David719
Junior Member
- Nov 1, 2019
- 161
- 24
Hi everyone,
I used to own a domain where I regularly published content around 2-3 years ago. I had to completely shut it down when I discovered that my copywriter was just translating articles—so about 30% of the content was original (written by me and my partner), while the rest was likely stolen, translated content. The website had decent traffic, but I decided to shut it down two and a half years ago to avoid any issues (a few original content owners reached out, so I couldn't even redirect the domain or anything similar).
Two and a half years have passed, and knowing that the domain was useless to me, I let it expire—there were no valuable backlinks or anything, so I figured someone could build their own site on it. However, I recently discovered that someone revived my entire website, possibly through Wayback Machine (or some other method), kept me listed as the author everywhere, and the site is now getting indexed.
How should I proceed?
This is a misuse of my name, and I don't want to be associated with this at all.
The 30% of the articles that I wrote were transferred to a new website that is still active.
Moreover, as mentioned, 70% of the content is stolen, and I don't want anything to do with it.
How can I protect myself? Is there any way to fight this? Legal action seems like it would take too long.
P.S. I cannot find out who the new domain owner is, and the domain registrar won’t provide the name due to GDPR unless there’s a legal case.
Thank you very much.
I used to own a domain where I regularly published content around 2-3 years ago. I had to completely shut it down when I discovered that my copywriter was just translating articles—so about 30% of the content was original (written by me and my partner), while the rest was likely stolen, translated content. The website had decent traffic, but I decided to shut it down two and a half years ago to avoid any issues (a few original content owners reached out, so I couldn't even redirect the domain or anything similar).
Two and a half years have passed, and knowing that the domain was useless to me, I let it expire—there were no valuable backlinks or anything, so I figured someone could build their own site on it. However, I recently discovered that someone revived my entire website, possibly through Wayback Machine (or some other method), kept me listed as the author everywhere, and the site is now getting indexed.
How should I proceed?
This is a misuse of my name, and I don't want to be associated with this at all.
The 30% of the articles that I wrote were transferred to a new website that is still active.
Moreover, as mentioned, 70% of the content is stolen, and I don't want anything to do with it.
How can I protect myself? Is there any way to fight this? Legal action seems like it would take too long.
P.S. I cannot find out who the new domain owner is, and the domain registrar won’t provide the name due to GDPR unless there’s a legal case.
Thank you very much.
