Well, it’s been an interesting last hour for me.
Started out innocently enough. I sent a Twitter message to a friend of mine asking if she’s seen that I’d mentioned her in a blog post, and gave her the link. She writes back saying she saw the post, but elsewhere, as Google had alerted her on it. She said it confused her because the pictures on the site didn’t match up with the guy who supposedly had written the post.
She shared the link with me and I went to take a look; and, of course, it was my entire article, with pictures of me that I’d put in the post, my advertisement that I usually have at the end of my posts, and of all things this ReadSpeaker icon I have on my site, where people can listen to a post instead of having to read it.
Man, I was livid, probably even more so because my pictures were on it. After 5 minutes of fuming I knew it was time to act. The first thing I did was go to look up who owned the domain. Once I got that email address, I wrote it telling the person to remove my content. They the lady who told me about the site found him on Twitter, so I wrote him. Then I decided to “out” him, since I know that site is a scraper site, and I mentioned his name and the site on Twitter. I then came here and mentioned it on my profile. I then mentioned it to this other blogging group I belong to. Then I saw John’s message to the guy and to me and realized that the guy actually has a regular site. I went there, and saw that his last post was telling people how they could make money through social media. Funny, he didn’t mention stealing other people’s content. So I left a comment there, but it goes through moderation so I’m sure that will never see the light of day. He gets 24 hours to remove my stuff before I get tough and go to the IP.
It’s galling when people steal your stuff. However, you do have things you can do, step by step, to protect yourself and get the credit you deserve for your knowledge. I hope this won’t happen to any of you, but it probably will I’m sorry to say. I hope you remember these steps, and of course it’s always nice finding people who’ll support you in trying to get sites like these shut down. I wonder who else he’s stolen from.
Yep, this has happened to me. Sending email and tweeting is a good idea. I’ve also tried to figure out the bad scrappers signature and ban them with htaccess. But, also I’m of the opinion that not all scrappers are bad. Either way its an uphill battle especially if they are doing good SEO and beating you in SERPs.
I guess I do see all scrapers as bad because their stealing content they didn’t create, and with no effort, using technology to do their dirty work.
And, is it turns out, someone is putting content on this particular site using someone else’s name, and that’s just wrong as well because it could end up being any of us.
I had a blogger steal my content about a year ago. Mine resolution was much easier: I sent them an e-mail asking them to take down my posts. It appeared that they were using my content for they AdSense spam site. While it was a Blogger blog, I figured I would just go to the AdSense team first, since it would probably do more damage to shut down their AdSense account. Lucky for me, I didn’t have to go that far.
Thanks Ileane. The main site that had my images finally did pull my article from their site; the weasels. However, another one that stole from one of my other blogs still hasn’t gotten around to it, and I’ve left two messages telling them to remove it. I need to think about that one, though, since it’s not bothering me as much since they didn’t steal my images as well.
Mitch, @dragonblogger had this problem and here’s what he did http://www.justingermino.com/success-content-thief-remove-content/
You should also check out this site from Jonathan Bailey http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/
I think I replied to the wrong person, but I hope you see it Ileane. lol
Check out this excellent video from WordPress.tv featuring Jonathan Bailey from Plagiarism Today.
http://basicpodcastingtips.blogspot.com/2010/08/how-to-stop-plagiarism-from-jonathan.html
Okay, that’s a bit too long for my needs. lol
It makes me crazy, some of these stealing (BEEPS) are just bone idle, I mean come on, it doesn’t take much to write your own blog post, if they don’t have the brains to write something original of their own then they shouldn’t bother …. OK, I’m calming down now, they just make me CRAZY!!!!
Hmmm I feel slightly better after that
LOL! I actually felt a little better after my rant on Friday as well. But it did take me an hour.
Makes me think wheres theres such a thing as an auto blogging software that does the dirty work. Stuff like that shouldnt be programmed in the first place.
Donnie Lee said: “…Either way its an uphill battle especially if they are doing good SEO and beating you in SERPs…”
Interesting deduction… and unfortunately, very encouraging to the scrapers!
Source Blogger
“Determined to make you a better blogger!”
@Sourceblogger Even though I admire you persistence when I see you wasting time on BC
This is beyond Awesome
I would still like to share this possibly life changing post
@
http://potpolitics.com/2010/08/10/clearly-clear-is-awesome/
You like to hustle
Hi John,
I don’t have any allegiance to BC. But I think it’s important to have access to a greater demographic.
I know many of the regular bloggers here and they know me.
As Blogger Luv grows do will interest to tap into that resource.
I’ll be watching. I’m always watching.
Jeffrey Baril – Source Blogger
“Determined to make you a better blogger!”
http://sourceblogger.com
Every once in a while, I’ll use CopyScape.com just to make sure no one ganks my content. It hasn’t happened to me yet, but I’m ready.
***Angie pls go here
http://bloggerluv.com/wp-admin
and change your profile url to your blogs Thanks
Sorry for the trouble and to edit your comment
This is not a big problem nowadays, when you find out who is stealing your content, you could report it to Google and to the hosting provider. His account will be banned if he doesn’t remove the content.
I hope there are some tools to check if the content is copied.
After it is found, we should take some action immediately. Then they will know that it does not go unnoticed. In most cases, because they are not ranked that high in search engines, we rarely notice that the content is stolen.
Wish you success to settle the remaining case too in your favor.