This Site Is Stealing My Content For Dodgy Links - AutoBlogging Cheats
By Mark Ewbie
Easy Pickings on the Web
It's bad enough writing into a vacuum of search traffic, and hard enough building a reputation.
When you then find your own articles are being outranked by someone who regularly 'links' to them in order to steal your search traffic and try to sell some unscrupulous web scrape auto blog system...
Grrrr.
The screen shot shows my articles, under my name on a spam web site.
So I thought I'd knock up one last half hearted effort under this ID just to see if by some irony it would appear a few days later on the other site.
It's important to still feel some amusement or enjoyment in writing - and this action will at least make me feel empowered.
Depending on how well it works I could create a whole load more on the lines of "Hey Look I Am A Content Thief" or similar.
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It's a Catch 22
You start off full of hope - an eager young thing in writing terms.
This will be the Big One - my first ever real money making idea.
Join a writing site and put hours of effort in - writing stuff of course, but also playing that popularity game of climbing the greasy pole.
Watch your star rise, check your scores and accolades - point out excitedly to your partner about how well you are doing.
"Made any money yet?" is the killer question of course. But money isn't everything, not when you're starting out.
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Sorry Catch 22 Explained
Sorry, I missed the point in my last section.
That's partly because for once I am not writing this in Word and going through a tidy / edit stage.
Can't see the point in putting a lot of effort in, because the purpose of this piece is purely to see how it looks on my personal thief's website.
The catch 22 is. Get the hang of writing online, get noticed, get stolen.
Having established in a small way your online persona it then acts as a bait to anyone who needs some original hand written content.
Like leaving your downstairs windows open and saying "Hey thief here's all my stuff" - online publishing makes you an easy target.
What to do?
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If You Can't Beat Them...
I am sure that a lot of copiers realised the fruitlessness of writing their own stuff.
Maybe they worked hard at first, only to find their work was being stolen. Or maybe they had an unhappy childhood.
Whatever. There's a whole industry out there, and in here on Hubpages - dependent on taking any original writing and either just copying, or spinning it slightly.
Anyone with a high author score, and I guess, especially those who appear to know nothing about back linking, or copyright protection (me) - will be fair game.
Oh yeah, if you can't beat them...
Rest assured that I don't consider joining them to be an option.
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So What to Do?
To be honest friend, and for once I use the term in a real manner - unless you are a copier in which case it's slightly less real...
... I am not entirely sure.
I could set up a series of alternate ID's - in the hope that they do not become popular but manage to stay under the radar. A host of 'Mark' writers - Smith, Jones, Brown and so on.
And a whole host of additional passwords and email addresses to remember.
The copiers don't just take the 'best' names though. They will watch the subjects for whatever niche website they are putting together. Imagine - hundreds of articles delivered to your own website by the simple expedient of copying.
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Is Own Website the Answer?
At least you are not such an obvious target I suppose. But if, and it's a big if, the website were to become popular, or even noticed - then the same problem applies.
And for blogging again, the copiers can just scrape and republish under their name, your name - makes no difference apparently.
Why is Google such a brilliant search vehicle that it cannot put the original content above the copied, linked, spammed versions? In what way does that promote original writing over the other stuff?
Mr.Google - you can shove your algorithm where the sun don't shine. I rather hope that your entire search business disappears as it feeds off it's own pile of garbage. Quality content and search results... my ass.
Sorry. Needed that.
Er, on the subject of websites, they're hard work. I found the format of Hubpages entirely to my liking - easy to write and publish. No faffing around with indexes and design - just write.
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That's All Folks
Enough already. A purely personal hacked off piece destined either for the flagged content bin or to be linked through on this dodgy website.
Perhaps I should be flattered. Maybe it's part of becoming a writer - getting good enough to be copied.
Time to read that Kipling poem again...
If you can meet with being copied and still find the will to carry on writing...
... then you'll be a writer my son.
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Whoops, forgot the joke
I always put at least one amusing comment in, even in a rant piece.
But I haven't got the heart to segue them into the content using any subtlety.
Q. What do you call someone who uses your content?
A. edited
Q. What do you call a search engine who ranks copies higher than original?
A. redacted
I've cleaned up the answers. C'ya.
Straight Information - An Annoyed Update
I don't normally do facts, this just shows how annoyed I am. The link below is to some scammer where they are quite happy to share the great news about automatic article copying and blogging.
Any content can be grabbed, maybe spun, and republished without any effort whatsoever.
I don't mind 'giving them a link' because to be honest it's a mere drop in the ocean, er, I mean sewage, of grubby little cheats who prosper on the back of the original writer's efforts.
If you think this is a rarity - it's not. Amazon sell books on it. Clickbank sell software for doing it. Hubpages allow articles on it.
And the way Google organises, checks and polices its search results positively encourages it.
This is the dirty little secret of internet writing - most of the contributors are not actually writing a damn thing.
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AutoBlogging Scum
- What is Autoblogging? | Black Hat SEO Source
This is the sort of garbage, cheating, crappy, scum that decent writers are up against. The article discusses quite openly the benefits of automatically stealing content and republishing it on your blogs. Automatically.
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Comments
Thanks Angie. I wish it were a compliment but sadly it's not. They will copy and scrape anything that they think will earn some traffic and sales.
Over the last few months, well since I have been here, I have watched as Hubbers get their work stolen and fight web sites to get it taken down again.
Sometimes they succeed, but rarely does anything happen to the perpetrator.
In my case, the site is not actually 'stealing' my work. They are using my keywords and tags, and a bit of the article to get traffic to their site - and then offering the visitor a choice of continuing to my article or entering their dodgy scam.
So it's probably not even breaking any laws.
Angie, I am not really too down hearted over it - it was a shock at first but just another lesson to learn about internet writing - as if there wasn't enough with SEO, keywords, etc.
Yep, I have had 2 blogs that ranked well in the science, tech communities and child porn sites have been using my links for years. I go to Google Help, and get help. Those suckers must remove. I have also written a couple of Hubs on this subject with links to help for different levels of theft.
When you have a lot of Hub traffic and little comments, often, unscrupulous Hubbers are taking ideas, spinning them, and writing your stuff over in their own twist.
HubPages has a Hubber; Edwierdo, who created Hub Defender, it helps.
For free, you can enter your links, and or keywords into Google Alerts, and if someone uses the info you provided, you will get alerts of use.
I've only had this happen to me once that I know of. I suppose I should use Hub Defender and find out if there is more. Sorry, you're having a problem.
Thanks for the info / idea Lilly. When you feel a bit down there's always the HP community... I'll check your hubs.
Hi Barbara, well it helps to share I suppose.
This really shows how naive I am but I had no idea there was such a thing as an Autoblog! And this is the first I have heard of Hub Defender but will be checking it out as soon as I leave this page. No &*^%$ wonder writers are struggling to make a living! Thanks for the info and you know, Angie has a point. At least your work is worth stealing!
Thanks SilverGenes and good luck with checking out your own work. This is one area where I feel HubPages with all their expertise could really help Hubbers. We write.. and they could do the technical stuff like checking whether hubs are being copied.
It's their income too and not all writers are internet experts.
Mark you should make up some absurd reason why you are in desperate need of making some money from hubbing (anything involving defenceless animals should work)and appeal to the seo experts to help you get backlinks and google traffic. I have actually witnessed a guy making up some sob story and one of the experts came to his rescue. He is reaping the rewards. Go for it.
Excellent idea seanorjohn - I will start developing a plausible and sincere cover story. I can do sincere... probably.
Mark, if you use Chrome all you have to do is highlight some of the text in your hub and right click - Google will then search for that chunk of text for you. Be warned its not for the faint hearted as its scary how many scumbags there are out there and sending the DMCA notices can become a full time job. The ironic thing is that I always put a copyright sentence at the bottom of my hubs and they always keep in on the stolen content!
I don't think that the HP copied hubs things is working as I haven't been alerted for ages, yet loads of my hubs get copied (why I don't know - maybe I should put a disclaimer on them all that they DO NOT MAKE ANY MONEY NOW! LOL!)
Good luck with your experiment - these bottom feeders are so shameless that I bet they scrape and copy this hub!
Thanks CMH, a small consolation about the traffic calamity is that presumably the copiers are affected too.
Useful info about Chrome, I will try it next time I use it.
And this hub was a test, to see if they still put it up there.
Sorry to hear the fruits of your fertile mind have been stolen. Do you recall the late, great comedien Bill Hicks? He was ripped off left and right. . . .by "I'm an asshole" Dennis Leary.
You know. . .I have no idea how I'd find out that my content was copied. What would I do? Copy a paragraph and paste it into Google search engine?
Have you SEEN some of my content? It's like I'm asking the U.S. Government to assassinate me at times. I want a lot of the things I say to become viral, but one would have to be a bit insane (raises hand) to say some of those things.
Yep, "have you made any money yet?" GAWD I was proud to have got that first Google check. It might be a long time b'fore I gets another. The HP ad program "might" be making up for it, but it's really hard to say. Luckily, someone bought a pair of Levis from my amazon ads the other day. . . .
Hi Wesman, I have read some of your content and I like what you do. I hope you get that viral gig sometime.
From what you're saying this is an occupational hazard - and I just need to get on with it.
I think I can officially declare the comments more useful than the hub at this point.
I also think that immitation is truly flattery. . . but I realize that theft is just plain theft.
Do you know of Hubpages "Edweirdo?" He's got some site called "Hub Defender," or something - and it's goal, I think, besides making money. . . .is to defend hubs.
I don't know about how that works, because I'm a penniless rogue.
Mark, I second what CMHypno states about using Chrome. This was a recommendation from Google AdSense Help i took, which has made it better. :0) Edwierdo did it free at first, but with many new joiners he has expenses. I think it is 4.95, 4.00 per month, for 50 looks per day.
Seems like any original content is what these lazy assholes are looking for. I have a poem about emotional abuse on one of my hubs and my luck it was stolen by someone with cancer and is a victim of emotional abuse. I posted a comment on her hub in March requesting that she either remove my poem or I would report her to Google. She has not moderated my comment and given the circumstances I don't know whether she died or is just ignoring my comment. Decided to leave it for a while but being a victim does not give you the right to steal content.
Thanks for telling us about Autoblogging sites Mark, as if us poor (how true!) writers haven't enough to contend with on the Internet. Still there is some (small) comfort in all this, if my work is copied they won't make any money 'cause I certainly am not! Good rant BTW. :)
Mark, this article astounds me. I (like another commenter above) had no idea there was such a thing as auto blogging. What the hell would be the point in that? I have no fear really that any of my stuff would ever be stolen. I probably never have keywords - and my only traffic is EVER from HP and Facebook. But, man, that sucks. Just don't get down...there's gotta be a way to fix it.
Hi Guys, bit lax on comment responding - sleep and work got in the way.
Wesman - I have heard of Edweirdo's brilliant product, but I have no wish to spend money before earning money.
Lilly - I need to check out that Chrome functionality. Wonder why Google can't do something about copied oontent and scam web sites... oh yes, they did.. Panda. Thanks Google.
Laura - I would be wary now of anyone claiming to be anything. If their responses to comments seem genuine, then fair enough, but if content can just be lifted from anywhere and published anywhere, then anyone can be anyone - iyswim.
MPG - I was slightly surprised. At least, I thought, at least the copiers will have to copy and paste - like put some effort in. These pieces of software seem to do the whole thing while they sleep.
Motown - the point is money. For you, me, and all the others (hopefully) - the point is the enjoyment of writing, money is secondary.
Mark, I like money much as the next Detroit gal, but this way of going about making it SUCKS!!! It's not fair to writers who really do try to write quality stuff, even if it's just quirky fun stuff on occasion. I'm sorry. Want me to beat them up for you? :-)
Hi Motown - thanks for the offer!
I might spend a bit of time researching my options but I'm still going to write because I enjoy it.
No worries...truth be told - I'm a former nun, a bit of a pacifist, and I couldn't really fight my way through a piece of wet bread, so my offer was pretty worthless. :-) And, please DO keep writing! I'd be lost without you!
Lol, a piece of wet bread. I need to remember all your phrases and make a page out of them. I still think about "go on with your bad self" on a regular basis.
That may seem a bit sad but hey - I like words. I'm sure you understand.
The thing about keep writing is... I'm not sure I could stop myself. Addicted.
I love words too! Thanks for liking the ones I use. That makes me feel sorta warm-n-fuzzy. :-)
wot sbout yr mate darren? cant he see to them so they dont
bovver you no more?
seriously its rotten and i dont understand how to get rid of them - not sure that you ever do.
Darren's good in a non internet way but his skill set doesn't extend to tracking down these web site guys. Case - I guess we just get on with it, and maybe if HP rankings recover we'll be ahead of these guys anyway.
Well, if you look up the domain, there is a phone number posted: http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois/?tool_id=66&to
but no address. You could call them. It sure is 'odd' that they are linking to so many of your articles. Hmm...
Thanks Nicomp, very helpful. I'm not very good at confrontation.. the wife on the other hand...
Mark, that's the way to do it. My husband and I sic each other on our best rivals all the time!
Ha yes Motown. Sometimes it's easier to fight other people's battles than your own. You should see the fake solicitors letters I write for people. Er. Actually you shouldn't. Forget that.
LMAO - No, no...actually I should! That would tickle me all sorts of colors in the rainbow! :-)
I'm sort of joking, but I have written one or two 'threatening' letters in my time. Maybe there's some mileage in that for a helpful cut and paste hub - complaints, threats, blackmail and so on.
Mainly to do with cat poo on flower borders of course - so a limited market.
And you.. go on with your bad self - all sorts of colours in the rainbow. You're making these up now.
Of course I'm making them up (well, not the go on with your bad self - I stole that), but I get sick of being tickled pink...lol Gotta do something new every now and then, you know?
:-D
Motown, I like very few things more than playing impromptu word games - rhyming, punning - the sillier the better. It's fun, keeps your brain busy, and it's free. Plus if Google ever bothers indexing this stuff we get to have some unique content.
Great article, I think this demonstrates how it is actually difficult for most people to actually write well. There is also something darkly amusing in a Vonnegut kind of way of this machines spewing out masses of vaguely altered content.
Thanks Jimmy, yes important to keep some humor perspective on it. I believe they can automate comments as well. So we move to a world where the writers are bots, the commenters are bots and humans stop reading.
Angie Jardine 12 months ago
Mark, (being serious this time) I am so appalled by what has happened to you. Hub theft is obviously what happens to you when you are extremely good - it's the only positive twist I can offer.
Sadly, it would appear that one country, and mainly this one country, appears to have such a lack of honour and scruples that it will stoop to thieving in any way it can. (No names but if I get one more of those phone calls telling me that I have a virus on my Windows computer - I use a Mac- and if I give them a shedload of my pathetic pension they will 'cure' it for me .... grrr!)