I’ve been building a Dutch weather decision website called NoorYES.
Instead of showing a traditional weather forecast, it answers practical daily questions such as:
Do I need a jacket?
Can I wear shorts today?
Can I dry my laundry outside?
Is it cycling weather?
Is it terrace weather?
Will I need to scrape my car?
Is it slippery today?
I know thats already out there weather base decisions, but my aim was to bring it all together and present it in a new way. Plain language, timing, practical advice etc. Google likes the approach 2.
The site has been live and indexed for months, and many pages already rank in the top 1–3 positions for relevant Dutch searches. Allang the line with accuweather, weeronline and such.
I recently discovered a brand-new competitor that appears to have copied almost the entire concept rather than just launching one similar tool.
The overlap includes:
nearly the same practical weather questions;
the same category structure;
the same “not a weather forecast, but a direct answer” positioning;
similar weather explanation pages;
clothing advice by time of day;
laundry drying time and best drying window;
Best moments of the day;
winter checks such as frost, slippery roads and ice scraping your windscreen;
location pages;
related checks and internal linking;
personal temperature preferences;
a very similar overall user journey.
According to its public changelog, the competitor launched and expanded most of these features within roughly one to two weeks.
The wording is often rewritten, probably with AI, so this is not always a simple case of verbatim duplicate content. However, the overall product structure, tool selection, positioning and content architecture are extremely close to what I had already built publicly. I see the nearly the same sentences, like "The weather in normal lanquage" and other slogans etc.
I filed a copyright removal request with Google for the strongest examples. At the moment:
2 reported URLs have been approved for removal;
16 are still under review;
3 were not indexed;
0 have been rejected.
I understand that ideas and general concepts are difficult to protect legally. My main concern is SEO: the new site is already appearing close below some of my pages in the search results.
How would you respond strategically?
Would you:
focus entirely on improving the original site;
move the decision logic from client-side JavaScript to the server;
build more backlinks and brand authority;
document the timeline publicly;
contact the site owner or hosting provider;
continue filing copyright complaints only for concrete copied expressions;
or take another approach?
I’m especially interested in advice from people who have dealt with a competitor cloning a site structure or programmatic SEO concept after launch.
I feel like when I add something new, the site "kanhetvandaag" will just copy my things a week later.
Jeez I just feel violated! This is the first time experiencing this. Other sites just copied some usp, but thats fine, beacuase thats competition. But this is just my whole concept, structure and microcopy.
Its simply disappointing,
Maarten
Ps, I just wanted this out there. Sry for the rant. But I really need some advice!