All Entries Tagged With: "content theft"

One Sure Way To Stop Scrapers From Earning Off Your Blog

Thanks to Lance Winslow for asking the question. What about those people who steal the content created by others, put them on a blog and earn AdSense money from them?

In the old days, people did that with articles. They still do. But there is another form of this type of content theft that people are using along with WordPress, which is the blogging platform that we at Blog Content Provider recommend. It’s called scraping.

Here’s what they do: They subscribe to your RSS feed and use a software program to search for specific keywords in your content. When they find the keywords they are looking for they scrape that content and add it to their blog, a process that takes just a few seconds because it is done automatically by the software program. The slap an AdSense ad next to the content they just stole from you and “trackback” to your blog, which creates a link to you, but also a link from you to their blog – that is, if you approve their comment.

Now, wait a minute, Allen. Haven’t you encouraged people in the past to trackback to other blogs for traffic? What’s wrong with that?

Yes, I have encouraged trackbacks and I still do. But what’s wrong with scraping is a little bit more nuanced than merely marketing original content. The proper way to trackback to another person’s blog is to write original content on your blog that references the content on the other. Then you can tell WordPress to trackback, which effectively makes you and the other blogger partners in an ongoing conversation. Using content created by someone else without adding your own flavor of original content alongside it is unethical. It is a form of stealing.

What these scrapers are banking on is that you will approve their comment and your website visitors will click through the link in that comment to their blog and click on the ad so that they’ll earn revenue from your content. They know that their blog will not rank for any keywords. It’s duplicate content so the search engines will ignore it. They likely aren’t doing any article marketing to promote that blog either because that takes time. These scrapers are lazy and want the easy way out. That’s why are stealing your content and offering a “trackback” in an attempt to appear legitimate. They are taking a legitimate practice and mirroring it so as to appear legitimate themselves. Crafty, isn’t it?

Well, all you have to do to stop them in their tracks is not approve their comments. When you notice a comment in WordPress, follow the link to the owner’s blog and read what they’ve written. If it looks like someone wrote the post and linked back to you then approve the comment. If it looks like a part of a post that you wrote with a link back that says something like “Read the rest of the article here” then don’t approve it. They won’t gain access to your blog’s readers and they won’t make a dime off of your content.

Aggregation, Scraping: What’s The Difference?

Some bloggers spend too much time worrying about scraping, a form of content theft. I prefer to call it what it is – plain and simple, it is theft.

Content scrapers typically subscribe to your RSS feeds then use automatic posting software to post your content on their blogs and websites alongside Google AdSense ads in hopes of profiting off of your content. Some of them actually make a pretty decent amount of money through this practice even though it is unethical and, technically, illegal. Because content scrapers have ways of maintaining their anonymity, it is virtually impossible to ever prove that someone stole your content and that makes suing them for damages next to impossible. Should you even worry about it?

There are two types of scrapers. Some scrapers take your articles from article directories and do not include a link back to your blog or website as is generally acceptable. In addition to attempting to profit from your content they do not even give you the credit for creating it, making them guilty of a double sin. Other content scrapers will take your content and at least link back to your website with an attribution link. They still include the AdSense ads next to the cotnent, but I find this kind of content scraper less of a threat because the search engines know that your content was on your site first and will give you the credit for that by indexing your content in their search engines. The content scraper is banking on you following the link from the back end of your blogging platform and clicking on an ad or approving their trackbacks and profiting off of your visitors clicking through to their websites from your blog.

I have a way of dealing with that second type of content scraper. I don’t approve their trackbacks. That effectively gives me an inbound link from their website (which won’t help me much if any at all because their website likely will not be crawled), but it also does not give them the reciprocal link they were hoping for and therefore cutting off the only hope of traffic that they may get. In order for them to profit from scraping my content then is to market that content themselves and they are not likely to put forth the time and energy to do that. Therefore, I kill their profits.

To me, it’s a waste of time to worry too much about content scrapers beyond that because I just end up eating away my time, which cuts down on my profits. If they make a little bit of money from my content then it’s no big deal. They are likely not getting rich from my content. They may make a few dollars each month and that’s about it. Content scrapers make their money through a numbers game by stealing thousands of web pages’ content and using AdSense to profit from the totality of their theft. I believe it’s just a matter of time before the search engines address the issue and stamp it out. I’m not all that worried about it.

What Is Content Aggregation?
On the positive side of things, content aggregators use RSS feeds from various sources to populate their web pages with content. They may or may not profit from this activity, but since it is considered legal and ethical it doesn’t matter if they do. Aggregators usually have the permission of the content owners whose feeds they aggregate. They may be niche oriented or general in nature, but content aggregators do not pose a problem for content creators. They always link back to the original source and give attribution where necessary. That is the difference between a content aggregator and a content scraper.

The content aggregator can be good for your business. It’s another way for you to market your content and attract new visitors to your website. The most popular blog aggregator online is Technorati. I am a member of a content aggregator that specializes in literary content as well. There may be content aggregators for your industry. I’d encourage you to find suitable content aggregators and join so that you can expand your reach into the online marketplace. And don’t spend too much time worrying about scrapers.

Blam, Spam, Thank You Ma’am

As much as Net citizens like to create new words out of the fusion of older words, I’ve got a new word for blog spam – it’s Blam. This is when another blogger scrapes your blog posts and reloads them onto his own blog for one of the following purposes:

• Sell advertising alongside your content with no attribution
• Attribution may be given for your content, but it sits right beside AdSense ads, the other blogger’s primary source of income
• The blammer, blog spammer, and gratuitous traffic whammer, steals your content only to redirect your traffic via trackback to his blog so that he can then channel into another blog that sells similar services to yours (I love this one!)
• He’s promoting his affiliate programs
• She’s a kleptomaniac and just can’t help herself – you see, I’m an equal opportunity spam blam hater (at least I didn’t say she was a nymphomaniac – but then again, maybe she’s that too!)
• She’s got a lot of time on her hands and really doesn’t know what to do with it and it sounded like a good idea to use it to design a website, steal someone else’s content, and try to earn two cents with it because – hey, she’s a web designer, not a writer (give her a break)
• He’s just playing around
• Just goofing off

I could have titled this blog post, “Top 8 Reasons Blog Spammers Steal Your Content,” but see how boring that is? If you see this blog post on another blog somewhere it’s because you’ve encountered a blammer. Leave a comment for me (if they allow comments): Just say, “Spam, Blam, Thank you Ma’am” and link back to this post. Thanks.