The 1st place in Google SERP is a dream place every website is working hard on getting to. As plenty of studies show you'd probably click on the first 3 results Google gives for your query with little or no regard to the rest. Being at the top 3 is great, but still, the 1st place gives you far more authority and credibility. You have to be really good so that Google has the reason to put you there, right?
Your website or webpage success on Google is based on SEO, so everyone desperately wants to learn how to improve it. Consequently, those who've ever learned about SEO know how many things it is influencing and how many things you have to take care of in order to improve it on your website.
So, in order to outrun the competitors to improve your website SEO you have to:
- Work hard on creating unique and useful products.
- Do your research to target top-ranking and long-tail keywords.
- Create informative and engaging content.
- Pay a lot of attention to the MetaData.
- Build internal and external links.
- Optimize your website loading speed.
- Use different tools to track progress and make improvements.
- ...
If you fail in any of the SEO points you won't be getting the expected result.
e.g. if you don't target the right keywords, people won't find your page, if the page takes longer to load people will leave, if you don't optimize the metadata correctly people will come and bounce because that's not what the title they followed promised, etc.
You have to be very thorough in everything concerning SEO to beat it and move your competitors from the 1st place. There is a lot of work to be done but eventually, you'll get there and prove Google your page is worth putting at the very top.
That's how it worked for us. It's been a while before we've managed to get our Magento 2 Blog Extension to the 1st place on Google search results.
We created the most used Magento 2 blog extension that helps people improve their stores and module they want to have because of its multifunctionality and the variety of features.
We did our best searching for the ranking keywords, writing the unique content, creating website structure and grouped content, and making other SEO improvements. We spent a lot of time reaching first place on Google SERP.
That's a long way to go, isn't it? But, is there a shorter way to throw your competitor out of the 1st place?
If that's what you're thinking then, YES, there is a way.
At the beginning of May (05/02/2020), we've received the notice from Google about violating the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). To put it short, it said that some of our content on the Magento 2 Blog extension product page is plagiarized and Google removed our page from the search results. We were dropped from FIRST place to nothing.
Someone from Vietnam named "Jone Hammer" (most likely it is a fake name) copied our content, put it to his website, and then submitted the DMCA (report details). So, our own content is stolen, presented as original, and used against us in the accuse of plagiarism. Is there bigger nonsense?
Our Original Text:
The text on the website we've "plagiarized":
Have you noticed how they removed the Magefan Blog from the original phrase (Bring all your ideas to life with Page builder and Magefan Blog for Magento 2.)?
We also want to drive your attention to the date that the article is said to be published on (April 21, 2016) and the fact the page builder was added in the Magento 2.3.1 that was released only in 2019.
So, it was kind of a surprise for us to be accused of such a thing since we produce only unique content to describe our products.
Attacker's website contains a lot of different articles on different topics copied from different websites and we were not the only target. After a few days after "Jone" submitted DMCA request against Magefan, he did the same for Amasty (DMCA report details) and Mirasvit (DMCA report details).
Obviously we immediately filed the appeal providing all the details and refusing to recognize it as a violation. It took 4 days for Google to reply. They forwarded our counter-notification to the complainant - "Jone Hammer". They didn't reinstate the page and just asked to wait. Message from Google:
If we do not receive notice that the complainant has brought a court action within 10 business days, we will reinstate the material in question.
Thus, that's how easily someone can throw the competitor out of the 1st place on Google SERP.
The Magento 2 Blog extension product page is now restored after 18 days of being excluded from Google results. For more than 3 weeks users weren't able to find our blog extension on Google.
Fortunately, that didn't influence our customer acquisition a lot since we have other traffic sources. The saying goes, don’t put all your eggs in one Google basket.
Google should pay more attention to the DMCA Spam even if it takes more time to analyze. The platform that takes relevance and usefulness of the content should seriously ensure some fake websites can't remove pages and products someone has put a great effort into creating.
The reason we wanted to share this is for you to know that no matter how hard you try there always will be some people trying different dishonest and dishonored ways to get on your way. This should not stop and demotivate you. The fact that your competitors are fighting with you using DMCA spam only shows how helpless they are. Keep going, please your customers, bring new ideas to life!
At the same time, we don't encourage you to try getting the "success" fake DMCA way and want you to understand that you can receive great results only by establishing credibility and authority. Customers consider a lot of things before choosing you and there is no way you can earn their trust in a dishonest way.
We wish to Mr. "Jone Hammer" from Vietnam to stay safe and healthy.
Magefan Team
