I’ve written in the past about the importance of periodic link reviews, but I wanted to discuss how important it also is to also keep your pages up to date. I was going through one of my websites and noticed that many pages hadn’t been updated in 4 years!

Keep Your Websites Up To Date for Your Users & For SEO Purposes!

When users see that your site may be outdated, they become inclined to go out and find someone who keeps their site up to date. This presents a challenge to large sites with thousands of pages of content like BiggerPockets.com, but that is part of the job! In addition, over time, SEO (search engine optimization) rules change and a site that may have been optimized for Google a few years back may no longer be. Make sure you regularly check to be sure all of your pages have been properly optimized!

This isn’t as important for dynamic sites like blogs, so all you bloggers out there can pretty much disregard this message.

For anyone else with a website, make sure you do keep with the times and periodically review your pages to be sure they are current.

Every once in a while it is a good idea to check your MySQL databases to see if any of your tables are out of whack. I make no claims as far as database expertise, but I do know the layman’s method of checking and repairing databases and wanted to share. Personally, I will conduct a check daily, as I am typically logged into my site’s CPanel, but I’d recommend the average guy do this every week or two, just to make sure everything is working properly. Here’s how:

Checking & Repairing Your Website’s MySQL Databases

1. Log into your websites control panel (CPanel)
   

2. Go to your main database panel by clicking on the MySQL button
   

3. Choose a database from the list and click on the “check” link
   

4. If your database is in need of repair, you’ll see a page like the one below, with one or several different tables that are not listed as “OK”
   

5. You’ll need to return to the main MySQL menu and click on the “Repair” link to fix any problems
   

6. Your database should now be repaired and you’ll see a clean page with all “OKs”
   

7. Repeat the process for all of your databases until they are all fixed, and you’re done!

That’s it! Quick and easy.

One of the most frustrating thing back when I was a newbie at building websites was figuring out what that little icon was called next to a website’s URL. This little tidbit of information eluded me for the longest time, but I finally figured it out. Back in the day (wow I sound old!) there weren’t 1,000 tutorials to help with everything like that.

A Favicon is the Small Icon that Shows Up Next to Your Web Address in Your Browser

Favicons (a.k.a. favorites icons) help promote your brand and create an identity for your website. They help when you’ve got multiple tabs open on your browser and you can’t read the entire site title, and they are just great for adding a little something extra to your website’s identity.

How Do You Create a Favicon and What is Favicon.ico?

There are tons of online tools to help you create a favicon. My favorite is Dynamic Drive’s Free Favicon Generator. Here’s what you do to set up your website’s favicon:

1. Go to the Favicon Generator and upload a file from your computer that you want to become your favicon.
2. Press the “Create Icon” button and then the “Download Favicon” button.
3. The favicon will now be saved to your desktop with the filename favicon.ico
4. Using FTP or some other method of transferring files to your website, upload the favicon.ico file to the /public_html/ directory of your website’s server.
5. Check to be sure the file was properly uploaded by visiting in your browser http://www.your-site.com/favicon.ico (of course, your-site.com will be replaced with the name of your actual site name)
6. Finally, edit the main page of your site (the index.html file) and place in the head the following:
   

   <LINK REL=”SHORTCUT ICON” HREF=”favicon.ico”>

Your favicon will now be live. Sometimes it takes a little while to start seeing it, but don’t worry, it’s there!

Do Favicons Work in Subdomains?

They do! All you need to do is follow the steps above for the index.html file located in your subdomains and you’ll have a functional favicon for that subdomain.

I hope this helps some people figure out what to do. I know I would have been really happy to read this a decade ago!

Maybe it isn’t the first rule, but it is definitely important to remember:

Always Have a Contact Page or Some Other Method for Readers to Reach You!

Now, many of you are going to say how obvious this is, but it is clearly not too obvious. Imagine this – I’ve spent the past day or so trying to reach out to some real estate bloggers to get their feedback on a post I wrote on my real estate investing blog. What I discovered was actually pretty sad. Only somewhere around 1/3 of the blogs I visited on this list of 750 real estate blogs had some means of contacting the blogger. Of the ones who did, only a few had their information front and center, with an email link or phone number. I actually had to jump through hoops to find the contact info of some others.

This is particularly sad because the reason most of these people are blogging is to get business for themselves. How do they expect potential clients to reach them if they don’t have a contact page? You never know who is going to befriend you, and it just a good idea to make yourself available . . .

Without my contact page, I would not be in touch with several entrepreneurs who reached out to me.

Maybe it is not the first rule of blogging, but it an important one . . . if you haven’t done so already, get your contact page/info on your blog ASAP.

Note: This also applies for any other legitimate web-business. A phone number is okay, but an email address is imperative. If you don’t have contact info of some sort on your site, I’m not going to take you seriously, and I’m definitely not going to buy anything from your site.

There is nothing worse for a webmaster than finding out that your site has been copied. Every time I find out that someone has stolen my intellectual property my blood boils! Instead of just getting angry, there are steps you can take to stop the violations of your Copyright, which I’ve outlined in this article.

First, you should know that the US Government has written a law, the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA), the content of which you can find on the U.S. Copyright Office’s Web Site (http://www.copyright.gov). This law protects, amongst other things, intellectual property online.

If you are already aware that someone copied your site, you can just skip ahead to the section market “What to Do When You Discover Someone Has Violated Your Copyright and Stolen Your Website’s Content”. If you’re not sure if someone is copying your site, keep on reading.

How to Find Sites That Are Stealing Your Content

There is one tool that is essential for bloggers and webmasters called CopyScape. CopyScape allows webmasters to enter the URL of their individual pages, and will conduct a search for content from within those pages.

The site will show results indicating other websites that may have identical content. Depending on the popularity of your site, you may find that there are no copyright infringements, or you may find many (last night I found 5 sites that had stolen material from one of my sites).

Who Can Help Stop the Copyright Violators?

The first line of defense you have is the host of the site. Hosting companied do not want to be sued for letting one of the sites on their server violate your copyright. They usually act very quickly if you provide proper evidence.

Sometimes, you’ll find that the offending site is hosting on their own servers. If this is the case, you will have to go through the site’s Registrar. Registrars are also protective of copyright violations. A registrar will also be helpful in stopping the site from stealing your content.

The Search Engines (Google, Yahoo, etc.) are also helpful when it all comes down. They have the ability to remove a site from their results if it is breaking the law.

What to Do When You Discover Someone Has Violated Your Copyright and Stolen Your Website’s Content

Once you’ve discovered that someone is stealing your website’s content there are several things you can do. I’ll share what has worked for me.

Step 1: Find the Owner, Host, and Registrar of the Offending Website
You want to find out who runs the site that is stealing your content. Start by doing a WHOIS search of that site. I use whois.sc, but sometimes the site will not give you all the details you need.

There are a few key pieces of information you want to look for, that will help you deal with the situation:

1. Registrant – This is typically the owner of the site. You will need this information.
2. Registrar – This is the company that the site is registered with. You will also need this information.
3. Domain Servers – This information will give you an idea of who is the host of the site
Although you have this information, you are still not finished doing your research. If there is not a lot of information about the Registrant, you may need to check another WHOIS site. I will look at the Registrar and then use their WHOIS tool (just do a search for “registrar name whois”).

You will need to do another whois search for the information listed as “Domain Servers”. If the servers end up being a webhost, you will need to keep their information.

Step 2: Visit The Offending Site’s Host’s TOS or Legal Page
If you’ve found that this site has a host (and is not hosting their own site), you need to visit that host’s Legal Page or Terms of Service (TOS) page. Here, you will find what their requirements are for dealing with copyright violations. Keep this page handy and write down any email address for the legal department for the host.

Step 3: Visit The Offending Site’s Registrar’s TOS or Legal Page
Most registrars like Network Solutions or GoDaddy wil also have requirements for dealing with copyright infringement. You want to keep their page handy and write down any email for their legal departments.

Step 4: Find a Contact Email for the Offending Website
Using either the Registrant info from WHOIS, you want to keep the email address of the site’s owner handy. You can also look around their site for their information.

Step 5: Take Screenshot’s of All Material That Has Been Stolen
Now you want to keep all proof that they actually violated your copyright. Use your computer’s screenshot capabilities to take images of their site with your material. I will also take shots of my site, including the places where this material was taken from. Keep this information in a folder on your computer and name the files so you know what is what. This info may come in handy down the line if there is any question.

Now that you’ve done your research, it is time to put together an email.

Step 6: Email The Copyright Violator, Their Host, Their Registrar, and/or The Search Engines
The next thing I recommend doing is contacting via email the owner of the site (if you can find their info), their host (if they aren’t hosting their own site), and their registrar. I also email my lawyer (and recommend you do the same) to be sure they are in the loop and that they have all evidence.

I have an email that I adjust for all cases, but you can use it as a template:

TO: COPYRIGHT VIOLATOR
CC. YOUR ATTORNEY, THEIR HOST & REGISTRAR’s Legal department

SUBJECT: Copyright Claim DOMAIN NAME OF COPYRIGHT VIOLATOR Is Violating YOURDOMAIN’s Copyright

Dear DOMAIN NAME OF COPYRIGHT VIOLATOR Owners, (or put their name here)

It has come to my attention that you, DOMAIN NAME OF COPYRIGHT VIOLATOR.COM, have made unauthorized use of copyright protected material owned by BiggerPockets.com.
Your page, located at: URL OF THEIR PAGE , blatantly copied our page located at: URL OF THE PAGE THEY COPIED

I have reserved all rights to the domain and registered the copyright. You are in violation of your host HOST’s NAME, your registrar, REGISTRAR’s NAME’s Terms of Service, and of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA)

You neither asked for nor received permission to use the work nor to make or distribute copies of it. Therefore, I believe you have willfully infringed my rights under 17 USC § 101, et seq. and could be liable for statutory damages as high as $100,000.

You are asked to immediately cease the use and distribution of all infringing works derived from YOURDOMAIN.com, and all copies of it, and destroy such copies immediately, and that you desist from this or any other infringement of my rights in the future.

If I have not received an affirmative response from you within 72 hours indicating that you have fully complied with these requirements, I shall consider taking the full legal remedies available to rectify this situation. Please note, your registrar information is noted in the message below.

Your prompt reply is appreciated.

Sincerely,

YOUR NAME
Domain Owner of YOUR DOMAIN

So far, I’ve found over 10 websites who have stolen material from my site. In every case so far, this letter has worked. If either the host or registrar are not helpful, there is still hope.

In the event that it doesn’t work in the future, I plan on following up with my attorney and letting him take over, but I will not stop my efforts there . . .

Step 7: Contact the Search Engines
The search engines aren’t fond of people who violate copyright. Just follow the directions on their legal pages.

Google’s Intellectual Property Policy
It is our policy to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. For directions and more information, please click here.”

Yahoo’s Copyright and Intellectual Property Policy

Conclusion
By following the above steps, you should be able to deal with those scumbags who think they can just steal your intellectual property. Although this is not “legal advice”, it should be very helpful if you’re having problems.

You should check CopyScape a few times a year just to make sure that no one else is breaking the law!

Please let me know if you end up following my advice and if it helps or not!