I'm being blasted with emails telling me that I've been linked to. Didn't have a clue that this is what it's about. Molly Tomato said to just ignore them.

I'm really the total un-geek. I just love writing, and the leads that are being generated are now up to about 1 a day. Based on this thread and Molly's "ignore them" I just made a rule for my outlook to put them all in a separate folder and keep them out of the inbox.

That is sad. They have slowed on Steve but I am sure they will be back again.

Thanks for pointing that out Laura. Sadly, I'm going to have to remove that list. I put it there to "honor" those that link here and provide a little "link love". I'm certainly not going to do that for these sploggers.

I wish that plugin had the feature to block a site from being on the list....

"I know it stinks to be plagiarized, but there is a benefit to it as well."

I see no benefit what-so-ever to having content stolen. As Athol said, this splog (and all its kin) has a Google PR of zero -- so they have no PR to pass.

Not all link backs are created equal. Links from these sites won't hurt your SEO, but they won't help either. I doubt seriously that anyone links TO these sites, and Google likely recognizes all their outbound links as nothing more than a link farm and/or the splog that it is. Technorati make count it, and shame on them for doing so. I'm confident that the search engines discount these back links almost completely.

I prefer to get my inbound links legitimately and gain search position with content and worthwhile linkage, not from some sleezy spammer who is violating the law.

Jennifer - filing a DMCA notice with the splogs host is probably the only effective action to take. (see the link in post for details) But it's very time consuming and success is completely dependent on the host -- some will take action, some won't. Like Shailesh, I've never had any luck reporting them to Google. I have had some success filing DMCA's, but I don't have the time it takes right now to deal with it.

>>SEO perspective, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Links from a page rank 0 splog are worthless for SEO.

Since I commented here, these guys have started scraping me as well. According to my technorati inbound links several sites are doing this.

They are only copying a teaser amount of content and I get two inbound links. From an SEO perspective, this isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I know it stinks to be plagiarized, but there is a benefit to it as well.

They are scraping content from both of my blogs. My question is why are the names for the authors not mine? One post says 'Heather wrote': but then the link is to my blog. My name is not Heater obviously. If you are successful at defeating them, please let me know how you did it.

Soooooo....

Post bomb threats, wait for scraping, delete orginial post, call FBI on the splog?

Jay,

I'm battling thickrealestate.com - and I think Dalton has too. I wrote to Google AdSense but they gave me the same response of showing the proof. Why don't they just click on the link and look for it themselves? Do a few comparisons and pull the plug?

I've read of plug-ins that try to counter these guys, but they counter right back.

I wonder if someone clever can create a website to centralize the reporting of sploggers, the way pinggoat centralizes pinging search engines?

So if you were splogged, you could enter the domain at one spot, and all of the search engines would be notified? Or would that lead to lots of false reports?

Thanks for this post, I had no idea we could fight back.

John C

Hi Laura!

There's one positive way to look at these morons... if they can find your blog, so can other people. You guys have a *great* start on yours, this won't be the last time a splogger hits you...

They have been scraping Steve's too Jay as I mentioned to you previously. They were driving me crazy as well but alas, Steve became very busy last week and didn't post again. I am sure as soon as he puts something up today they will be back.

"I hate this blog too. Endless freaking trackbacks I have to delete.

Oh I mean “RealEstateMindSet.info” of course."

Thanks for clarifying that Athol...

"Its like some kind of automatic software that just goes to our blog anytime there is a new post."

That's exactly how it's done RS. They "scrape" sites for content in an effort to build search placement. Their ultimate goal is to get people to their site to click on Google ads, which makes them money.

In other words, they profit from other peoples work.

Nice bunch of folks huh?

I hate this blog too. Endless freaking trackbacks I have to delete.

Oh I mean "RealEstateMindSet.info" of course. ;-)

You are my idol when it comes to splog busting. I will have to watch this one too.

I remember the Wog saga.

I feel for you on this subject. Everyone who publishes regularly is having their content stolen. The decision to turn off RSS feeds really isn't worth it because so few steal. The good outweighs the bad.

Unless I can identify who the plagiarizer is, there's not much to do, except make sure each post has a link back to your site somewhere. Best case scenario is you get some traffic off these theives. Worst case, you get inbound links with your choice of anchor text.

When life gives you lemons...

Wow, that is quick. Who would have thought they'd steal the content of a post talking about them stealing content!

I'm being blasted with emails telling me that I've been linked to. Didn't have a clue that this is what it's about. Molly Tomato said to just ignore them.

I'm really the total un-geek. I just love writing, and the leads that are being generated are now up to about 1 a day. Based on this thread and Molly's "ignore them" I just made a rule for my outlook to put them all in a separate folder and keep them out of the inbox.

That is sad. They have slowed on Steve but I am sure they will be back again.

Thanks for pointing that out Laura. Sadly, I'm going to have to remove that list. I put it there to "honor" those that link here and provide a little "link love". I'm certainly not going to do that for these sploggers.

I wish that plugin had the feature to block a site from being on the list....

Jay, Its sort of funny (well not really, but kind of) that they (the site we are discussing here) are in the list to the right of your top ten trackbackers.

"I know it stinks to be plagiarized, but there is a benefit to it as well."

I see no benefit what-so-ever to having content stolen. As Athol said, this splog (and all its kin) has a Google PR of zero -- so they have no PR to pass.

Not all link backs are created equal. Links from these sites won't hurt your SEO, but they won't help either. I doubt seriously that anyone links TO these sites, and Google likely recognizes all their outbound links as nothing more than a link farm and/or the splog that it is. Technorati make count it, and shame on them for doing so. I'm confident that the search engines discount these back links almost completely.

I prefer to get my inbound links legitimately and gain search position with content and worthwhile linkage, not from some sleezy spammer who is violating the law.

Jennifer - filing a DMCA notice with the splogs host is probably the only effective action to take. (see the link in post for details) But it's very time consuming and success is completely dependent on the host -- some will take action, some won't. Like Shailesh, I've never had any luck reporting them to Google. I have had some success filing DMCA's, but I don't have the time it takes right now to deal with it.

>>SEO perspective, this isnu00e2u0080u0099t necessarily a bad thing.

Links from a page rank 0 splog are worthless for SEO.

Since I commented here, these guys have started scraping me as well. According to my technorati inbound links several sites are doing this.

They are only copying a teaser amount of content and I get two inbound links. From an SEO perspective, this isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I know it stinks to be plagiarized, but there is a benefit to it as well.

They are scraping content from both of my blogs. My question is why are the names for the authors not mine? One post says 'Heather wrote': but then the link is to my blog. My name is not Heater obviously. If you are successful at defeating them, please let me know how you did it.

Soooooo....

Post bomb threats, wait for scraping, delete orginial post, call FBI on the splog?

Jay,

I'm battling thickrealestate.com - and I think Dalton has too. I wrote to Google AdSense but they gave me the same response of showing the proof. Why don't they just click on the link and look for it themselves? Do a few comparisons and pull the plug?

I've read of plug-ins that try to counter these guys, but they counter right back.

I wonder if someone clever can create a website to centralize the reporting of sploggers, the way pinggoat centralizes pinging search engines?

So if you were splogged, you could enter the domain at one spot, and all of the search engines would be notified? Or would that lead to lots of false reports?

Thanks for this post, I had no idea we could fight back.

John C

Hi Laura!

There's one positive way to look at these morons... if they can find your blog, so can other people. You guys have a *great* start on yours, this won't be the last time a splogger hits you...

They have been scraping Steve's too Jay as I mentioned to you previously. They were driving me crazy as well but alas, Steve became very busy last week and didn't post again. I am sure as soon as he puts something up today they will be back.

"I hate this blog too. Endless freaking trackbacks I have to delete.

Oh I mean u00e2u0080u009cRealEstateMindSet.infou00e2u0080u009d of course."

Thanks for clarifying that Athol...

"Its like some kind of automatic software that just goes to our blog anytime there is a new post."

That's exactly how it's done RS. They "scrape" sites for content in an effort to build search placement. Their ultimate goal is to get people to their site to click on Google ads, which makes them money.

In other words, they profit from other peoples work.

Nice bunch of folks huh?

This is the same site that steals our blogs content also. Its like some kind of automatic software that just goes to our blog anytime there is a new post.

Well thanks MM. I don't have the bandwidth to go after these clowns full force -- yet. But rest assured when I free up some time, they are on my list.

Nigel has a great point. Sadly, if you can't beat them, take advantage of them. I prefer beating them though. Literally.

I wish there was some way the Google's of the world could cull these people out and not feed them AdSense ads. That would shut them down as there would be no point to their madness.

Pundit - They've swiped stuff in as little as 2 minutes. I do find humor though in a post showing up on THEIR blog about THEM stealing content.

I hate this blog too. Endless freaking trackbacks I have to delete.

Oh I mean "RealEstateMindSet.info" of course. ;-)

You are my idol when it comes to splog busting. I will have to watch this one too.

I remember the Wog saga.

I feel for you on this subject. Everyone who publishes regularly is having their content stolen. The decision to turn off RSS feeds really isn't worth it because so few steal. The good outweighs the bad.

Unless I can identify who the plagiarizer is, there's not much to do, except make sure each post has a link back to your site somewhere. Best case scenario is you get some traffic off these theives. Worst case, you get inbound links with your choice of anchor text.

When life gives you lemons...

Wow, that is quick. Who would have thought they'd steal the content of a post talking about them stealing content!