January 4, 2010

BLOGGERS BEWARE !

We garden bloggers are a closely knit group. Thanks to Mr. Brown Thumb I discovered that I had been scraped. Scrapers need content to feed their contextual ads such as Google AdSense. They use multiple keywords and they steal articles that help them rank high in search engine results.

I'm not the only blogger being scraped ( of all places in Istanbul, Turkey ) by Homedepotgarden.net. I'm guessing he thought that the name Home Depot would generate a lot of hits . I found Cameron of Defining your Home and Garden and other garden blog posts without any credit so I'm not sure who they belong to.

What steps can you take to try to stop scraping or at least make it more difficult for them? First sign up to have your work licensed at Creative Commons. If the scraper uses Google you can report them by visiting Google.com, type in their domain in the search field and when it finds the site, go to report a spam result and follow instructions.

Next you can find the scrapper's web host by visiting Whoishostingthis.com and type in the domain in their search box. Visit the scrapers web hosting company and leave them an email.

I'm hoping to get this scraper banned from AdSense, Google and the web host. Copy this, Home Depot Garden.

9 comments:

  1. Great advice, Carolyn. Unfortunately, most of this is done by "bots"...malicious software that is put in place by those less scrupulous. They're often difficult to trace. But your suggestions are excellent ones.

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  2. good post! Something we all need to know! This happens so much! I also use Copyscape to help cut down on copying, etc. Doesn't that just tick you off!

    I know it is cold up there! It is pretty chilly here! I just built a fire to cozy up to

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  3. Thanks Carolyn Gail, for this info and especially what steps to take to stop it. We have had problems in the past and contacted the offenders several times before our content was removed. It is stealing, plain and simple.

    Farnces

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  4. I had never heard of scraping before, Carolyn; thanks for this warning. I went to this site and couldn't believe what I was seeing--your blog title is listed several times, and Cameron's name is in plain sight on the photos from her post! I would be seeing red at this point! This is out and out plagiarism--any place but the internet it would be outlawed.

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  5. Carolyn Gail, since the site is using A LOT of my material, I have sent Home Depot a message to ask their help in taking down that illegal website.

    Thanks for the info.
    Cameron

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  6. I have also reported the site to Google.

    Thanks
    Cameron

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  7. That is just awful! I hate it that folks need to be so sneaky and deceptive and use other's work. I will be on the watchout and check out those sites. Happy New Year to you! P.S. Lucky you to have an engineer hubby who can do designs.

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  8. You are my hero!!! And you are so encouraging!! Thank you. I'm in the fight of my life for Flowergardengirl™. Won't go in to the details here but know that I'm appreciative for your friendship in the blog world and recent comments to my new site. Big hugs to you. It's so easy for ppl to steal our stuff. We work so hard for it.

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  9. I've also had this problem with a site called NameMedia Home and Garden. They republish whoe posts and although they leave a link to the original site I think it is still stealing. I've emailed many time (no luck), I've used CopyScape (and it just tells me who is taking my posts). I've seen many of the garden blogs I visit on these sites. They use names such as fruniturecustommade.com, tranquilgarden.com, gardenconsulting.com and many more. I have now added a blurb to my feed that says I'm not affiliated with these sites etc so when others read it on those sites they will know. I did try notifying others that have stolen posts but I just don't have that much time. Thanks for your thoughts on how to deal with this, but I don't think anything will work right now.

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