Thread: Meta description spammed

Every day I discover some people stealing my meta descriptions from my site and Google seems to index the thiefs.

Here is an example: [ame="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=%22capturing+the+essence+and+beauty+of+the+flo wers+of+Hawaii%22&start=0&sa=N&filter=0"]"capturing the essence and beauty of the flowers of Hawaii" - Google Search[/ame]

The source come from one of my page written 4 years ago:

Natural Elements Bath and Body Online Store - 10:42am
Capturing the essence and beauty of the flowers of Hawaii, our sensual and tropical fragrance are made with aloha! Exquisite and richly fragrant tropical ...
www.natural-elements-online.com/our-online-store.asp - Cached - [ame="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=related:www.natural-elements-online.com/our-online-store.asp+%22capturing+the+essence+and+beauty+of+t he+flowers+of+Hawaii%22&sa=X&ei=OpdYS-S5E5C8sgPJ6_DFBw&ved=0CAgQHzAA"]Similar[/ame]


They duplicated my contents on 39 pages from different sites.

What can I do against this? Google DMCA will not accept a complaint for a few lines and their algorithm don't catch the thiefs.

One of my competitor used the content for their own page and outranked me for my keyphrase, that the most important.
[ame="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Hawaiian+perfumes"]Hawaiian perfumes - Google Search[/ame]


Using my content "capturing the essence and beauty of the flowers of Hawaii." and Ranking #1

What do you suggest?

Thanks

This could hopefully help you: Someone copied my website. I don't know what to do about it.

Greetz!

Originally Posted by Aquarezz

This could hopefully help you: Someone copied my website. I don't know what to do about it.

Greetz!

Thanks Aquarezz, but DMCA doesn't work for a few lines, even paragraph. They accept DMCA only if they stolen the entire article, which is not the case.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks

Google doesn't use the description meta tag in ranking sites.

Originally Posted by Natural Elements

Thanks Aquarezz, but DMCA doesn't work for a few lines, even paragraph. They accept DMCA only if they stolen the entire article, which is not the case.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks

Call the company and ask them to remove the meta tags. It's possible that the site owner doesn't know that someone on their end had copied your meta tags.

Originally Posted by bogart

Google doesn't use the description meta tag in ranking sites.

Yes they do use the meta descriptions , that's why it is important.

Why does Google care about meta descriptions?
Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Improve snippets with a meta description makeover

Calling all the companies who steal my contents? It will be a work with no end.

Originally Posted by Natural Elements

Yes they do use the meta descriptions , that's why it is important.

Why does Google care about meta descriptions?
Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Improve snippets with a meta description makeover

Google doesn't use the description or meta tags in ranking sites. More information available in this thread.

Google Confirms: Keyword and Description Meta Tag No Effect on Search Rankings

However, you are right that the meta description is important. The snippets that Google shows in the search results are usually based on your meta description. So a great product description will increase you click throughs.

This also could be an issue in that people confuse your competitors site with yours which can cause you to loose sales.

Originally Posted by bogart

Google doesn't use the description or meta tags in ranking sites. More information available in this thread.

Google Confirms: Keyword and Description Meta Tag No Effect on Search Rankings

However, you are right that the meta description is important. The snippets that Google shows in the search results are usually based on your meta description. So a great product description will increase you click throughs.

This also could be an issue in that people confuse your competitors site with yours which can cause you to loose sales.

The link you provided is about meta keywords, not meta descriptions.

Like Matt said:
"Q: Does this mean that Google ignores all meta tags?
A: No, Google does support several other meta tags. This Meta tags page documents more info on several meta tags that we do use. For example, we do sometimes use the "description" meta tag as the text for our search results snippets, as this screenshot shows:"

I can tell you from my own experience that they use the meta descriptions if they are quality and unique, otherwise Google will pick up the more relevant content from the page and display it on their snippet.

When they say that they won't affect your ranking within search results, well try it and you will see.

I can guarantee you if you change the description you will rank differently, I did the test and the ranking change.

Not the first time Google has a double talk

Anyway, let's go back to the topic. Webmasters stealing content from articles and place it in their meta description should be penalized, but search engines do not care of this major problem.

This affect all of us unfortunately.

@NaturalElements, bogart is correct. Google does not use the description meta tag to rank sites. They only use it for the snippet. You do want to make sure that each description meta tag in a site is unique, but that still only affects the snippet they decide to use.

I've been doing SEO work since 1997 and I have never heard of anyone stealing someone's meta tags. I wouldn't worry about it. I don't think it will affect your site.

I checked some of those sites and the sites I checked are not stealing your description meta tag. Google will either display the description meta tag as the snippet, or they will grab a block of text on the page that surrounds the search phrase. In your example, all that is being displayed in the Google search are the pages that contain that distinct block of text somewhere on the page. That is just not a unique or original phrase.

You are misinterpreting what you are seeing. It is not an issue at all.

Originally Posted by TopDogger

@NaturalElements, bogart is correct. Google does not use the description meta tag to rank sites. They only use it for the snippet. You do want to make sure that each description meta tag in a site is unique, but that still only affects the snippet they decide to use.

I've been doing SEO work since 1997 and I have never heard of anyone stealing someone's meta tags. I wouldn't worry about it. I don't think it will affect your site.

I checked some of those sites and the sites I checked are not stealing your description meta tag. Google will either display the description meta tag as the snippet, or they will grab a block of text on the page that surrounds the search phrase. In your example, all that is being displayed in the Google search are the pages that contain that distinct block of text somewhere on the page. That is just not a unique or original phrase.

You are misinterpreting what you are seeing. It is not an issue at all.

Absolutely not a misinterpreting.

My page is located at: Natural Elements Bath and Body Online Store with content:

Hawaiian Perfumes
Reminding you of a fresh summer day in Hawaii, are our tropical perfumes. Available in a variety of scents, including gardenia perfume, orchid perfume, white ginger perfume, plumeria perfume, and pikake perfume you will be reminded of floral leis and island paradise. Capturing the essence and beauty of the flowers of Hawaii, our sensual and tropical fragrance are made with aloha! Exquisite and richly fragrant tropical perfumes have been used for centuries and at one time were reserved only for Royalty. Carefully crafted using exotic oils and spices from Hawaii, enjoy paradise with Natural Elements and our Hawaiian Perfumes.

Thiefs stolen the contents underlined and use it in their meta descriptions.

Another example:

Natural Elements is pleased to offer you bath and body products straight from Hawaii’s backyard. Packed with nature’s best ingredients for healing, soothing and nourishing, all of our bath and body products will delight your skin and restore it to health. From www.natural-elements-online.com/our-online-store.asp

Brazil Botanicals is pleased to offer you organic bath and body products straight from nature’s backyard. Packed with nature’s best ingredients for healing, soothing and nourishing, all of our bath and body products will delight your skin and restore it to health. From brazilbotanicals.com/bathandbody.aspx


Sorry to say that but this site stolen my content, then the snippet of the Brazilian site is coming from my contents and their page is indexed with my Copyrighted work. Google did not catch this.

That's interesting when you said "You do want to make sure that each description meta tag in a site is unique" when Google use a snippet that come from my contents to another site.

I may be wrong but this is tricky whatever ways you take the problem.

Huh? Is what you are concerned about only a 10-word phrase that shows up on other web sites? Do you have a copyright or trademark on the phrase, "Capturing the essence and beauty of the flowers of Hawaii"? You do not have a copyright on every phrase you write on a page. A 10-word phrase is not stolen content.

What would make you think that someone stole the phrase? It doesn't sound original to me.

This forum thread now ranks #3 in Google for that search phrase. Does that mean that you spammed yourself?

You also do not seem to understand that the phrase is not in their meta descriptions. It is merely mentioned on their page somewhere. Google does not just display meta descriptions for the snippet. They sometimes use the meta description, but not when you are searching for an exact match phrase in quotes.

I have no idea as to why you are upset about this.