Copyright Infringement and Google Ranking

One of the first indications that your website content has been copied is a drop in your stats or page views, this can be as much as 50% !

If you are running an e-commerce website that's 50% loss of potential earnings ! One of the best ways to monitor this using a Stat Counter or preferably Google Analytics.

If Someone has copied you website content and you are using a hidden stat counter or Google Analytics this could lead to a huge jump, initially, in yours stats as the copier may have blindly copied all your code including the embedded stat counter code.

As far as Google is concerned a copied website is considered a mirror site and will adjust your ranking accordingly, which could be up to a half, again this will have a negative effect on your turn over if you are running an e-commerce website.