|
|
|
(41 intermediate revisions by 3 users not shown)
|
| Line 1: |
Line 1: |
| − | Thanks to a Google Alert, we noticed that an article that [[Christian Bullock]] wrote back on [date] for our [[Learn]] section on [[AboutUs.org]] was showing up word for word and image for image on a different website, with no attribution or link to us. Links in our original article were changed to point elsewhere and they used our images from our servers.
| + | {{ArticleTemplate2 |
| − | | + | | Writer = KristinaWeis |
| − | Here is the article on AboutUs.org: http://bit.ly/KeywordWisdom
| + | | Name = Kristina Weis |
| − | | + | | Header = What%20to%20Do%20If%20Your%20Content%20is%20Stolen |
| − | [[Image:IspeyScreenshot.png|thumb|right]]
| + | | Subhead = Dealing With Content Thieves |
| − | And here is that same article on [[ispey.com]]: http://bit.ly/IspeyKeyword In case that URL gets taken down, see the image to the right.
| + | | Bitly = http://bit.ly/StolenContent |
| − | | + | | Date = November 11, 2010 |
| − | We recently wrote about the Cooks Source incident where the magazine edited and published an article they found on the internet. In that case they did give the author credit, but they did not ask her permission to re-publish or compensate her. For more, see the [blog post].
| + | | AuthorWebsite = AboutUs.org |
| − | | + | }} |
| | + | ==Dealing With Content Thieves== |
| | ---- | | ---- |
| | + | You've spent months or years building your website and its content, and you're proud of it. One day you find that some thrown-together website has copied your content and tried to pass it off as its own work. |
| | | | |
| − | You've spent months or years building your website and its content, and one day you find that some thrown together website has scraped your site, copied your content and tried to pass it off as its own.
| + | This is incredibly frustrating. Worse, this duplicate content forces search engines to decide which website is the original and should rank higher. It's possible that the copied content on the other website may show up above yours in search results. |
| − | | |
| − | It's incredibly frustrating. And unfortunately, I have to say there isn't much you can do about it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | ==This hasn't happened to my site. Can I prevent it from happening?==
| |
| − | The '''[[How to Use Robots.txt|robots.txt]]''' file on your website gives you the ability to request that certain bots or spiders do not crawl your site. So it would be possible to tell search engines spiders it's okay to crawl your site, and ask all other bots not to. The problem here is that [[How to Use Robots.txt|robots.txt]] is a sort of gentleman's agreement that respectful websites and bots abide by, but the types of websites that would send bots to scrape content are very unlikely to respect your robots.txt. (Also, disallowing all bots besides search engines bots you name can be risky for [[SEO]] because search engines sometimes change the name of their bots and then you would effectively remove your website's pages from that search engine's results when that happened.)
| |
| − | | |
| − | ==How can I know?==
| |
| − | One of the best things you can do is keep track of people and websites talking about you. You can set up a [http://google.com/alerts Google Alert] for your business name, website name, and maybe the title of important pieces of content on your site. This way you will get an email when something that meets your criteria pops up on the web. There are also [[Track Your Social Presence|other tools]] you can use to actively track what people are saying about you.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Beyond keeping an eye out for foul play, it's a great way to help manage your online reputation and engage with your customers.
| |
| − | | |
| − | ==So your content has been copied. What can you do?==
| |
| − | | |
| − | * Contact the site and ask nicely, but firmly
| |
| − | : Try looking for contact information on the website itself. If that doesn't work, check the site's [[whois]] record on a site like {{LinkPair|DomainTools.com}}.
| |
| − | : If you can't get in touch with them, or if they don't respond appropriately, move on to plan B and go above their head.
| |
| | | | |
| − | * Talk to the people that control their website
| + | Here at AboutUs.org, [http://blog.aboutus.org/2010/11/11/take-our-content-but-credit-us-for-it/ our content was recently lifted] and republished on another website without any attribution. I want to share what we've learned, so you can deal with any site that steals your content. |
| − | : Contact their [[registrar]] or hosting company to let them know about the offending site. | |
| | | | |
| − | * Report it to Google
| + | <big>''[http://www.aboutus.com/what-to-do-before-after-your-blog-content-is-scraped-stolen-copied/ ...read more]'' |
| − | : If you are confident that you have a legal copyright case you can [http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=58 report copyright infringement to Google] that violates [http://www.google.com/dmca.html DMCA]. Be warned: This can take a long time, and if you lose you will be responsible for attorney fees.
| |
| − | ** [http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/request.py?hl=en&contact_type=legal_removals Legal request for removal]
| |
| − | ** [https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport?hl=en&pli=1 Reporting spam to Google] (duplicate site or pages?)
| |
| − | ** General Google page on [http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Web+Search/thread?tid=2856d612feeb1e71&hl=en removing content]
| |
| | | | |
| | + | ''Note: This article has been updated and moved to [http://www.aboutus.com/what-to-do-before-after-your-blog-content-is-scraped-stolen-copied/ www.AboutUs.com/what-to-do-before-after-your-blog-content-is-scraped-stolen-copied/].'' |
| | | | |
| − | <YouTube>5CosWAVLCZg</YouTube> | + | {{LearnBottomBio |
| | + | | Writer = KristinaWeis |
| | + | | Name = Kristina Weis |
| | + | | Image = Image:KristinaBluesFest.png |
| | + | | AuthorWebsite = AboutUs.org |
| | + | | ShortBio = Kristina is a community manager for [[AboutUs.org]] who talks with a lot of website owners who are trying to promote their business online. <small>Have a question? [[Kristina Weis#Contact_Kristina|Contact me]].</small><br />{{Twitter|KristinaWeis}} |
| | + | }} |
You've spent months or years building your website and its content, and you're proud of it. One day you find that some thrown-together website has copied your content and tried to pass it off as its own work.
This is incredibly frustrating. Worse, this duplicate content forces search engines to decide which website is the original and should rank higher. It's possible that the copied content on the other website may show up above yours in search results.
