Alex Wilson | 20/10/2009
Content theft, also known as content scraping is the act of taking content from its original source and repurposing it for your own website without attributing the author or asking permission.
This normally happens by people who are chasing quick win search strategies of increasing page count, driving traffic and increasing relevance on a certain topic that their website focuses on. Though these strategies tend to be short term, it is painful to see content pirates profiting from content that is rightfully yours.
Robert Beerworth, Managing Director of Wiliam recently spoke at the Australian Copyright Council’s Copyright Symposium – looking at copyright and the digital future, commenting on a number of different issues affecting the internet today, namely the theft of content and how it is degrading the internet.
As someone with a background in SEO, specifically in the prime time of SEO’s buzz around 3 years ago, I couldn’t help but feel guilty about doing this in the past. I would take content from free article websites, offering free content in return for a link to the authors website. I would remove the links, format the article in Dreamweaver and repost into my Wordpress blog, easy.
Looking back on this I can’t help but feel terrible. I was naïve and had a very different outlook on SEO. I had no respect for other people’s copyright or hard work. As someone who now works diligently on my projects, hiring professional writers and engaging in PR to promote and build a brand – I would be absolutely gutted if someone was doing it to me, diluting my hard work for the sake of a quick dollar.
Now days I would never think of taking content, regardless of whether I had a link to the author or not. If the content isn’t 100% original and unique to my website, it's not worth 5 seconds of time.
Original content is the only way to naturally rise to the top in search engines.
An article recently written over at ProBlogger.net discusses practical ways to reduce content theft, here is a brief summary and overview based upon the article. A very big thank you to ProBlogger for the inspiration of this article and the below practical tips.
Identify when your content is stolen
Check the internet for duplicate content that originated from your website. CopyScape.com and CopyGator.com are suggested by ProBlogger.
Ask the website to remove your content - politely!
There is no use taking all your rage out on the website owner who has stolen your content. It is much more beneficial to politely ask them to remove the content as it was reproduced without your consent. You may even want to leave a comment with your request.
Block the scrapers via .htaccess
If your content still continues to be scraped, it is worth while attempting to block the scrapers using your .htaccess file on your server. Doing this will block the scrapers from seeing your blog and receiving your RSS feed (one of the most common ways that scrapers steal content).
Take a higher action
If all of the above fails, consider your legal avenues. It will be an expensive task, if not an impossible task to bring someone to justice for content on their website. The best idea is to email the websites hosting company, inform them of the infringement and request a response. Odds are you want get a response, but it is still worth a shot.
tags:
Online Marketing
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