Our Sites Possibly Being Targeted? Bogus Sites

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  melissalevine · Member · Feb 8, 2012 at 5:00 pm

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  Hi,
  I have a blog on Smart Meters. StopSmartMetersIrvine.com-and we have noticed there is a different site which has part of the name (for my blog and other stopsmartmeter blogs)–which is a wordpress site but has gibberish in it.

  If people search for my site, they might be misdirected.

  Here are a couple examples. It is not just my site, but others, also.

  http://www.pdfownersmanuals.com/stop/stop-smart-meters-irvine-just-another-wordpresscom-site.htm

  Also here’s an example for stopsmartmeters australia site.
  http://www.pdfownersmanuals.com/stop/stop-smart-meters-australia-stop-smart-meters-australia.html

  Again–this is not the real site. They would be confusing or mislead anyone googling to get information about smart meters. Can these bogus sites be taken down?

  Thank you.

  Melissa

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

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  raincoaster · Member · Feb 8, 2012 at 5:05 pm

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  They can’t be taken down unless they’re deliberately imitating you AND hosted in a country that respects those kinds of legal orders.

  A better strategy (sure, send a stern email but it probably won’t do much good) is to simply blog more, and thus out-google them.

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  melissalevine · Member · Feb 8, 2012 at 5:25 pm

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  It looks like they are deliberately imitating me, though. They have my sentences-but they leave out words. For example I have a post on children and cell phones and a letter I sent to Time magazine. They have a ‘garbled” version of my own writing.
  Can wordpress this down?
  Who would be the organization to talk to.

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  joshnay · Member · Feb 8, 2012 at 6:58 pm

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  I’ve had the same thing happen to my TruTower.com blog, but the only difference is my blog was linked to every time. It’s good for backlinks but the websites themselves were full of gibberish like you described it.

  I would try what raincoaster suggests. Send an email or try and out-pace them with posts.

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  melissalevine · Member · Feb 8, 2012 at 7:07 pm

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  I’ll do that–but I also want to know who is in charge and who to appeal to.

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  timethief · Member · Feb 8, 2012 at 10:04 pm

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  @http://en.wordpress.com/complaints/
  This is the complaints page link.

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  raincoaster · Member · Feb 8, 2012 at 11:38 pm

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  Oh, that’s just straight up spam. IF they obey the law, you can get it taken down IF it’s hosted in a country which observes such laws. Send an email directly to their web host.

  Backlinks from spam blogs are worthless and may, if search engines identify those blogs as spam, even count against you. Get them taken down.