5 ms·

Autoblogging site stealing my content

6 points by eof 16y ago

Not sure how to proceed to get it stopped. They aren't linking back to us or anything. I don't want to dump a bunch of time into it, I am just wondering what it is people do in these situations. We have a lawyer on retainer ready to send a cease-and-desist if I could only find out where to send it :) Running a whois on them brings up a privacy service. Site in question is 1whp.com

madhouse 16y ago
I'd figure out what IP they're scraping from, and configure my system to serve junk for that. That won't help with previously stolen content, but they won't be able to continue doing that in the future. Also, this works as an interim workaround until one figures out where to send the cease-and-desist letter. ;)
ryanto 16y ago
I wouldn't worry about this too much. Google does a good job when it comes to spotting the difference between you and these guys. As far as serving junk content to that IP, its a waste of time. As your blog gets more popular you'll start getting more and more people ripping your content. The time you spend trying to beat these guys is better used elsewhere. My advice, get a few high quality links going to your domain, this will come naturally over time. It will really let the search engines know which domain is the authority and which domains are just stealing content.
- sajithw 16y ago
  I feel like I can't do a google search for anything technical without the top results being horrible MFA sites with content scraped from mailing lists/stackoverflow and completely plastered with ads. This might not be the same as autoblogging, but it's driving me insane and Google is definitely doing a poor job.
niico 16y ago
Add to your footer of your rss feed "This article was written by me at mysite.com 'the best site in the world'" and add links in your content linking previews your own articles. After all.. free links for you
notahacker 16y ago
the whois also has nameservers pointing to their webhost: webhostingplan.com.au You could try sending the webhost a DMCA takedown notice notifying them that 1whp.com is displaying your copyrighted content. Although any host that displays Adwords (with a "Dont forget to check out the competition before deciding on us :)" message that probably violates Google's TOS) is pretty spammy themselves, and they appear to be Australian so probably aren't too fussed about US copyright legislation. Or remove the splog's reason for existence by sending the DMCA takedown notice to Google...
revorad 16y ago
I once had a similar problem. I just sent a stern email to the domain provider, who sorted it out for me. Legal action is probably too much of a time and money sink for such trivial annoyances. But just threatening with legal action works.
maguay 16y ago
Huge problem across the whole 'net ... most semi-major blogs get their content copied and stolen all the time. I guess the only good things is that your content is popular enough to want to steal :P

6 points by eof 16y ago

madhouse 16y ago

I'd figure out what IP they're scraping from, and configure my system to serve junk for that. That won't help with previously stolen content, but they won't be able to continue doing that in the future. Also, this works as an interim workaround until one figures out where to send the cease-and-desist letter. ;)

ryanto 16y ago

I wouldn't worry about this too much. Google does a good job when it comes to spotting the difference between you and these guys. As far as serving junk content to that IP, its a waste of time. As your blog gets more popular you'll start getting more and more people ripping your content. The time you spend trying to beat these guys is better used elsewhere. My advice, get a few high quality links going to your domain, this will come naturally over time. It will really let the search engines know which domain is the authority and which domains are just stealing content.

sajithw 16y ago
I feel like I can't do a google search for anything technical without the top results being horrible MFA sites with content scraped from mailing lists/stackoverflow and completely plastered with ads. This might not be the same as autoblogging, but it's driving me insane and Google is definitely doing a poor job.

niico 16y ago

Add to your footer of your rss feed "This article was written by me at mysite.com 'the best site in the world'" and add links in your content linking previews your own articles. After all.. free links for you

notahacker 16y ago

the whois also has nameservers pointing to their webhost: webhostingplan.com.au You could try sending the webhost a DMCA takedown notice notifying them that 1whp.com is displaying your copyrighted content. Although any host that displays Adwords (with a "Dont forget to check out the competition before deciding on us :)" message that probably violates Google's TOS) is pretty spammy themselves, and they appear to be Australian so probably aren't too fussed about US copyright legislation. Or remove the splog's reason for existence by sending the DMCA takedown notice to Google...

revorad 16y ago

I once had a similar problem. I just sent a stern email to the domain provider, who sorted it out for me. Legal action is probably too much of a time and money sink for such trivial annoyances. But just threatening with legal action works.

maguay 16y ago

Huge problem across the whole 'net ... most semi-major blogs get their content copied and stolen all the time. I guess the only good things is that your content is popular enough to want to steal :P