My First Experience with a "Copyright Notice" from Google Search Console

-

Recently, I encountered my first-ever "Copyright Notice" via the Google Search Console. As a webmaster, receiving such a notice can be both alarming and a learning experience. Thankfully, our SEO and  Secops teams are actively addressing the issue by filing counter-notices where appropriate and ensuring that any infringing content is removed from our website.

In this post, I’ll be sharing the detailed analysis of the copyright notices we received for our website www.experience.com. These notices are filed under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and can be viewed publicly on the Lumen Database.

Overview of the DMCA Notices Received

We’ve received a total of 15 DMCA notices related to content hosted on www.experience.com. I’ve categorized them into three distinct types based on the nature of the claims:


Type 1: Multiple Websites Involved

Several copyright notices we received target not only www.experience.com but also other major websites like:

These notices seem to focus on larger content distribution issues, and we are one of the many websites mentioned.

Type 2: Notices Specific to www.experience.com


We’ve identified two specific notices that are directly targeting our website. These notices raise concerns over copyrighted materials such as photographs, logos, and reviews that were used without permission.

  • Notice 1: DMCA Notice 44507470

    • Date: September 10, 2024
    • Issue: A photograph and logo from the complainant's website and Google Business listing were used without permission. Despite the violation claim under New York Civil Rights Law §50 and §51, the content was not removed, leading to this notice.

  • Notice 2: DMCA Notice 43528783

    • Date: July 31, 2024
    • Issue: A review taken from Zillow was posted in a way that damaged the business of the complainant. Although we removed the content from our site, it continued to appear in Google search results.

In these cases, it’s crucial for us to work with our legal team to address the issues promptly. If we don’t file counter-notices, only the specific URLs cited will be removed from Google’s index, so the rest of our site will not be impacted. However, it’s a reminder to handle content permissions more carefully in the future.

Type 3: Older Notice

There’s an older notice that dates back to when www.experience.com was not under our control.

  • Notice 3: DMCA Notice 10690790
    • Date: April 22, 2015
    • Issue: This notice predates our ownership of the domain and is no longer applicable. The infringing article is not present on our site, and it currently shows a 404 error.

Since this notice is irrelevant to our current content, no further action is required.

Additional Notices and Their Details

Apart from these key notices, we’ve received several other copyright claims, mostly related to unauthorized content distribution. These cases involve content from performers on platforms like Chaturbate, and while they are being resolved, here’s a quick summary of the notices:

  1. Notice 4: DMCA Notice 44458889 – Unauthorized distribution of content from Chaturbate performer tiana_baker.

    • Date: September 8, 2024

  2. Notice 5: DMCA Notice 43898606 – Content related to lorifowler, another performer.

    • Date: August 18, 2024

  3. Notice 6: DMCA Notice 44579683 – Content related to goldenmoore.

    • Date: September 13, 2024

    (and many more notices, with similar issues related to unauthorized use of copyrighted content)

What We’re Doing Next

Although this was my first experience receiving a copyright notice, I’ve learned how essential it is to regularly audit our content and be vigilant about copyright compliance. Working closely with our SEO and legal teams, we are taking the following steps to mitigate these issues:

  • Filing Counter Notices: For content we believe to be fair use or non-infringing, our team will file counter-notices.
  • Removing Infringing Content: For content that does violate copyright, we’ll promptly remove or replace it to avoid further penalties.
  • Preventing Future Issues: Moving forward, we’ll improve our processes by conducting regular reviews of third-party content, ensuring all images, videos, and written content used are properly licensed.

Conclusion

Receiving a copyright notice is a serious matter, but it doesn’t have to be a catastrophe if handled correctly. By addressing each notice individually, we can minimize the impact on our website and avoid legal complications. I encourage all webmasters to familiarize themselves with copyright laws and ensure that all content published on their sites is original or properly licensed.

If you’ve had similar experiences, feel free to share them in the comments. Let’s learn and grow together as responsible website owners!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How I Achieved First Page First Position for High Search Volume Keyword on Google SERP

-
Image
In this post, I would like to share my experience of bringing one of our clients to the first page first position on Google SERP for a high search volume keyword. The client, Pothys, is a big brand in the textile industry with a strong reputation in offline marketing. However, their website was not optimized for basic SEO practices, which I discovered during my initial audit. Pothys was facing a common challenge among businesses - ranking high on Google for a high search volume keyword, "Silk Sarees." When I first analyzed the keyword position, the website was ranking at 7th position on the first page of Google SERP. But Pothys was determined to reach the first position. The search volume of the keyword "Silk Sarees" is (49500/month). I identified several issues with the website that were hindering its search engine ranking. These issues included: Keyword cannibalization : The same keyword "Silk Sarees" was targeted on multiple pages on the site, which was...
Read more

Crawled - Currently Not Indexed

-
Image
 What Google's official document says about "Crawled - currently not indexed": "The page was crawled by Google but not indexed. It may or may not be indexed in the future; no need to resubmit this URL for crawling." Source: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7440203?hl=en Case1: I don't want to index these pages (Category, Tag, Dev & Feed): these pages are already marked as "no-index" in the Meta robots tag.  https://scgroup.global/blog/category/ceo-sleepout/ https://scgroup.global/blog/page/9/ https://scgroup.global/blog/category/technology/electronic-security/ https://scgroup.global/blog/annual-ceremony-awards/a2-1024x768/ ttps://scgroup.global/blog/tag/outstanding-guarding-company/ https://scgroup.global/blog/category/events/ https://scgroup.global/blog/hire-commercial-cleaning-service-provider/feed/ https://scgroup.global/blog/mental-health-in-security-industry/feed/ https://scgroup.global/dev2022/about/advisory-board/ https://sc...
Read more

Crawled - Currently not indexed - My Experience Troubleshooting the Issue

-
Image
 As a SEO Analyst, one of the challenges I faced was encountering a "Crawled - Currently not indexed" status on Google for our old blog post - https://scgroup.global/blog/safety-tip-green-cleaning-cleaner-future/ (Continuity of case 2 ) that I worked on. After some analysis and troubleshooting, I was able to fix the issue and get the post indexed. First , I analyzed the content, meta tags, internal, and external links for the blog post. I used the "Copyscape" tool (https://www.copyscape.com/) to check for any plagiarism issues with the content. I then edited and updated the meta tags to make sure they were properly optimized for the post.  The title and meta description for the post were updated to : Title: Safety Tip: Green Cleaning for a Cleaner Future | Cleaning tips Meta Description: When you choose green cleaning products and practices, your family is safer and healthier. Find out more about the advantages of greener cleaning. The future: green cleaning, clean ...
Read more