I was inspired when Leo of Zen habits announced that he is UN-copyrighting his website. As much as scraping is annoying, Google does have machanisms in place to give the page views to the original and not to the copy (simply because the original is older).

Also, it helps to remember these guys are losers. Not one of them will “make it big” or really succeed financially, as long as these are the methods they use.

I liked you StumbleUpon comments – seems using the social features of their software is more likely to get you flagged as a spammer, which is quite ironic.

What I have noticed is that lots of people tend to use SU solely to promote their own content. Now, I do that…to an extent. But I play, and I stumble and I submit new stuff as well. I like to think I’m a good all-round Stumbler.

I’ve been thinking about how to be more selective lately myself.

One, stop thumbing up sites with a big spammy ad-block just underneath the post title. Those are ugly and an offense to users.

Two, watch out for parasite blogs – those that repost images and videos from other sites with no original content or ideas of their own.

Three, unfriend annoying Stumblers – those who are clearly in it for the benefit of their own sites and who eat up your day with low-quality submissions. Also unfriend people who send you Digg and Reddit pages to upvote – that’s clear spamming and needs to be cut out.

Can’t think on anything else right now, but this has been on my mind for a while.

Beautiful article and it’s a great reminder of the power of knowledge.

I used to worry about the bot stuff more, but it seems that Google is pretty good about bumping up the original site, either because it’s first or due to page rank. I think it’s an undercurrent that will always exist.

Hi Bunny,

The scrappers seem to be getting better and better at stealing our content, don’t they? Like J.D., I’ve stopped worrying about it although I do try to add links back to myself in many of my posts (as a check point). I’m seeing more and more sites where they will take the first paragraph or two (especially if they are optimized for SEO), and then have a “read the rest here…” with a link back to me. Those sites are usually filled with ads, so I’m guessing they hope the readers won’t click on the article, but will click on an ad instead.

What I also find is those sites seem to disappear as fast as they pop up. I don’t know if they realize their scheme isn’t working or if they find what they think is a better one. Whatever it is, I’m happy I don’t live like that. Can you imagine waking up every morning and thinking, “Whose content can I rip off today?”

And there’s karma – but that’s a subject for another day.

P.S. Thank you for the link love, Bunny. I truly appreciate it.

My stuff gets scraped all the time, soooo anoying… I read an interesting post recently by another fed up blogger, read about his take on it here: http://www.inspiredmoneymaker.com/2009/07/27/blogging-is-dead/

I really hope that ’sites of value’ win out in the end….

Hope you’re well! -Ross

hi Bunny,
Very informative article. I must thank you for sharing this here cause one question that has been pressing me..is that can i put a copyright on my blog content. I mean i put a lot of work into my posts and would hate for them to be stolen without consequence. Or is there any alternative way to avoid the stealing??

Hi Bunny, thanks for showcasing our company on your article, I really appreciate that. I had a lot of fun being a guest blogger on Barbara’s blog and you asked some really good questions.

Like Barbara and J.D., I pretty much ignore those scrapers anymore. I remember the first time I saw my content word for word on someone else’s site, I was like, “What the heck?”

It is stealing and unfortunately there’s not a whole lot we can do about it. And like Barbara said, what goes around comes around.

These people will never truly be successful. They are cheaters, and cheaters never really win.

HI Vered,

I have crashed horns with my husband over this a few times. He told me to look at it as flattery because dwelling over it was nonsense, just a waste of time and energy.

I still don’t find it flattering but do understand there are always somebody in the crowd that is going to abuse any thing they can.

Thank you for stopping by and sharing your views on this subject.
I really love your blog.

Hi Gerald,

StumbleUpon has had to cut down on the abuse of these sites. Personally I am happy they are.

I am very happy to see you here. I know we just have recently become friends on SU.

Thank you for stopping by and sharing your thoughts here with us.

Hi J. D. ,

I am getting use to it slow but sure and I do agree it is always going to be a problem at least for now.

Thank you so much for dropping in today, it is always a pleasure to see you and hear your opinion.

Hello Barbara,

It is sad when someone takes a gift of knowledge and abuses it to swindle and steal, in order to make money.

I agree with you – this will all catch up with them at some point.

I do understand that these bots and other programs are used by Google, etc for our benefit.

Thank you so much for stopping in and sharing your thoughts on this issues. I enjoyed your site very much.

See you in ‘Class

Hi Ross –

I have missed you…
I stopped by your blog this morning still asleep I am afraid and with out my contacts or glasses. So sorry . Then I broke my toe yesterday on Thumper ’s birthday of all days. Phew, what a day and so much pain!

Thank you for the link and your thoughts on this issue.

We have been fine and very busy. Hope you and your family are well.

It is great to hear from you -

Hello Zeenat,

My understanding is that if you reference your blog a couple of times throughout your article it is less likely to be stolen.

Web technicians are diligently working to protect us but thing is what they develop, only protects us until there is an update on our computer. Then these spiders and bots named by the scraper or spammer are unrecognizable to the security plug- in you have install to prevent your content from being scraped etc.

Jeff Starr invented a plug-in for this. You might want to ask him or John Hoff.

I share your concerns and I know how many hours we take writing and pouring our hearts into our posts for our readers.

Thank you so much for stopping by and sharing with us. I hope you will contact John and Jeff for further questions you may have.

Loved your article today ))

Seems like we were on the same page about the StumbleUpon stuff today!

I get pings to my blog everytime I write articles from sites that grab the excerpt and the link and post them. Fortunately, most of them link back to the original author.

I had one instance, however, when I found a blog that was pulling the entire article on their site. Sure, it still linked back to mine, and I knew the blogger, so I didn’t think it was malicious. But I still don’t need article after article re-published on another site, so I asked them to stop, which they did. It’s sad that people are just writing programs to encourage people to rip others off though.

~ Kristi

Hi John,

I am so pleased you stopped it, I had so much fun in class that day. I love Barbara ’s site.

It is important to let people know who to ask. I decided immediately to showcase you and Jeff.

I hear the echoing words of my husband in your comment.
He is more savvy on these matter then I am.

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on this issue.

My pleasure. And yes Barbara’s blog is one of my favorites. We started blogging pretty close to the same time and I’ve been following her blog ever since.

There are some WordPress plugins out there which say they help limit scrapers and other scum, but I’ve tried them and haven’t noticed any difference – unfortunately.

Hi Kristi,

Yes , it seem StumbleUpon ’s abuse is a big issue at the moment. I read your article StumbleUpon Etiquette Faux Pas, Tips & Resources and said oops – I would have loved to of added it to my article. It is so important to inform others what is going on.
Hopefully things will ease up on SU.
… and as far as scraping the first time I was scraped it was by a brothel in Germany. Yep, not a happy time.
Great to hear from you, Kristi.

Bunny, this was a wonderful article. I’ve never worried about this stuff but I guess I should huh? Anyway thanks for sharing this and waking me up big time!

Hi Bunny, sadly there will always be those who spend their energy trying to cheat their way through life. In the end, they will have nothing to show for their misguided efforts. This was a really informative article, thanks for the heads up.

Scrapping / content theft is practically in the same line as identity theft, both are serious and untolerated. I have a friend who had her content scrapped, and she spent massive time, energy to deal with it. Her content was used to falsely redirect people to malicious site via search engine. Very irresponsible act. As for StumbleUpon, I agree with most of the commentators above.

Very informative post, Bunny.

I started getting a little paranoid when I get emails from people wanting to do a guest post on my blog. These people have never made a comment, or chatted with me before, but suddenly they want to do a guest post when I know know who they are. To make matter’s worse, their grammar is REALLY bad. Not bad like mine for instance, but totally unacceptable. I smell scam when I get those requests (sometimes twice from the same person).

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for stopping by. We all have to stick together and inform each other what is going on in the Blogosphere.

Hi Jonathan,

I know what goes around comes around. It is sad that so much abuse is out there.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing.

Hi Ching Ya,

I think all of us either have had it done or knows someone who has had content stolen. Another friend of mine told me her whole blog was stolen when she first started. Scary.

Thank you for sharing -

Hi Carla,

If you don’t know them flag them, if they are doing this. It sounds to fishy to me.

You can get around guest posts by asking people to send you the content. This allows you to edit it and protects your security.

You have brought up a good point.

Thanks for stopping in and sharing. Let me know what you decide to do.

Scrapers and spammers are indeed a bane on the net; and Jeff’s 4g blacklist is indeed very useful form of protection.

Though I agree with your main point (against nickky cakes) that automated sites that scrape content are indeed a terrible idea, and as you have mentioned adding links back to you are an easy way to identify these people and file a DMCA/ Take down notice with the host.

However automated sites as a basis for SEO that I feel is more arguable, I will not deny that I have played with auto-sites before. In fact googling it I think im in the top 10 (http://thenexus.tk/automated-video-sites/). Though the potential garnered from auto sites from a SEO point of view is, they can be seen as a vital base as mooted in SEO empire articles linked at the end of that post.

In conclusion scrapers/spammers bad …autosites questionable/

Hi Bunny
I just saw this link of mine you added come up in my stats and wanted to thank you with a stumble Hope all is well the site looks excellent and loads great

Donace,

I never said who it was, lol.

Thanks for your informative comment.
Stop by again

Hi John,

Thank you for the great posts you write, you have given me some great tips and resources on your blog.

Thanks for your support and stopping by.