Last night I was checking my Google alerts for a term I regularly scan. I saw a familiar headline from one of my blog posts and my name.
Cool! Google picked up a story I broke and featured it in Google News Alerts.
NOPE! It was that new scraper stealing my content again. I caught him a few days ago and sent a remove content - copyright violation email, to no avail.
When I spend time writing and breaking a big story before anyone even knows about it and some scraper gets the glory in Google news because he ripped my title and content without even linking back so someone can read the full article, I get a little ticked!
If you have a site or blog that's reached any level of critical mass, then you no doubt have problems with scrapers too. I typically just ignore them if they are linking back and not affecting my rankings. But when they start stealing your rankings and traffic so they can make a few extra Adsense pennies, it may be time to fight back.
As I researched the different options about how to handle this, I found a great post over at ProBlogger about how to deal with scrapers.
Fighting Scrapers With Your Left Jab. The article includes info about a WordPress plugin, called RSS Footer that automates the process of adding a link in your RSS feed that points to the original source of your post. It also offers detailed instructions about how to: Report Scrapers To AdSense, Report Scrapers To Google and Report Scrapers To Their Web Hosting Service.
How to Fight Site Scrapers
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