Dear NoDebtMortgage.com: Please Stop Stealing my Content

15 Responses

1. Dave Smith

   May 12th, 2008 at 10:07 am

   1

   Looks like he took the weekend off. The last post stolen was from last week.

   Thanks Jay, gee this is fun stuff to follow. : )

   At least he used a different theme.

2. Eric Blackwell

   May 12th, 2008 at 10:23 am

   2

   Jay;

   Way to go! I get so tired of folks who think they can do this. Absolutely amazing. See I told you I’d drop by more. (grin)

   Eric

3. Trace

   May 12th, 2008 at 10:38 am

   3

   Not a whole lot you can do unless you want to make fighting scrapers a full time job, but understand your frustration. Unfortunately their information is bogus as would be expected.

   Domain Name: NODEBTMORTGAGE.COM
   Created on: 28-Mar-08
   Expires on: 29-Mar-09
   Last Updated on: 28-Mar-08

   Administrative Contact:
   Cord, Strong
   StrongCord
   First House
   Turtle Island, Hawaii 88888
   United States
   (509) 766-9991

4. Barry Cunningham

   May 12th, 2008 at 11:16 am

   4

   Jay how do you stop them…would love to know. Our stuff gets stolen all the time. What do you do about it. I would love to know!

5. Jay - The Phoenix Real Estate Guy

   May 12th, 2008 at 11:58 am

   5

   @Dave - He/She is back on the job, they are up to yesterday’s post. It’ll be interesting to see if they grab this post. I suspect they will.

   @Eric - Thanks for stopping by! I have zero tolerance for these crooks.

   @Trace - Indeed, it would be a full-time job. Stopping them is painful, and can be time consuming. But it’s also sorta fun to get them shut down. Of course for every one shut down, 10 more pop up in their place.

   @Barry - great question. Here is my approach:

   1) Send a polite email asking them to kindly cease and desist. This almost always works if it’s an individual blogger (usually a new one) that didn’t know it was wrong. It rarely works for full-blown sploggers. Most give no way to contact them. This particular one did (though of course, they have not responded — and I’ll be surprised if they do).

   Be prepared to hear, “But if it’s on the internet, it’s free for the taking!” Which is of course, completely incorrect. But it never ceases to amaze me how many people feel this way.

   2) Do a “whois” and find their host. But as Trace pointed out above, many have bogus info.

   3) Contact that host. Most hosts will ask you to submit a “DMCA notice”. This can be tedious, but very effective (depending on the host). See this post for an example DMCA note and subsequent shutting down of a splogger:

   http://www.phoenixrealestategu.....ffline/399

   This post also has some good tips for uncovering who the splogger is hosting with.

   Technically, IF the host is US based, they are supposed to respond to DMCA notices. Many do. Some do not. If the host is based outside the US, you’re likely SOL — though some will respond.

   4) Contact an attorney. Preferably one versed in copyright law and how it applies on the Internet. This is not cheap. Here’s where having an attorney friend can help. Often a letter from an attorney to the individual (if you can find them) or host “threatening” legal action will get them to act.

   Ultimately, you could sue. I’ve never gone that far. I know some that have. It is difficult to prove actual damages in cases like this.

   If the splogger is stealing your bandwidth (typically by linking to an embedded pic in you post) your host may also be able to help. If they are linking directly to a photo, it’s also quite entertaining to change the photo on your server — say to something like a graphic loudly stating “THIS SITE STEALS CONTENT!” Then THAT shows up on THEIR site. Doesn’t do much except make you feel better and makes them look even more foolish.

   This site has a WEALTH of info on plagiarism, content theft, DMCA notices and more: http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/

6. Trace

   May 12th, 2008 at 1:30 pm

   6

   I totally get where you are coming from but keep in mind that the scraper is still including your links when he republishes the content…… so he steals your content but gives you dozens or hundreds of links back….. I will personally take that deal ALL DAY LONG. He adds adsense on his site to make money on your content….. personally…..I say, so what? If he wants to make $6 a year on adsense, more power to him…. As long as your site is pinging google properly when you post new content, he isn’t hurting you, just giving your website more reach, links, and coverage….. it’s sort of like third world syndication. Also, he’s going to do it anyways…. so might as well make the best of it and save the frustration…in my experience for everyone you stop there are about 10 more that will pop up… just one perspective which is worth what you paid for it.

7. Jay - The Phoenix Real Estate Guy

   May 12th, 2008 at 4:50 pm

   7

   I hear you Trace. It truly is a hopeless battle. Personally, I wish Google would just shut these sites off of Adsense. They are smart guys, surely they can tell a scraper from a real site?

   As for the links, I’m not sure links from a PR0 site do any good. Guess it can’t hurt, but I question the good it does.

   Sometimes it’s just fun to get them shut down. I certainly don’t have the time to mess with them all. But I’ll yank the chain of one every now and then.

   Looks like a double comment snuck in there, so I’m going to delete the first one…

8. Ken in Bartlett

   May 12th, 2008 at 9:12 pm

   8

   The duplicate content issue is a real issue. Scrapper sites have caused problems for a number of sites when Google has a stupid attack and can’t decide who had the original content. At the last Pubcon there where multiple questions about how to fix issues related to duplicate content issues caused by scrappers stealing content from very established blogs and sites.

9. Trace

   May 13th, 2008 at 9:17 am

   9

   Jay: well you are right the links are likely worth close to nothing…. was trying to use a bit of sleight of hand to focus on the positive.

   Ken: I haven’t heard of recent issues with google having issues determining origin of content, but if there have been issues as of late, that is obviously a big deal. That’s why I mentioned earlier to make sure you’re pinging correctly…. my experience is that google has this sorted out and so if guys wanna scrape….I say let them, the truth is I don’t have a choice, I can’t humanly keep up with scrapers anyways…. there aren’t enough hours in the day… I can barely keep up with the guys that steal my entire 50 page websites at ipagio.com …. and these aren’t kids, these are companies with 50 plus employees that just want to save a thousand dollars or two.

10. Las Vegas High Rise Guy

    May 13th, 2008 at 1:03 pm

    10

    I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often to you Jay. I’ve kept track of all of the sites that have stolen my content over the years, the file is getting pretty full. Usually it was a “hired webmaster” responsible but not always.

11. Jay - The Phoenix Real Estate Guy

    May 13th, 2008 at 5:34 pm

    11

    @Charles (LVGuy) - it happens ALL the time. Daily really. Sometimes I just need to vent so I pick on the latest.

    @Trace / @Ken - Given that Google indexes posts here within minutes after they are written, and given the incredible intelligence level of those inside the Googleplex, I’m not worried about them figuring out the origin. Heck, they probably know what I’m going to write before I do.

    @Trace - Your focus on the positive is admirable! Nice site BTW!!

    Incidentally, Mr/Ms T. Schilling has yet to respond to my email. Shocking!

12. Karen Rice

    May 14th, 2008 at 5:52 am

    12

    Can I say I agree with Trace? Unless they’re saying they wrote the content or removing your original links then I have no problem. So what if they want to earn a few bucks on Adsense?

    I have had one of my blogs get a lot of readers - funny that, because it was a blog about one of the least popular communities in the area, because it’s not so “pretty” and doesn’t have a slew of amenities. however, someone recently contacted me about the community.

    This blog article was “pinged?” (I guess?) by someone who posted it on their site…full credit and links to me… I have no doubt that a lot of my traffic (Okay, so it’s only 10 visitors but that’s a lot to ME..LOL).

    I have to wonder, did the person who contacted me about the community stumble upon my blog myself, or upon this splogger and then to my blog?

    I don’t know.

    I suppose we can worry about these sploggers “competing with us” for our own content, but as long as the splogger isn’t another real estate agent with their contact info all over the place, I don’t worry about it too much.

    Rambly, arent I?

13. Karen Rice

    May 14th, 2008 at 5:53 am

    13

    Err, forgive that half coherent comment - sheesh. I’m only on coffee #2, so I should wait until I’m halfway done with cup #3 before commenting..

14. Evil Fruit Lord

    June 20th, 2008 at 2:07 am

    14

    I believe the same guy is ripping off my entire blog wholesale on another site. Let me know if you manage to make anything work. I’ve sent him a cease and desist letter which no doubt has simply disappeared into the void. I’m fairly sure the service provider in my case is ThePlanet.com (Strong Cord has other sites hosted there, and when in I ping the website address, the IP address it returns is there, according to whois.domaintools.com).

    Next step is DMCA requests to ThePlanet and Google, who I’m hoping will both pull his AdSense account and delist his site (and hopefully all his other sites, but that’s just wishful thinking, I’m sure).

15. Dallas Real Estate Broker

    June 20th, 2008 at 1:08 pm

    15

    Jay, nothing worse than someone taking your work and duplicating over the net. This is equal to grand theft auto in my book, which by the way happended to me last weekend. Tahoe was stole while sitting in a Starbucks parking lot in the middle of the afternoon. I came across this site a couple days ago, you might check out if you have some problems.

    cybertriallawyer.com

    Kenneth Cox - Dallas Broker