Google Got Called Out For Being A “Scraper Site” & You Won’t Believe What Happened Next

On Thursday, Google made a call for publishers to report if sites have copied or “scraped” their content and are outranking the publishers themselves. But a tweet from a marketer pointing out that Google might be doing what it’s against got far more attention that Google’s own request.

The head of Google’s web spam team issued a call for reports about scraper sites

If you see a scraper URL outranking the original source of content in Google, please tell us about it: http://t.co/WohXQmI45X

— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) February 27, 2014

Marketer Dan Barker came up with an example of Google scraping Wikipedia’s content to outrank Wikpedia for “What is a scraper site”

.@mattcutts I think I have spotted one, Matt. Note the similarities in the content text: pic.twitter.com/uHux3rK57f

— dan barker (@danbarker) February 27, 2014

The tweet currently has nearly 15,000 retweets, which is approaching the 16,000 retweet level of Oreo’s famous Super Bowl “blackout” tweet

Power out? No problem. pic.twitter.com/dnQ7pOgC
— Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) February 4, 2013

That’s pretty impressive for a topic that is far removed from a major sporting event. For more background on the reporting form, and some of the issues about Google’s increased use of content from other sites, see the stories below from our Search Engine Land sibling-site:

• Someone Outranking You With Your Own Content? Use The New Google Scraper Report
• Tweet Showing How Google Itself Is A “Scaper Site” Goes Massively Viral

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Danny Sullivan

Danny Sullivan was a journalist and analyst who covered the digital and search marketing space from 1996 through 2017. He was also a cofounder of Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land, MarTech, and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo and MarTech events. He retired from journalism and Third Door Media in June 2017. You can learn more about him on his personal site & blog He can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.