Who is copying my website and why?

Hi,

I own the website www.pimlico-flats.co.uk and I recently noticed the website http://www.pimlico-flats.com which besides having a similar domain name has content which has been copied from my website, and then edited to make it different (possibly for SEO reasons). In spite of the changes it is fairly obvious from various phrases that appear that the website started with my content and was then altered.

The new website identifies itself as promoting this website:

” all the content are designed to showcase the PureVISION WP theme on a live site. All images are copyrighted to their respective owners. The PureVISION team respects the intellectual property rights of others and expects you to do the same.”

It doesn’t infringe my IP, or do me any harm, but it puzzles me. Why would someone want to make a copy of my website? Especially one that isn’t terribly good? If they were going to go to all that trouble why not recruit me to help them make it worthwhile?

I really don’t understand what is going on here, but maybe someone can enlighten me?

Hi, what’s that got to do with Themeforest?

It’s simple, someone used the Purevision WP theme (http://codex.wordpress.org/Templates) on that website.

Well I don’t know – I just followed the bouncing ball, but the website says that it’s purpose is to promote http://themeforest.net/item/purevision-wordpress-theme/156538 so I assumed that there is a connection. Are you saying that this website isn’t connected to Purevision? It sells the product…...

Purevision author makes 5-6 figures a year so I don’t think he would bother with such a small and shady project himself

hogash said
Hi, what’s that got to do with Themeforest? It’s simple, someone used the Purevision WP theme (http://codex.wordpress.org/Templates) on that website.

You linked to an empty page, I don’t understand the point that you make.

freshface said
Purevision author makes 5-6 figures a year so I don’t think he would bother with such a small and shady project himself

I don’t claim to understand it – in fact I am here asking questions, not making accusations.

The website states that it has been set up to promote Purevision, and appears to do exactly that, so whilst I understand your point, you don’t actually offer an alternative suggestion as to why the website has been set up.

Pimlico said

freshface said
Purevision author makes 5-6 figures a year so I don’t think he would bother with such a small and shady project himself

I don’t claim to understand it – in fact I am here asking questions, not making accusations.

The website states that it has been set up to promote Purevision, and appears to do exactly that, so whilst I understand your point, you don’t actually offer an alternative suggestion as to why the website has been set up.

The website states that it has been set up to promote Purevision probably because this statement has been stolen as well, from Purevision’s Live Preview or something like that. I didn’t offer any alternative because clearly the guy responsible is the guy who made that site (the one who bought Purevision template to use as a base). It’s like asking NOKIA about who is it that guy who has been calling you lately about lost cats and why was he calling. Hope I made it clear to understand, my english can be confusing at times

hogash said
Hi, what’s that got to do with Themeforest? It’s simple, someone used the Purevision WP theme ( http://codex.wordpress.org/Templates ) on that website.

I changed the link: http://codex.wordpress.org/Templates . I meant this is only a template (you can see in that link what a template means) and it has over 3000 sales (3000 people built their websites using this design). This is a marketplace that offers templates for sale.

Somebody purchased Purevision theme and added to that website. Nothing relates TF with that website. You should better use tools such as http://www.whois.net to search for the domain owner.

this is a wordpress theme marketplace, it has no connection with your problem.

if you need to find out who owns that website, use a whois search website. Usually you will find a name/company and a mail to contact them.

Hi Pimlico,

Just to clarify a bit further, what seems to have happened is that:

1. The person who runs the .com bought a theme from here called PureVision.

2. They installed the theme on their site, which generally includes sample data – or they scraped the data right off the demo site. The message you cited, which now appears on pimlico-flats.com, was taken from the real demo, to which that message refers.

3. They then copied your site content.

To be clear, the owner of the .com and the author of PureVision are not the same person

As others have suggested, you can run a whois to determine who owns the site – unfortunately, that seems to be well masked. So you may need to find out who is hosting the site and file a complaint with them.

Hope that helps clarify