My Site Was Cloned (Masked): Problem Solved (Example)

Updated January 26, 2021

My site, DailyChinaLife.com, was cloned! Literally! I have just solved this problem. It took me nearly 5-6 days to get over this whole fiasco. It wasted my precious time. Let me take you through what exactly is website cloning, and how to deal with this cloning problem!

My domain has been masked. — My domain had been masked.

Let’s learn what to do when someone clones your site.

What Exactly Happened To My Site?

Well, a new site, with a similar domain name (DailyChinaLife DOT site), had the same content as my original site (20^th Jan 2021).

WTF.

After I created this site, it took me months of efforts to build the contents, and some lunatic just copied my site? It has been a serious violation of my copyrights.

Should I Be Worried About Cloning?

Yes! Absolutely! It will badly affect the page ranking (by the search engines). For example, Google bots may treat my content as “plagiarized” from the fake site, and may penalize my site. Traffic would be low.

AdSense may penalize me for “plagiarized” content.

What if the fake site adds links to adult sites (next to my pages)?

Further, my site is part of the Amazon Associates Program (Amazon affiliate). Per Amazon affiliate terms and conditions, clicks on affiliate links are only allowed from my site (and some exceptions, like Facebook). What if someone clicks on the affiliate links on the fake site (affiliate links were intact despite the cloning)?

So frustrating!

How Did I Know That My Site Had Been Cloned?

Well, my site is monetized with Google AdSense. I received a notification from AdSense in the dashboard:

For me, this was the first time to come across with such a nasty problem. I immediately marked in the AdSense that this site was not mine. However, this was not the end of the problem. The problem had just started.

I started my research.

What Is Site Cloning?

Well, in internet terminology, this is called domain/URL masking. In a layman’s language, a person (owner of a fake/new site) makes his site to point to another (real, genuine) site (his domain/IP points to your domain/IP). This can be achieved without much trouble. The fake site owner just needs to add a small piece code in his/her site. Here is the code for cloning/masking a site:

< ?php
$redirectlink = ‘http://www.cloned-website.com‘;
header (‘HTTP/1.1 301 Site Moved Permanently’);
header(‘Location: ‘.$redirectlink);
exit;
? >

This is how things are screwed up in this IT age.

My First Response

I didn’t know the web host for .site domain (due to domain privacy). So, it was very difficult to directly contact the web host.

I contacted my webhost, Bluehost, and asked them for suggestions.

Bluehost web hosting plans are indeed great. Highly recommended.

I was asked to file a complaint with the Namecheap (domain registrar).

I did the same.

Bluehost confirmed that my site was not hacked, rather, it was cloned.

I raised a ticket with “abuse” option. Over 5 days gone, nothing meaningful happened. However, I had a Namecheap ticket ID, and used it the emails.

Further, quite a few internet posts suggested that the domain registrar (or even the hosting provider) can’t help much. Being myself a software engineer, I didn’t see a reason to disagree.

Well, you can’t just stop a site from pointing to a new site. This option exists for good reasons, such as you can start a .com site, and have your multiple relevant domains (.org, .site, .net, etc.) point to the original .com domain.

Legal options are not something I wanted to try in my busy life.

How about the DMCA Takedown?

Well, this is a good alternative to get the fake site shunted down. You can read more about DMCA Takedown:

The problem with DMCA Takedown is that you have to pay US $ 199. WTH. I have not even earned US $50 from my site. Why would I spend US $ 199? That too for some stupid’s behavior?

Basically, I didn’t use this option.

The Solution of Website Masking (Cloning) Problem

I worked out a solution do deal with this site masking/cloning issue.

While exploring DMCA Takedown options, I came across this link, and it was very helpful:

How to Issue a DMCA Takedown Notice (Or Handle Your Own)

I found a solution worth trying as it did work in my case. It did make a lot of sense to try.

I used the Domain Tools, and found the IP address of the fake site.

Domain tools revealed IP address of the site that masked my site. — Domain tools revealed IP address and location of the site that masked my site.

Domain tools revealed IP address and location (Cloudflare) of the fake site that earlier masked my site.

Then I filed a complaint to Cloudflare.

Here is the link to report abuse:

Report Abuse at Cloudflare

I Filed a Complaint to Cloudflare

Here is the content template I used to file the abuse complaint:

Hello,

I am blogger at DailyChinaLife.com and I discovered that your website (DailyChinaLife.site) has been using content that is owned by me. As such, Namecheap.com is the hosting provider for DailyChinaLife.site.

The whole website (DailyChinaLife.site) is clone of my site (DailyChinaLife.com).

Here are some examples of my content:

https://dailychinalife.com/hubei-noodles-stall-women-asking-my-age/
https://dailychinalife.com/crazy-winter-season-in-china-january-temperatures/

And here are copies on your site:

https://dailychinalife.site/hubei-noodles-stall-women-asking-my-age/
https://dailychinalife.site/crazy-winter-season-in-china-january-temperatures/

Please remove all copyrighted content belonging to DailyChinaLife.com immediately otherwise I’ll have to proceed with filing a DMCA complaint.

I have created a case ID [Namecheap #Ticket ID] to track this issue until it is resolved.

If you have any questions regarding this, let me know.

Thanks

Email Response of Cloudflare

Cloudflare (Cloudflare Trust & Safety) replied me within a few hours. Here is the reply from Cloudflare:

Cloudflare received your copyright infringement complaint regarding:
dailychinalife.site

Please be aware Cloudflare is a network provider offering a reverse proxy, pass-through security service. We are not a hosting provider. Cloudflare does not control the content of our customers.

Accepted URL(s) on dailychinalife.site:
https://dailychinalife.site/

Hosting Provider:
—————–

DigitalOcean, LLC

Abuse Contact:
————–

abuse@digitalocean.com

We have notified our customer of your report. We have forwarded your report on to the responsible hosting provider.
You may also direct your report to:

1. The provider where dailychinalife.site is hosted (provided above);
2. The owner listed in the WHOIS record for dailychinalife.site and/or;
3. The contact listed on the dailychinalife.site site.

Note: A lookup of the IP for a Cloudflare customer website will show Cloudflare IPs because we are a pass-through network. The actual website is still hosted at the hosting provider indicated above. If the hosting provider has any questions, please have the hosting provider contact us directly regarding this site. Due to attempted abuse of our complaint reporting process, we will only provide the IP of dailychinalife.site to the responsible hosting provider if they contact us directly at abusereply@cloudflare.com.

Regards,

Cloudflare Abuse

They reported my complaint to the actual web host (DigitalOcean, LLC) of the fake site (.site domain).

The fake site was down within a next few hours, that too for free: I didn’t spend even a penny.

The fake site was taken down (for free). — The fake site was taken down (free).

Final Thoughts

You can’t stop someone from cloning/masking your site in the first place. However, once you find copyright infringement, you’d better not allow your site to be cloned/masked for a long time. Complaining to the domain registrar may not be very helpful. Try to find the technical solution. Find the webhost of the fake site. File a complaint. Keep track of the ticket ID, and use it in the emails. If webhost is not helping, then look for DMCA Takedown. DMCA Takedown will make a whole in your pocket. Legal options are often time consuming.