careful that it doesn't cost you more than you get in return as some people out there have insurance policies to protect them against being sued and it can end up that even if you win you don't get costs awarded.
Also keep in mind a sense of reason when getting litigous as in some cases immitation is flattery but in others straighforwards copying is out of order.
Sure that half of my pages have at least 40% of the same words as on your site but in a totally different order (as per a fair chunk of the other sites of bookkeepers and accountants out there).
These page trawlers that come back with the statistics are surely not going to differentiate on word sequences, just on the words on the page with the judgement then down to you.
Who doesn't have the lines somewhere on their site
"are you losing track of your profits whilst chasing turnover?"
or
"Isn't there something more profitable that you should be doing with your time than maintaining your company's financial records".
and a dozen other generic lines than appear in a hundred sites.
Same with images, likelihood is that we both got our pics of the BKN award from the same source.
Just saying, whilst there are cases where I would support your actions be careful that you stay focused on those that have done something wrong rather than those who may just be coincidentally similar (mines not but I'll have money on it as I say that you pick a page and we can get a 40% similarity on the words on the page).
Sure that even though angry at the situation you will be sensible about the line that you draw
kind regards,
Shaun.
p.s. I posted rather than emailed just inn case we now have other members thinking along similar litigous lines as thats not the sort of business that any of us want to be in where we are afraid to write anything in case someone else wrote something similar first.
Remember the old adage. Leave a thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters for a thousand yearsd and somewhere along the line they would come out with the complete works of sjhakespear word perfect.
There's a lot wrong with that imaginary scenario but I think that it makes the point well.
p.s.2 just edited for spelling. The number of mistakes in this one I reckon the battery in my keyboards dieing again and I've forgotten to recharge the last batch so if I disappear its because I've non managed to harvest any from the TV remotes.
-- Edited by Shamus on Tuesday 30th of July 2013 07:40:33 PM
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
You could make more money setting up websites that people copy then email them with an invoice than you could trying to sell them a dedicated purpose built website lol.
What a bizarre situation, I'm glad you're getting it sorted Kris.
Maybe if you knew these people weren't just bone idle buggers you could be a wee bit flattered.
Ah Shaun, you need to see copyscape, it doesn't just determine words but sequences of words too. It also gives you a comparison between your site and the other site. So yes, there is some manual stuff to be done, but it does do most of it.
With the court stuff, I do understand it could cost, but to be honest I feel I need to make an example of someone as when I checked yesterday it's a bit out of control. If I continue to sit back and let it happen I'll only have myself to blame when Google stops ranking my site as highly because the content is no longer unique.
I've posted a section here where a person had 40% of the words on the page the same as me, remember the menu and contact details are text too. Copyscape only picks up block of 5 or more identical words (including my spelling mistakes, lol) Tell me what you think.
My Site
Their Site
I am Kris McCulloch , the owner of KM Bookkeeping and Accountancy Services. We are Ayrshire's leading Fixed Price bookkeeping and accounting service.
As a Qualified Bookkeeper practicing under a licence from the UK's largest professional body for bookkeepers, the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers, you can be assured that your business is in safe hands.
We offer a free initial consultation allowing us to assess your exact requirements, and how we can best meet them. This will include the range of services you wish us to undertake for you, as well as the information you require to be furnished with in your personalised report. From this consultation we will also be able to fully evaluate the number of transactions your business generates each period to provide you accurate costings.
For local business we offer the options of having you drop off your documents to us, or we can also collect them from you. Returning them within an agreed time period complete with your customised report. Alternatively for clients a bit further afield we can accept your documents by post, or they can be scanned and emailed to us for completion of your report.
We are happy to collect items from anywhere in Ayrshire, including but not limited to Kilmarnock, Irvine, Troon, Prestwick, Ayr, Girvan, Maybole, Stevenston, Kilwinning, Largs, Saltcoats, Cumnock and all the villages between.
I am xxxx xxxx, the owner of xxxxx Bookkeeping Services. I offer a fixed price bookkeeping service situated in xxxxxx, xxxxxxxx.
As a qualified bookkeeper practising under a licence from the UK's largest professional body for bookkeepers, the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers, you can be assured that your business is in safe hands.
I offer a free initial consultation, allowing me to assess your exact requirements and how I can best meet them. This will include the range of services you wish me to undertake, as well as the information you require to be included in your personalised report. From this consultation I will also be able to fully evaluate the number of transactions your business generates each period to provide you with accurate costings.
For local businesses, I offer the option of having you drop off your documents to me or I can collect them from you. I shall return them within an agreed time period complete with your customised report. Alternatively, for clients further afield I can accept your documents by post or they can be e-mailed to me for completion of your report.
I am happy to collect items from anywhere in the x and x areas, including but not limited to xxxxxxxxx, xxxxxxxxxx, xxxxxxxx, xxxxxxxxxx, xxxxxxxxxxx, xxxxxxxxxxxx, xxxxxxxxxxxxx, xxxxxx and all the villages in between.
I hope you can see when I say 40% match, that is very, very close.
Now that one is worth going for... Is that one really only as low as 40%! Its more like you've written a skeleton for others to just insert their own words!
And yes, finding something like that would illicit a similar angry respnse from myself.
Seems like page trawlers have started to get very clever in their analysis.
all the best,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Indeed Gary, I'll be sure to explain this to Nike when they find my factory! lol
Kris
haha!
Out of interest I did a search for the ICB website, loads of sites have used information from it, but mostly members and training providers which is fine.
A quick search shows AAT only has 4 other sites using its information and the IAB have none
Bookkeepers obviously finding ICB information more useful :)
P.s. yes I know it's probably a misuse of copyscape and probably a better search would show more sites using the other bodies information :)
I think it's different if someone is using your information to describe you. So someone using some of the ICB about us information on their site to describe what the ICB is and why they are members is different to say, the IAB taking the ICB about us page and changing all references to ICB to IAB. Hoe that makes sense, it did in my head.
Yeah totally, actually until recently the IAB had a page called 'The Institute and its objectives' pretty much copied the ICB page of the same title. Quite funny as they forgot to change the title and references to 'the Institute' to 'the Association'
Just coming to this thread a little late... my old website was copied verbatim by someone in South Africa. (Just replacing my contact details). They hadn't even read the text properly, as they would have realised that I made references to UK tax, HMRC etc... which wouldn't even have been relevant. I got no joy from the website owner, but complained to their webhosting company who took the website down within the hour. So, that might be an option for anyone else, whose website is copied.
