Definition
Scraping, or web scraping, is an automated data extraction technique from web pages using scripts or specialized software. In SEO, scraping is primarily used abusively to steal textual content from competitor sites and republish it on other domains, creating duplicate content at scale. This practice can populate satellite site networks, generate automatic content for landing pages, or conduct Negative SEO attacks through duplication. Google penalizes sites that publish scraped content because it adds no value. Scraping can also have legal implications regarding copyright and data protection.
Key Points
- Scraped content is considered duplicate content by Google
- Scraping victims can report abuses via DMCA
- Large-scale scraping can have legal consequences
Practical Examples
E-commerce product listing theft
A competitor scrapes product descriptions, images, and prices from an e-commerce site to create a near-identical copy, diluting the original site's visibility in search results.
Editorial content aggregation
A network of automated sites scrapes articles from blogs and media, republishing them with slight modifications to generate traffic via AdSense, with no original value creation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Several measures can limit scraping: implement a restrictive robots.txt file, use captchas, set up rate limiting, monitor content copies with tools like Copyscape, and file DMCA complaints with Google to deindex stolen content.
Scraping itself is not necessarily illegal. It becomes problematic when it violates a site's terms of use, copyright, or data protection laws (GDPR). In SEO, it is the republication of scraped content that poses the most problems.
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Last updated: 2026-02-07