6 Steps to Fight Content Theft
Step 1: Make sure every single one of your blog posts has a call-to-action for an offer on your website, as well as a link or two to other pages in your website. Even if the content gets airlifted and put on another website, the call-to-action can still generate leads for you, and those links you put out there can count as inbound links to your site.Step 2: Properly identify the extent of the damage. Google HATES spam, and certainly hates when someone outright steals content without attribution. The first thing you should do is go to the middle of your post, grab 7 or 8 consecutive words, and do an EXACT MATCH search for that phrase (that means wraps your phrase in double quotes). If your domain is the only one that returns results, Google has already stripped the horrid content farm from the index, so skip to Step 4. However, if other domains show up in addition to yours, move on to the next step.
Step 3: Report the duplicate content to Google using your Google Webmaster Account. Heck, I’ll make this easy - here’s the link to report spam content to Google .
Step 4: Check out the offending site, and look to see if they have any ads being displayed through an ad network. Usually there will be a bit of text (or maybe even a text link) near some of the ads that call out which network is being used. These folks are paying money to your black hat “friend”, and most don’t appreciate being associated with liars, cheats, and thieves. Find a way to get in contact with the ad network and rat on the guy that stole your content.
Step 5: Run a WhoIs report on the domain, and see if they’re hosted in the US. Just like with ad networks, ISPs don’t like to associate with bad apples. Most of the time, the company handling the DNS Nameservers is also the company that does the hosting, so get in touch with them and squeal, and if they're not the host, they should be able to point you in the right direction.
Step 6:
Use tools and technology to prevent further abuse. Most analytics packages should be able to help you identify suspicious behavior, and sniff out the IP addresses associated with the folks that came and stole your content - especially if they are doing this in an automated fashion. Look for visits that have a high page view count, low time on page, non-standard User Agent strings, and came from direct traffic. Once identified, work with your tech team to block or hamper these guys from visiting your website. There’s also tools, like
Embed Anything
and
Tynt
that will protect your content to some degree (disclaimer: HubSpot uses Tynt to protect the content posted to this blog, and this mention should not be considered an endorsement or promotion. Do your own research and find the product that fits your specific situation).
Just remember, at the end of the day, a search engine is trying to return the absolute best result for every query and every searcher, and they fundamentally understand that stolen content is never the best result.
Photo Credit:
lovelypetal
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Anne Woodcock 1:12 PM on January 21, 2011
Great post hubspot.
I work in the angling industry. Copy that is lifted and appears on other peoples sites without your permission is frankly rude and shows a serious lack of imagination.
I will be using your tips.
Thank you and Tight Lines
Anne Woodcock
SuperbadIM 1:19 PM on January 21, 2011
It's amazing how many people use other's content to build websites. WWW is for wild wild west!
I try to put links in my articles, as you point out, at least it's a link back to my site. Otherwise, too time consuming to police my content.
Bob Warfield 1:51 PM on January 21, 2011
I'll give a dissenting opinion:
Mae West was right when she said, "I don't care what the newspapers say about me as long as they spell my name right."
The same holds here. We live in an age where algorithms determine ranks. If someone wants to rehost your content, then so long as there are links back to your real site, more power to them. That just creates more links back to you. I've found a lot of good content that way and followed it back to the rightful owners too.
If Google wants to zap them for being content farms, the problem takes care of itself that way too.
So I would go with your #1 only and make sure all of your content:
Mentions your company name and product names frequently.
Includes numerous links to other content on your site.
As far as the calls to action on every post, no to that too. It interferes with content marketing by jamming too much marketing into the marketing into the content. Many of the posts should have it, but not all. At most, put an ad at the end like this post has, but you're kidding yourself if you don't think that's easily stripped with a script.
Cheers,
BW
Mary E. Ulrich 9:07 PM on January 21, 2011
Is it worth it to put the copyright symbol on each article? or in the "about" page? or anywhere?
Michelle 2:37 PM on January 22, 2011
Excellent post! I've found several of my articles copied in their entirety and posted on others websites, as well as entire paragraphs. I use Copyscape.com to check all my content periodically. It's pretty affordable and well worth it to protect what is already yours.
Michelle 3:10 PM on January 22, 2011
@Mary Ulrich It can't hurt to put the copyright symbol on your website (maybe at the bottom of the site so it appears on each page), but really this is just a reminder, because anything that is written by you and published is considered legally copyrighted by you and may not be used by others without your written consent. Unfortunately, it seems as though the majority of people either disregard this or don't know the law: Copyright Laws on the Internet http://bit.ly/hYDLcX
Chellie Campbell 7:54 PM on January 22, 2011
Thanks for the tweet so I could come here and read your great tips! I just started my blog in December and just never thought about someone stealing my content and using it as though it were theirs. Of course, with attribution, I'm delighted if someone shares my posts :)
Carey Myers 10:14 PM on January 23, 2011
Ive had about 220 of the same ad (Win Hawaii Free - comments) sent to my email asddress. I'm sick of it. Stop, for god's sake, stop!
Kapil 11:57 PM on January 23, 2011
Very informative piece of writing. Content definitely is the key factor to protect and produce good results for your website. Is there any free tool available in the market that can help websites to identify such content thefts?
Gill 9:35 AM on January 24, 2011
Thank you for this extremely useful information.
We are in the process of setting up our website with links to a blog site and facebook.
These tips will serve us well.
Nikki Cripps 10:36 PM on January 25, 2011
I have had huge issues with content thieves...and had to resort to installing software on my site that prevents anyone copying and pasting my content. If they want to steal it they have to retype all the info from scratch. Unfortunately the wheels of Google turn slowly when it comes to content theft and it is harder to file a complaint when you are in another country to the thief. Twitter have been fantastic and blogging about the thief and writing about them on my site has stopped the current (major) offender for the time being.
I contacted other victims in regarded to serial offenders and most have said it happens all the time, not too waste time chasing them, just "out" them when they post your stuff on major sites.