While browsing through my web stats the other day I came upon a link I had not seen traverse my site before: out of sheer curiousity as I normally do, I clicked the link and was gazing at my own web site with a different URL…. I was in fact, seeing double.  The un-orignial dirt bag who actually jacked my site was a bit sloppy and failed to hard link our images to his own site, thus the click through… So not only was he stealing my actual content, he was stealing bandwidth as well.

To make things even worse (or in his case, stupid….) he didn’t bother to change the meta tags which had our company name, Orlando area market information, etc.  So, stealing the copy, tags, etc. and not bothering to alter them for his Nashville market only added fuel to my fire.   After doing some quick Internet detective work, I found the culprit: we’ll call him Bob the Site Jacker from here on out…. I found Bob’s phone number and quickly deduced he was from the Orlando area… he recently moved to Nashville to begin his new career in web design and was anxious to get his (or my…) website up and running.  I contacted my attorney, promptly went through each and every page that he had stolen and printed, date stamped, etc for future evidence.  Then, being the inquisitive person that I am, I was able to dig up some dirt on Bob the Site Jacker… Bob has a pension for theft, according to public record, he likes to steal credit cards, not pay people debts he owes, etc.  Further, Bob is a  convicted felon. And, Bob the Site Jacker is on parole in the State of Florida .

I could go on and on, but here was the resolution: I spoke to Bob the Site Jacker and quickly and efficiently informed him he had fifteen minutes to bring My or His web site down, any delay of course would result in a phone call from my attorney, which he did ultimately receive.  He did as he was requested and removed our web site from his servers. 

I HATE thieves, I have no patience for some un-original idiot stealing my thoughts, our design, our success, etc.  Not only could this have been a detriment to our search engine rankings (duplicate content, etc.) if you are selling web design and search engine marketing services, don’t you think you should know how to do it rather then stealing from someone who knows what they are doing? 

Stealing is stealing no matter what.  Stealing someone else’s thoughts, designs, content, strategy is cowardly and weak and is NO way to get ahead in life.  Imitation may be the best form of flattery, but it just succeeded in pissing me off and wasting eight hours of my life yesterday.

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Tags: content theft, site jacking, web site jacking, website jacking