Syndicate Your Content For Search Engine Domination How to Deal with People who are Stealing your Content
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This guest post is written by Will Paoletto. Will is an SEO Strategist at Big Oak Inc., the SEO agency, responsible for the comic gem Ranked Hard
How to Deal with People who are Stealing your Content
Have you ever been the victim of stolen or scraped content? Sometimes sites that steal your content end up ranking above you for various keywords, and in the worst case scenario, the stolen content actually confuses Google and causes it to penalize your site. First, let’s cover one of the common tactics that people use to sabotage other sites by stealing their content, and then let’s go over how to hunt down and deal with the people who do this.
One of the relatively simple tactics that people use to sabotage other sites is to scrape their content and then turn the content into articles for submission to article directories. They submit the articles to hundreds of article directories, make the byline of the article their name (or presumably a pseudonym), and link off to their website in the author’s box. When websites come along and syndicate these articles, they are all attributed to the thief’s website. As a result, Google may look at the original content owner’s site and now assume that it is nothing but a collection of stolen articles from around the net. You would think Google would be wise enough to identify the person who had the pages cached first as the original owner, but there are documented cases of Google filters being tripped as result of this tactic. As is always the case, established websites are much less likely to fall prey to this banning technique, and sites with high trust rank would likely be invincible to it.
Of course this is just one of the many ways that stolen content can be hazardous to the health of your site. So how do you deal with the people who do this? Well, in the example above, the thief is attempting to increase his Google ranking and simultaneously sabotage the competition, so he is giving away his URL. You can deal with this person by taking the following steps:
1. If the webmaster has no contact information on his site, then skip to step 4. If he/she actually has contact information or a contact form, then be cordial in your initial email to the site owner. Do not be rude. Being unprofessional or nasty will only make the person less likely to cooperate. After sending an email to the owner, wait about 24 hours. If you do not receive a response, then email the owner again, and this time be a bit more forward. In the best case scenario, the thief will bow to your wishes and remove your content.
2. If 48 hours go by and you still haven’t received a response from the person, go to a public forum (preferably one in your niche) and announce that they are stealing your content. Say that you have emailed them twice and have yet to receive a reply. Ask the forum if anyone has a way to get in touch with them. Do not attempt to publicly defame this person because doing so will only sacrifice your professionalism. Other members of the forum will likely do your bidding for you anyway.
3. If more than 48 hours pass without a response from the person, then send a third email detailing the steps you will take if they do not remove your content. Say that you will contact their sponsors, their web host, and any party helping them. If the individual has stolen images from you and is hosting them on a photo sharing website, say that you will file a DMCA request with the image host.
4. If they have no contact information on their site and their domain registration info is private, then you’ll want to contact their web host. You can find out who their web host is by looking up their site’s IP address and then doing a reverse DNS lookup. You can accomplish both of these tasks by using a site like dnstools.com. Tell the web host what this person is doing, and the host should cooperate with you. They have to look into the matter by law, but as we know, not all web hosts are created equal, so you may have to send dozens of support tickets. You can also file a DMCA request with Google and other search engines. Reporting the site through Google webmaster tools is an additional option as well.
The key to success is remaining civil with the person stealing your content. They’ll be much more likely to comply with your demands if you never break away from a friendly, professional tone. Smile through the screen as you file DMCA requests and report them though webmaster tools. By the way, if you don’t have a clear copyright notice on your website, you should add one, otherwise your stance will be severely weakened if you ever find yourself embroiled in a controversy over content.
So did this post help and what are your comments about it?
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- using other peoples articles on my site
I had this happen to me on a wrong side of shady Taiwanese website - they had taken my blog post, added their paid endorsement ad (for some insurance scam) within the text so it looked like it was part of my post text and took my name off of it. They didn’t bother to strip the link out back to my site so I got a ping and discovered it (silly boys!).
I asked them (politely as you suggested) to add my name, move their ad to below the article (so it didn’t look like I was endorsing it) OR alternately, remove the article from their site. I never heard back, but a few days later, the article had been taken down. Success! I wouldn’t have minded the traffic, but I wanted to credited and properly represented. I was a bit shocked it happened, but judging from what you describe, it could have been a lot worse.
Thanks for the tips.
Together, we are stonger!
Vicki Flaugher, the original SmartWoman
Founder, SmartWomanGuides.com: How-to and Inspiration for the Beginning Female Entrepreneur.
Some good information here. I have zero luck dealing with web hosts in regard to my content being stolen. The problem is a lot of these scraper sites are run by scripts that not only generate the wordpress installations but also the domains. Tracking down all those people is difficult at best.
ahh yes i have dealt with this topic before… i’ve even did a post threatening to call people out on it… since then alot more content has not been stolen… and another issue i had was when people would try to jack my images.. i fixed that as well.. great post by the way..! i just wish people would use their own creativity…
androos last blog post..Call of Duty 4 - Showdown Map - Get on Roof Glitch
Another way to prevent your blog’s content from being scraped is to only provide partial text in your RSS feeds. If you provide full text, you’ll discover your content will be found elsewhere.
Chris Jacobsons last blog post..Digital Point Owners Sued by eBay
No matter if you provide full or partial RSS feed, just watermark it with a name and URL of your site. Like “the following article was originally published on the site SITE NAME (site.url.com)”. Many scrapers have ability to change links and text to their own (based on regular expressions or simple “find and replace”), so you have to change your watermark from time to time.
Krzysztof Liss last blog post..AdSense a mój Urz?d Skarbowy
I have had similar problems in past and followed the advise given inLorelle on Wordpress - What if someone steals your content and it worked well.
Last week I got Google Alert for my content from Blogger site. I sent the webmaster email and waited for 5 days, no response, then I sent another email and still waiting to hear from them.
What if the webmaster doesn’t respond and its hosted by Blogger? Is there a way to report o Blogger this issue?
Yep, that is why I stopped providing full text feeds. I know I probably lost some readers that way, but I am willing to have less readers as long as my content remains on my blog.
I’ve never quite had content stolen from me… or maybe it’s because I don’t know it.
Andre Thomass last blog post..Special Announcement… QuickFix Copywriting Tips now Equipped with Commentluv
This is some good information, content stealing is becoming a bigger problem every day. Any chance of a post on what to include in a good copyright notice?
This is good stuff, as my blog has grown I see more and more of those “spam” pingbacks hosting my content. Thanks for the tips Cow.
Big Ben Pattons last blog post..Case Study: Newbie Site Flip Part 1
This post is amazing, real good for stopping content thieves like me.. LOL!!
To my shame in my early days of blogging I used an A-Lists bloggers content and tried to palm it off as my own. They contacted me and I removed the content.
I learnt my lesson and now write all of my content 100% original and I steal nothing. Haven’t had any problems with people stealing my content yet. But thanks for the advice
Ryan McLeans last blog post..Finding The Confidence in Yourself
Wouldn’t it be funny if everyone stole the content of this article and posted it
Ryan McLeans last blog post..Finding The Confidence in Yourself
I’ve seen my content on a couple of other sites by thats because I did not put my nae on it whichwas my fault. I still think people will always scrap others content because they are not intelligent enough to make themselves legit like that rest of the bloggers who have orginal content.
Bruno Augers last blog post..Customer Support: Knowing, Educating and Selling
Hi,
I thought about it as a ‘free promotional method’ - but since you put it that way, I start to feel uneasy about it!
Great tips and will put it into practice if scraping happened!
Thanks
Noobpreneurs last blog post..Web Directories as Web Investment - Well Worth the Trouble?
You couldn’t have timed this better. My content is being scraped along with other popular iPhone blogs and I have resorted to the same tactics you mention. Politely asking them to remove my feed or use an excerpt. If not, I will be filing a DMCA report. Then contact their host. As like most instances, there is no contact info in the site. But, they were kind enough send me a dozen pings in one day to alert me!
maybe these are better than My strategy for dealing with stolen content.
I simply wrote stuff so boring and unoriginal that noone would ever want to steal it,
unfortunately my article ” the letter w typed 23,48 times” never really went viral like I hoped,
so my traffic still sucks
thanks and take care
bryan
hmmm great strategy lol
This is very interesting topic and give me idea how to deal it properly, I think this is the case of my site being penalized by Google after seeing most of my post pinging back to me from other site, some with my name and some have not. I was so lazy to deal with them and let them go, so what happen was even I got a lot of hits, lots of legal linkbacks and twice PR update I still don’t get any PR score now. How about next post is how to regain back your lost PR due to content stealer?
Informative post, what is the general concensus on rewrites ie 6o/40 new content
Sometimes you just have to use a bigger stick!
Kill The Scrapers!s last blog post..Wednesday’s Jigsaw Puzzle - Jardines
Actually you can find the webhost of a specific site just by going to whoishostingthis.com.
I had the advertising copy from my website copied about five times. I could see taking it from someone who is a legend in copywriting, but, from me, not much going on in terms of legend, or copywriting genius for that matter! (LOL!).
Luckily, I have Copyrights on both my advertising and my ebook. Most of the people that copied it - just did a simple copy and paste and made no attempt to even rewrite it.
They even included the testimonials. Most of time, they were using the copy to resell my ebook (which they don’t have the resale or affiliate rights to) on Ebay and IOffer.com.
Ebay has been great about taking the auctions down and don’t allow digital product sales anymore. IOffer.com has been speedy with my complaints as well.
But, recently, I had it copied again. I could not get a hold of the owner. His/Her e-mail was undeliverable which is not a surprise. I found out who the host was and lodged my first DMCA complaint.
I sent it by regular mail, which, mysteriously, never got delivered. Strike one. I then tried faxing my complaint, and the matter was resolved within a day.
I guess the point of this post is this. While you can’t copyright every post, or prevent scraping entirely, you can make sure that advertising or ebooks that you sell are throughly protected.
Yes, I know that some of you assume that you can get a Google cache on your work, and that your Domain registration can help you create a timeline as to when your site was established.
Anything that you create for your site or blog is assumed to be copyrighted automatically. But, for concrete proof, you would be best served by using the TX Short Form from the copyright office
Copyright Office.
I spent the 33 dollars for both my advertising and my ebook, for a grand total of 66 dollars. The copyright office is like clockwork. Within six months almost to the day, they sent me my certificate. Probably one of the most effiicent government agencies I have dealt with!
For the future, and with more research, I am going to look into disabling the cut & paste feature with some Javascript. However, I am not sure if that will inhibit the ability of spiders from crawling my front page as well.
Personal anecdotes aside, if you can afford to do it, get Uncle Sam’s protection on anything that is a constant “workhorse” for your site, i.e., advertising, printed, or digital publications..
Thats my rant..
Robert The Wholesale Products Guy
I have a content thief that is taking my posts, and removing all references to my site. Since my content is under a creative commons license, I do not mind them using it for non-commercial use with attribution, but they do not attribute it. I contacted the Google spam team since they are just replicating my posts. I’m hoping that I can find the IP of the webhost & give them a different RSS feed with some fabricated content in it.
Owens last blog post..SSH Escape
That was a great chunk of information. I was looking forward to gain knowledge about content issues and got right on time
I find this a little trickier in my genre (gadgets). The discovery of the gadget and reporting on it first is most important. Often I’ll find a new gadget, write it up with a link to the manufacturer or a retailer’s page and then find another blog has ’scooped’ the gadget without listing my site as a source when it’s pretty obvious they took the idea from me. Even a tiny “via” or “source” at the bottom linking to me is fine but many sites don’t do this.
I find a lot of the content scrapers actually link back to me, which is not ideal but acceptable. As long as they link, Google should hopefully (or eventually) get it right.
Jeffs last blog post..Candlestick Flashlight Combines Two Great Weapons
Tim Knox posted a blog for this same topic this week, but his focused more on info products, like ebooks. To discourage plagurism of his info products, he recommends using eBook Pro as well as copyright all pages.
You can find his blog post at: http://www.timknox.com
-Kevin
I totally agree with Bryan Bliss. Write boring and unoriginal crap er stuff and so you’d go untouched. Wish I learned that when I was just starting.
xyberk the biz bums last blog post..Oolah Hot Making Money Web Sites
Forget that list. Just file a DMCA notification immediately with the ISP (Google isn’t necessary). Problem solved. If the ISP is non-U.S., they still usually will get rid of the content because it violates their TOS.
Just make sure you own your content, i.e., you are the copyright owner. If you commission content from freelancers, they own it, not you, even if you’ve paid them (you just have an implicit license to use it). You cannot file the DMCA notification unless you own it or have a limited power of attorney or agency appointment for copyright matters from the owner. The easiest thing is to just own it. So always have a written contract transferring copyright in exchange for valuable consideration (the payment).
Freelance writers typically use a work-for-hire agreement, which should state that all rights go to the buyer, once the price is paid.
In the United States, a person who writes anything automatically has a copyright to it–no one else may use it without permission. This is not true in all countries.
As far as I know, you can simply state your name, the copyright symbol and the year on the page to assert copyright. To prove originality, many people send themselves a copy of what they’ve written via registered mail and don’t open the letter. Just file it with a plain old printed copy and you have proof of the date on which (or before which) you wrote the piece. You can also formally register your copyright for a fee.
As a freelance writer working through Elance, I can testify to the amount of scraping going on. It’s very hard to stop. Worse, there are article “spinning” programs that change the content of an article just enough to fool plagiarism checkers such as Copyscape. IMHO, this is illegal, unless the person who holds the copyright on the paper gives permission to use it in this way.
Thanks for information. Its real to deal with such people and ball gets dropped due to intracacies involved. The system should be more robust and foolproof.
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