Do you talk business to friends? You might have finished a great niche website and simply couldn’t resist the temptation to spread the words out to your friends. Well, I know the feeling too. I’ve been there and done that. But wait, a thread at Webmaster World forum may remind you to stop doing that if you are not sure…

A forum regular, StuntasticAudi, told some of his good friends about AdSense and how he makes money with it, even showing some of his sites. The horror story is:

My whole website was completly jacked. I mean the whole layout was the same, colors, categories, links..freaken everything. He even uses the same affiliates as me. Even the freaken adsense color theme is the same. I couldnt believe it. I checked who the website is registered to and found out its in his name. I got so pissed that my own friend got so greedy that he would do something like this.

All the content, photos are stolen from my site. All the photos are public domain so its not like they’re copyrighted by me but still. I know there is going to be competition and i know other will open sites like mine but when you see your own friend totally coping your site it just makes you sick in your stomach. When i called him he ends up saying its his friends site and his friend was banned from adsense so he opened an account for him…blah blah blah.

Do you show your sites to your friends? Some users suggested to ask firmly that the offender removes the site, report to the web hosting company the web site is hosted on, and get an attorney.

May be this friend is not a good friend afterall, and it is great you find it out sooner rather than later. But should you take the risk in the first place?

Thread: Webmaster World.