Redirecting a content thief

He's hotlinking my websites into a frameset

[cws3di]

I need some advice on "best practice" for redirecting a content thief.

www.examplejerk.com has set up a huge directory site using the odp dump. Once you get downt he path and click on an actual mom-n-pop website that is listed in his dmoz look-alike, you don't go to the website.

You go to another page on examplejerk's website that has a frameset that calls in mom-n-popdomain to the main frame.

I have set up an htaccess redirect, so that examplejerk's frame displays myfavoritecopyrightpiracy website. Is this best practice? I don't want the 301 redirect to affect either my own website or the copyright website. I just want examplejerk and his users (if any) to see the copyright piracy article.

This code in htaccess works, I would just like feedback on whether I should do it a different way.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} [(www\.)?examplejerk...] [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} [(www\.)?examplejerk\.com...]
RewriteRule (.*) [www\.examplecopyright\.org...] [R=301,L]

Yahoo has spidered examplejerk's site, but Google hasn't yet picked it up. I would like to protect my site from a possible hijack ahead of time.

By the way, examplejerk has the entire dmoz directory set up this way. If anybody else here has sites listed in dmoz, this examplejerk is hotlinking your website into a frame, too.

[larryhatch]

Hi cws: That looks like one neat treatment for the frames-jackers.
Like most people, I use a short bit of javascript code to simply break out of frames
You take this a step further and expose the jerk. I kinda like that. -Larry

[jdMorgan]

The second RewriteCond is redundant, since any referrer that matches the second will have already matched the first (because the pattern is unanchored).

Personally, I don't recommend playing games with 301 redirects (or 302 redirects for that matter), since Google has been demonstrated to mis-handle them. I'd recommend a simple 403-Forbidden response. It makes his site look broken to his visitors, and indicates to spiders that his content has nothing to do with yours.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?examplejerk\.com [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) - [F]

Jim

[cws3di]

Hi, Larry.

Yes, I have used the body onload javascript to break out of frames in the past.

There are some instances where that is appropriate - such as when you think your own website might actually get interested traffic from the frame-jacker.

If I actually thought that users on examplejerks site would be interested in my mom-n-pop website, I would do a simple break-out-of-frames. On the other hand, I think that examplejerks website is NOT designed to be helpful to users. The way it is set up, it seems obvious to me that he/she is setting up a conglomerate directory/scraper that will never benefit me, and possibly hurt my own website.

These days we have so many worries about whether we might be hijacked or get a dup content penalty.

Can you think of any reason that this type of redirect should NOT be used?

[cws3di]

Oops, I was typing while jdMorgan was typing...

<quote>since Google has been demonstrated to mis-handle them.</quote>

Good point, mis-handle is a good word, and since I don't know exactly how google will deal with this, it would be better to 403.

Thanks, jdMorgan, calm advice (even if I do want to gig this examplejerk, I should practice caution instead)!

[larryhatch]

Hi cws: I have a me-myself-and-I type site, non commercial for now.

The few sites that frame mine are very on-topic, so I stick with the onload frame-buster.
They usually frame my main index page, itself a menu to lots of other stuff.
Framed visitors can wander about at will, even back to the framers if they really want that..

I think what you are describing is a DMOZ CLONE. Google hates those.
They usually wind up in Supplemental Results (if not the great circular poubelle)
so its not much of a threat there. I presume Yahoo does or will do much the same. -Larry