The process takes about a week. You add your content and URL for the legit version of your work, and Harvel then searches the net for illegal copies of your content. In a few days you'll see the results of the infringements they found in your Harvel dashboard. Then in a few more days you'll see that the infringing content was removed.

I had 9 URLs that were identified as infringements, and all 9 were de-listed or removed.

Doing DMCA takedowns manually is such a pain, and it's frustrating and complicated, with a lot of handwritten messages to various sites and platforms. You get emotional about pirates stealing your work, and having to do it at all takes time away from work you'd rather be doing. The main selling point of Harvel is that they will do that crap for me from now on. So I'm glad to see that it worked. Even if it's a little slow, and in my opinion somewhat expensive for the limits in each tier, the fact that it's passive and doesn't require me to actively work on it makes it a good value, and they're lawyers, which don't come cheap. You're kind of forced to go Tier 3 if you have a decent catalog of work, but it's worth it.

In terms of results, Harvel removes search engine results of your pirated work, and if it's hosted on a Google Site, it will also remove that page and the account that made it. If it's hosted somewhere else, the content will remain up there, but Google will not show it in results. So that's a bit of a drawback at the moment, but it's better than nothing. If people can't find it, then they can't pirate it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Harvel?

I'm not happy with the lack of an onboarding process and lack of clarity on what to do. The first time I used it I didn't know if I was doing the initial steps correctly, so I emailed them with questions and suggestions on how to improve this process, but they never even replied. The UX also needs improvement, as you can't edit or delete a content entry once you've added it, even if there are typos you want to correct. Simple things like this make a difference to the user and their trust in the service. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Harvel:

Harvel has been bought by a new team in the last month, and they seem to be more communicative and eager to improve the app and service. The user experience problems I had with Harvel may have been due to their previous owners. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Harvel solving and how is that benefiting you?

Harvel saves me time, money, and stress by removing infringing content from search engines. I'm an author, and people steal my ebooks and place them on illegal download sites without my permission. It's a pain to send them DMCA notices because you first have to figure out how to do it on each site, then you have to write a letter, then email it to them, then provide proof of ownership, and all this other crap, and then wait days or weeks for it to be taken down. You also have to send requests to Google to get the page removed. Meanwhile, you're stressed out and wasting time and energy on junk you don't want to deal with. And you have to do this for every book, every time!

Harvel solves this problem. All you have to do is send the URL of the infringing site to Harvel and they get the listing removed from Google. It won't be a full DMCA takedown, but it's about the same result. It's like having your own lawyer.

I've had Harvel for 5 months, and in that time they've taken down 30 listings on my behalf. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.