January 25th, 2008
by
Brett Bumeter
There are several different types of website and blog content scrapers and many different activities that they use. Some are harmless and some could be harmful to your websites health.
Some but probably not all the types
- Copy and paste all your content onto their site with no credit
- Copy and paste and unreasonably large amount of content onto their site with no permission but with a link to your site as attribution
- Copy a paragraph of your content (or maybe a few sentences) and a link to your article saying something like -> “Here’s another great article about botox complications and hemorrhoids! “
- Running a short syndicated feed of your material (Headline, excerpt and link to your article)
- Building an entire news or blog site dedicated to doing number 4 with all the news and blog sites in the world (think
- Google news or Google Blog search) -
- Note. I am not passing judgement on Google for this behavior. Google has been sued for this several times.
Any of the above (not counting Google news and the syndicated feed) can trigger a potential comment in wordpress with a trackback link in your comments that points to the permalink that referenced your site.
If you allow that comment to go through, you are allowing a nofollow link to point to that website. You are not passing juice, but nofollow links are indexed and you could be mixing your site with a blacklisted neighborhood on the internet. This could be very bad for your website health.
I recommend marking scraped trackback comments as SPAM, just to be safe at a minimum, remove the link from their trackback, and maybe just show their url address in text form.
If you consider your readers perspective, if they come to your site first, and they then click out from a link to a scraper site that has a link in your comments,
- you are losing readers to a scraper site
- Your sites credibility is harmed in the eyes of the reader as a crank website is pointing at you
- They may see something very vile on the other end or even pick up a computer virus or something if they are scraping not to steal your content but to pull people away with your content and give their computer something nasty!
Other Articles that I read before writing this article about content scrapers
- When Scarfing Content Strikes Back - I wrote this back in October of 2007.
- I first noticed this issue when writing an article on a satire site. I happened to include the word botox in a derogatory way about Anna Nicole Smith or something like that. I then immediately got a pingback from a site dedicated to the B injection and started looking into the issue. I have seen it on sites ranging from diet pills to SEO to Webkinz and politics.
- Getting Value Out of Scrapers - (I do not agree with this article, but do like the idea of including a link in your feed back to your own site.) dated 1-10-2008
- Fighting Scrapers and Using them to Our Advantage dated 1-10-2008
October 27th, 2007
by
Brett Bumeter
Devalue the blogosphere -> Well We can devalue your Algorithm by torching Nofollow
I am not suggesting an open war against the big search engine that has recently dropped cluster bombs on websites and blogs throughout the blogosphere from this blog to the Washington Post to Andy Beard that has documented the saga extremely well to Problogger, who temporarily lost rank and then got it back again after being forced to beg at the alter of the king, to Forbes and many university sites. They dropped the cluster bomb on us and we are the ones that help them make their algorithms work. They hit us because we were in fact influencing their algorithm.
Take Away the Easy Ride for the Search Engine on Cruise Control
The ‘Big Search Engine’ is on cruise control and has been on cruise control for 5-6 years now. Their algorithm has not improved and they have attempted to make the websites on the internet conform to their pseudo Laws.
Well, the truth is that they are the biggest but not the only ‘Big Search Engine’ Out there. Other search engines like Ask are really coming along and the big evil search engine’s days are numbered. They just can not innovate like they used to.
Become the King of your Content Kingdom
Content is king on the internet but the content producers have not capitalized on their king making powers. We put companies like the evil big search engine onto the throne because they could find the right content most of the time with their old tools. But when content started to change the king started to lose power and blamed the king makers, even slapped us around a bit. Many of us took our whipping like the good little co-dependents that we had become and played by the kings new dictates.
The reality is that the internet is flattening. People do not need the king so much anymore, because some schmo on Facebook might have a better suggestion for where the right content is. We are finding better more accurate gateways to the right content. Its not about an algorithm telling you the right answer.
- Its about a person telling you the right answer.
- Telling you why its the right answer.
- Its about showing you how to apply the right answer.
- And Its about you contributing some of your own new wisdom for future searchers that are looking for a rapidly adapting and growing correct answer.
Knock the Crutches Out from Under Neath the King
The King of Search walks with crutches. These crutches keep the king in power. The king of search walks on content producers with these crutches, crushing us down, grinding us into the internet sidewalk like beetles and slow roaches and soft chalky rocks.
Crutch Number 1 - Bloggers Index the Internet so that The King can index the bloggers
The King of search relies on bloggers to index the internet. Its the biggest dirty secret out there. We made the king, by interpreting the internet into text. We see something, watch something, surf something and we write about it and that gives the king of search something to index.
When the king came in and slammed bloggers this month, they didn’t change how they indexed things, they just knocked down PR, the thing that enabled bloggers and websites to earn money from their manual indexing work for the king. The king still relies on our former indexing work and financially benefits from it, while we have had that same work devalued!
Crutch Number 2 - The King forces bloggers to reduce clutter on the internet so that they can more easily Index the Internet
The King has turned content producers into street sweepers! They force and encourage us to put Nofollow tags on links within our pages. They do this so that they can index the important from the less import links with their bots. That’s not really our problem, that’s theirs. Our goal is to make things good for our readers not for some faceless bots used by the king that slams us and forces us to come begging for more.
Thank You Sir! May I have another!
Bloggers Rising
So there are two ways that we can help ourselves break our dependency on the King that we helped to create and keep in power.
1. Torching Nofollow with Disinformation in the Tags - The king requires a nofollow guide to what’s really important on the internet. Make the results of their requirement useless!
Simply put nofollow tags on the important information and leave unimportant links without nofollow tags.
- If you run a blogroll or even affiliate links, put nofollow tags on them. ~ Tip - If the sites are important to you, link to them contextually in articles without the nofollow tags.
- If you link to a major site like Wikipedia or flikr or Facebook or digg or YouTube or any of those sites that are going to get lots of traffic, put a nofollow link on it. Those sites do not need the boost, they don’t need the juice, they are swimming in juice.
- When you write articles, use lots of links, but throw in nofollow tags on some of those links that don’t need the juice or just put some semi important links in to have a few links running with nofollow.
Why? The king’s henchmen bots will see that you are following the nofollow rules. They will think you are a loyal servant and won’t see the disinformation happening, because they are not people smart enough to see through the ruse.
The Result: The content producers information will increase in importance and the king will wane as their results, the actual search results will falter. (Until the king gets off their ass and actually does some work to improve their processes and search engine, or gets beaten by the competition that is working to make significant improvements.)
2. Ending Your Free Manual Indexing Work for the King - Learn How to Leave Text Behind, move into Video and Audio and watch the king sputter.
Your visitors are looking for information. They want to find it quickly and easily and absorb it even faster. When publishers start indexing and interpreting the internet for the evil search king, we do help people find information faster. However, once they get there, we do not have to show them text. We can show them slide shows of text, videos with or without sound, even give them audio to listen to on their computer or iPod.
Why? The King doesn’t have a clue when it comes to video and audio search, but some of the Kings competitors do and they are growing quickly. This is your wake up call and opportunity to give your readers a more compelling product, make your site stickier and STICK IT TO THE MAN, the evil King himself. People are gravitating to video, because its a medium that they are highly trained in. They are surrounded by flat panels and LCD TVs and projectors putting out 8 foot wide screens on their living room walls. Push your message into video and your readers will get it.
The Result: You readers will be happier, they will stick around more. With the competitor search engines out there, you will even start to rocket to the top of the results as video gets more emphasis. Even better yet, it will force the king to improve their own product or suffer the loss of their kingdom and monopoly.
Become the King of Your Own Content
You can become the King of your own Content again, but you have to take the power back. We all have to take the power away from the usurper King and end our co-dependence. The great thing about the path to taking control of our destiny again, is that the path to do that empowers the original king makers again. We do not have to become kings ourselves along the way, but we can end the slavery and benefit from the true value of our efforts, our knowledge, our wisdom and our words.
Personally, I don’t care if the king continues as a going concern or not. If they improve and do good business, more power to them. If they continue to trample people and operate like a ruthless monopoly and in true monopolistic spirit generate a crappy result, then off with the Kings monopoly head!
