27
Jan
06

MWI’s Website Ripped Off by Swanson Holland

By Joshua Steimle 16 Comments Categories: MWI

This happened once before, but that time it was some company that had nothing to do with providing competing services. This time, it’s another web development firm.

Check out http://www.swansonholland.com/

In case they see this post and repent of their wicked ways, here are some screen shots so we can preserve the shame.

The MWI website:

mwi_website.jpg

The Swanson Holland website:

swanson_website.jpg

Notice anything similar? Hmmm.


On this page they even forgot to change out some of the content. As of the writing of this blog it reads “SHM has experience working with clients of all sizes, from family-owned businesses like Johnson Mill Bed and Breakfast to small businesses like the law firm of Strong & Hanni to large enterprises like 3Com or Altiris. Our clients cover all types of industries and come from all parts of the United States and Europe.”

Funny, that’s just what it says on our site! And isn’t that weird how they also have done work for Johnson Mill, 3Com, and Altirs? I mean, what are the odds?

You’re probably wondering how I found this out. Well, when they copied our site evidently they copied all the HTML as well, and they forgot to remove some site analytics tracking code in the HTML, so when I checked our stats I had all sorts of referrering clicks from their site.

But the real question is do you really think those are their real clients on that clients page? I find it hard to believe a design firm that blatantly rips off designs from other firms would be landing clients like that.

Related posts:

  1. MWI’s Website Ripped Off Yet Again, for the Last Time
  2. Someone Ripped Off MWI’s Website Design
  3. Quick MB Rips off MWI’s Website
  • http://gregorybowers.com gb

    Wow… that certainly says something about what kind of site to expect from them if you were duped into working with them…

  • http://www.davebennion.us bennion

    wow… the stole everything! unbelievable.

  • http://smoothharold.com Blake

    A little inspiration from good design is fine. This is just pathetic…

  • Panduka

    This takes ripping to another level.

  • Sean-Eric C.

    I find it odd that one of their “works” can be found at CSS Beauty. If they actually made THAT site, then I don’t think they’d ever need to copy someones. I smell something fishy, rotten, just plain WRONG here. Thanks to the power of Google Maps, I found that this guy is also a home based business. What’s even worse is that Parc Rittenhouse was actually made by Pixelworthy. So whoever this person is, he/she is ripping EVERYONE off. Have you contacted this “company” yet? If not, I’d be more than happy to get on their case.

  • Brian

    I don’t see what the big deal is…it’s a completely different logo, and they totaly changed the main image back to your original. The clients are completely different too.

    Speaking of images, I wonder if Getty would be interested in knowing they probably using those images for free. I guess they could have paid for usage, but something tells me it’s not their style.

  • http://h4technology.com Tyler Garlick

    I can’t believe that a corporation would do that. I mean I’m a fan of MWI’s site and all, but there is an extent to which you can “utilize design ideas.” To me, that’s plagery of design…. where’s the creativity?

  • http://www.mwi.com Joshua Steimle

    It occurred to me that this might be some 14-year old kid working from home who’s new to the ways of the industry and is just barely starting out, trying to learn how to build websites, and to begin he’s copying a website, perhaps with the intentions of changing it in order to learn more about design/html/css. He’s not malicious, he’s just experimenting and learning, and perhaps doesn’t even seriously expect to make any money, this is more just for fun.

    Of course, this is only a hypothetical statement. But I usually try to find some way to give someone the benefit of the doubt. On the other hand, if this is a grown adult who’s just lazy and incompetent, that’s another matter.

  • http://www.70three.com Kyle

    I think I know how they found you. http://www.swansonholland.com/work/index.html
    Scroll down there is an “agilix” site, which chris taylor orginally designed that looks a lot like that comp shot and nothing like what agilix currently has up. And of course chris designed the MWI site.

    If they are working with agilix, maybe they pointed them to MWI.com and said, well we like this.

  • http://www.mwi.com Joshua Steimle

    I was wondering about that. Agilix is in Utah, so is MWI. Chris Taylor, who designed the MWI site, has also done work for Agilix. Agilix does a lot of work with HP, and at http://www.swansonholland.com/company/index.html SH says they were formed by two former HP employees, Jason Samsonite and Jason Holland. How many degrees of separation? Not many.

    Oh, and on that same page I like one of the lines they put in:

    “We didn’t pioneer the web, but along the way we have made some very significant improvements to the sites you may visit.”

    So you see, they’re actually admitting to not creating anything, they just ripoff what other people have done and “make it better”. Although I fail to see where the word “significant” comes into play…the only thing they changed on the site they stole from us was the logo.

  • http://www.fusionfox.com Clifton

    At least your design is good enough to be ripped off. That’s rewarding to a degree, right? :)

  • http://www.wasatchmarketing.com Anthony Haun

    Can you take any legal action?
    I like how you tracked them. That is really funny!

  • http://www.mwi.com Joshua Steimle

    Interesting, their website now appears to be redirecting to the City of Houston’s website. Oh well, I guess we had our fun while it lasted.

  • http://www.mwi.com/ Joshua Steimle

    In yet another update, the Swanson Holland website now appears to be for a publishing company whose logo looks suspiciously like the FranklinCovey logo. For looking like it, it’s the exact same logo. Color, shape, size, etc. It’s pretty obvious they just copied and pasted the web version.

  • Brian Millgrath

    Looks like you have too much time on your hands… Who cares at this point?

  • http://www.mwi.com Joshua Steimle

    Well, that’s certainly an interesting comment coming from somebody who has ripped off one of our websites.