Tue 20 Nov 2007
Plagiarism is Still Happening
Posted by tel under Blogging
It never ceases to amaze me that there are bloggers out there who still, despite my earlier exposee on this subject, come to this blog and copy my articles and then publish them on their own blogs. Some are nice enough to credit me with writing the article and link back to me, which I don’t mind.
Others annoy the hell out of me by simply stealing my article and posting it as one of their own.
Well, on the one hand, using my stuff and linking back to me is ok as I benefit from the additional exposure. But to blatantly steal someone else’s work an be so ignorant as to try to palm it of as their own simply beggars belief!
Do they think this will help their blog and get them lots of traffic?
Think again.
By using someone else’s work, you are not only publishing duplicate content on your site but many blog readers read many different blogs and there’s a very good possibility that they’ll come across the same article in more than one blog. Then they’ll start wondering who published it first.
Well, some people get curious enough to go consult Copyscape or even one of the search engines to see which blog posted the article first - thereby discovering the true owner of the article. Guess what they’ll think of the blog owner(s) who have that article on their front page with their name on it?
Yep. They will at the very least never go back to the blog of a content thief. At the very worst, they may well report that blog to the owner of the original article or to Copyscape who can escalate things - if the blogger is using a free blog service, they can have their blog deleted. If they are self hosted, for one they should be professional enough to know better and two their host can be contacted with the details and they could find themself being blacklisted.
Not only that, the search engines, Google in particular absolutely loathe duplicate content - and when (not if) they find duplicate content on your site, they’ll slap you down so fast you won’t know what hit you.
Maybe you’re sitting there with a free blog and no page rank and you think, “Who cares? Ive got no page rank to take away in the first place so I’ll just keep on doing it.”
That doesn’t do you any good either, as it just means that if you are indexed, you’ll be de-indexed and if you’re not already indexed you’ll be sand-boxed for a very long time - until you remove the duplicate content!
So to sum up - Don’t Do It!
November 20th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
It will never end!
There are far too many people who just don’t care that they are blatantly stealing. Then there are others that don’t know any better and think it’s ok. Then there are even others that actually think it is helping.
It’s a shame no matter how you look at it. Nobody benefits from it so there’s no point.
I’ve had tons of articles stolen. I used to contact people when I found they had stolen my content and tell them to take it down. Some did but most never bothered to even reply. Now I usually don’t waste my time anymore.
I even had the entire home page of my website copied once. When I threatened the guy with all sorts of actions he said he doesn’t live in the U.S. and his country wouldn’t care. He said he could just move his sites to a host in his own country. Luckily he was in a good mood and took down my content but he almost didn’t.
It’s just stupid that people would do this.
Anyway, great post! I am with you 100%
November 20th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Thanks Trent,
I know just how you feel. Whole pages from this site have turned up on other sites and it’s getting beyond a joke.
I know it’s a waste of time trying to get through to these people - often they don’t speak English and want English content for their sites even though they don’t know what it even says!
Crazy!
The Copyscape banner doesn’t seem to put anyone off either - all I can hope is I get some link juice back from the ones who are reasonable enough to leave my links in place!
November 20th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
I had this problem with one blog. I like that blog, it’s interesting.
Once the owner posted one photo from my blog and linked to me. The day after he posted the second photo as own. One of his visitors was my usual visitor too. And he began to write that it’s a bad way to do. The owner answered with bad words about the blog where he had stolen the photo. My blog, as thought that visitor.
One day I visited that blog and… found that photo and those bad words. I feeled very bad. Not only you don’t respect my work, but you speak bad about me…. I wrote it. But the owner said me, that photo he copied from an other site and he don’t like that blogger.
What I want to say. We create not only blogs, we create relationships. I saw different times that my visitors protect me when they feel danger for me from other blogs. I had never asked them about it.
I think, nobody can copy YOU. You are unique and if you have an open heart others feel it.
November 20th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
Absolutely right - they can copy your work, but they can’t copy the originator!