Plagiarism of Real Estate Websites | What Happens When Your Site is Copied | Prevent Stealing From Your Real Estate Website!

Several years ago one of my main real estate websites was plagiarized word for word and pasted on another agents real estate website in my area. The plagiarism was complete from text and even all my meta tags, titles, and meta description. I first noticed the offense by a noticeable drop in business, fewer inquiries, less unique visitors, and an immediate drop in business. As I researched the events as they were unfolding I found the offending sites. Yes that is right sites. There were 5 identical sites. When I contacted the agent that was the offender, I was told to buzz off! His broker had no idea what was going on and did not know even which way to proceed. I was amazed at how no one seemed to understand that if it is not your original materials, you cannot use it! It is that simple. We finally came to a resolve where the copied data would be corrected, it was too late the damage was already done. MSN, YAHOO, AlltheWeb banned my sites as mirror sites. These are sites that would appear as clones of one another, and the primary purpose is to gain dominant web position. It isn’t allowed. So not only did the offending agent manage to take my sites down, his position rose for a few months until his black hat Search Engine Optimization did himself in. My cost? That year we lost over 120K in income, and I had to create a circumvented solution to gain web position on my other sites to pull up some slack. The other item that I could not get corrected was the banned situation. I was permanently banned from MSN for 4 years, and Yahoo until this week. I actually re-contacted YAHOO last week and asked for a review of my site for compliance, and explained the circumstances. Even though I went through the motions with them in the past, this is the first time they listened. I contacted them again when they did not respond back, and then finally received the response that my site had passed the review and would be re-included in the YAHOO search. This is a full 5 years later and as we speak my content is just being reposted.  That is what they mean when they say permanently banned!

When I think about it in retrospect, I would do things differently. I would have a trademark and intellectual property Attorney that specializes in Copyright protection to notify the offending party with a demand to cease and desist. I would then ask that all materials be removed within a pre-determined timeframe. If they complied here, that is the end of the story; if they did not immediately comply I would proceed to sue the agent, the Principle Broker and corporate franchise. Since and agent is literally an agent of the broker, then the broker is liable for the activities of the agent. Most states have a requirement that all advertising is subject first to a broker review before the agent uses it. Since a real estate franchise also operates under a license from a corporate identity, the misuse of copyrighted materials of another franchise, and their intellectual property I’m sure are good grounds to proceed against them legally also.

I’ve tried to get the National Association of Realtors involved with changing the Code of Ethics for several years now, and they do not seem to understand the issues at hand. They did incorporate some of my recommendations into the new revised Code of Ethics earlier this year, but avoided making any amendments that had to deal with plagiarism, and copyright law. Since it is the number one complaint I am contacted for…I think it is time for them to revisit the issues.

• Use www.Copyscape.com and check at least once a month for abuses.

• Check view source on a web page to see if someone is copying your tags

• See if anyone online is trying to show up under your name or company name

• Be vigilant!  Contact web providers, and search engines when you See Abuses

• File a board arbitration if you see someone using your companies name in tags