My Blogspot Content Theft Nightmare

[viralvideowall]

Hello all!

I'm the recent victim of content theft, and here's what happened. The scumbag that I tracked down in China scraped one of my entire sites and posted the content on at least 20 different Blogspot accounts.

This resulted in my site getting penalized and the Blogspot sites now outrank me! The only fun part I've got out of the deal is the idiot was dumb enough to use one of my remotely hosted images. I changed that particular image into a giant #*$! image.

The amazing thing is how extremely difficult it is to deal with situations like this with Google. It's nearly impossible to get to a real human.

I emailed several times explaining the issue and had replies like "We've reviewed your complaint, but it is unclear to us what the specific copyrighted work or works are that you are asserting have been infringed."

They also don't seem to care that there are about 20 #*$! images on the spam sites with Adsense ads on them.

Has anyone else out there had problems with Blogspot and other scrapers?

I'm not sure what the solution is, but I'm starting to think about going offline and starting a hot dog cart business! :S

[tedster]

it is unclear to us what the specific copyrighted work or works are that you are asserting have been infringed

Hello viralvideowall, and welcome to the forums.

Did you include URLs of examples in your message?

[supercyberbob]

I guess the question is why scraped content is ranking in the serps.

The communications thing, it's like the store is open, but the doors are closed shut.

We're at Panda ver 2.2 and the scraper issue continues to be a problem. Something is wrong with the picture.

[falsepositive]

Scrapers are still everywhere. I don't think 2.2 really improved things completely. There was some improvement, but it's far from perfect.

[viralvideowall]

@tedster - yep - included all urls to the spammer's sites and also mine.

I'm running a test right now - I opened up a free Blogspot account and am going to stuff it full of content and see what happens.

I think if enough people could join forces we might get heard at Google.

[supercyberbob]

I wonder if any webmasters have shown up in person at Google's headquarters, and done a "I demand to see your manager."

Yup, one of those.

viralvideowall

I just had an idea. What would happen if I republished all MY content on a blogspot site? Could that be THE solution to Panda recovery? Just scrape your own sites.

Very tempted to try this. :) If successful, rinse and repeat.

[koan]

I find Google very lenient toward copyright infringers on blogspot. They don't ban accounts easily, so sometimes the blogger just republish the pages and you're stuck going through all the motions again, which can take some time. When you have an established, professional looking web site, about say, health topics, complaining about content theft for their health articles by some newly created, huge archive covering everything, from forex to online dating, using the default blog template, with spammy ads eveywhere and no way to contact the owner.. it should be an easy ban even a 7$/hour temp could do.

[chrisv1963]

Some of my webpages were copied more than 40 times on Blogspot. That is more than 40 illegal copies of the same article. When I had a closer look it appeared that all blogs where exactly the same: same articles copied from several sites, all copied pages created on the same dates, same pop-up ads, same adult ads, ...

Google removed my articles when I submitted DMCAs, but did not ban those blogs. Google creates a Panda algo that is so bad that it penalizes good websites, but at the same time they allow the biggest junk ever on their own Blogspot servers.

Also, Panda seems to give priority to Blogspot, which makes things even worse. Since Blogspot is a Google property, it must be "quality" in Panda's eyes ...

[shazam]

I just had an idea. What would happen if I republished all MY content on a blogspot site? Could that be THE solution to Panda recovery? Just scrape your own sites.

Very tempted to try this. :) If successful, rinse and repeat.

Classic post.

Google is truly creating more black hats, spammers, and scrapers with every update. I think the successful internet marketers of the future will have to build many disposable sites instead of investing years of hard work and lots of money developing a few excellent resources.

It just doesn't pay to build quality sites these days. Every single quality site that I've built has been wacked by negative seo, google updates, or scrapers. They all spend a few months to a few years enjoying high rankings but inevitably get smacked. Google rewards the unethical while penalizing the quality sites.


I think I'll open a fruit stand next to viralvideowall's hot dog cart.

[dazzlindonna]

What would happen if I republished all MY content on a blogspot site? Could that be THE solution to Panda recovery? Just scrape your own sites

@supercyberbob, that's actually a pretty good idea. For most pandalized sites, what could it hurt. At least the scraper would be under one's own control, so could be easily taken down if needed.

[SevenCubed]

@supercyberbob -- try as you said but then edit it so that you repeat the keyword excessively and link the anchor text in it to the scraper Blogspot site. It might get it some -100s for a while. When it comes back whack it again. If enough people do this Blogspot will become a wasteland.

[Planet13]

I would kindly suggest that instead of showing an obscene image, that you should just have an image that says something like:

Dear Google Employee:

This image was stolen from MY website at mydomain.com

Because one of the first things that someone is going to look at is an image on the page (that might be the only thing they look at), and if they see an image on their site that is different than the image on your site, then maybe they will think they DIDN'T scrape you (crazy, but possible - I am sure google employees are overworked, too).

anyway, it is just a thought. I know showing an obscene image might make you FEEL better, but maybe showing an image that displays the URL to your original page will help you in dealing with the DMCA reports.

Hope this helps.

[koan]

I know showing an obscene image might make you FEEL better

If he changed it to inappropriate images, he could complain to Adsense first so the person gets banned from the program. They're pretty strict about sexual stuff. That hurts more than losing a blogger account.

[Planet13]

That hurts more than losing a blogger account.

but wouldn't adsense just close their adsense account?

And would't those scraper blogspot pages still be INDEXED in the google SERPs (and wouldn't his pages still be demoted due to google thinking the scraper sites are the original and his are the duplicates?)

If informing adsense would lead to those scraper blogspot pages being de-indexed and his rankings being restored, I would be all for it. Just I don't know either way if that is what happens when you report to adsense.

[chrisv1963]

I would kindly suggest that instead of showing an obscene image, that you should just have an image that says something like

From my experiences with Blogspot DMCAs I learned that hotlinked images are not a copyright violation and Google will not remove Blogspot pages for hotlinked pictures only. The logic behind it might be that the pictures are on your server and not on Google's server => no infringement of copyrights :-)

Second case: You buy a picture from for instance Getty Images and, as a sort of watermark, put your website name + Getty Images as source or the name of the photographer on the picture.
A thief copies your picture and uploads it to the Blogspot server. Bad luck again. You are not the copyright owner, the photographer is. Thus ... you cannot submit a DMCA and Google will send you a nice reply telling that they decided not to take action.

Thank you Google for protecting thiefs and scrapers!

[rico_suarez]

distinguishing scraper site from original site is not possible, certainly not for Google algo. since Panda update there is a ton of evidence where scraper sites outranked original sites and the situation did not change a bit from the first update for a simple reason, it's not possible. You can make a DMCA complaint but Google cannot or will not change their algo because it would affect many other sites. You can game the machine any time you want and the proof is everywhere around us on almost any search term imaginable.

[rlange]

Planet13 wrote:
but wouldn't adsense just close their adsense account?

And would't those scraper blogspot pages still be INDEXED in the google SERPs (and wouldn't his pages still be demoted due to google thinking the scraper sites are the original and his are the duplicates?)

Of course, but you're removing the primary motivation for these types of scrapers.

Also, if they attempt to open up a new AdSense account, they'll either have to manually clean up those pages containing the offending images, or dump them altogether. (Maybe; depends on how thorough AdSense's evaluation actually is.)

Yeah, it may not get your rankings back, but at least you prevent someone else from making money off of your content.

--
Ryan

[lucy24]

I would kindly suggest that instead of showing an obscene image, that you should just have an image that says something like:

Dear Google Employee:

This image was stolen from MY website at mydomain.com

There's also the classic Not Nice remedy used against incurable hotlinkers in general: redirect to some lunatic-fringe political site's main page. The target site will be happy for the traffic and will not inquire further, and the hotlink will be gone before you can blink. But it has to be something extreme. In the present case, not something boring like Amnesty International but some absolutely over-the-top China-loathing site.

[shazam]

virus/malware packed image.


Then report the sites.

[koan]

but some absolutely over-the-top China-loathing site

Some people reply "Free Tibet!" to chinese spammers.. they get unsubscribed pretty fast ;)

[rlange]

shazam wrote:
virus/malware packed image.


Then report the sites.

That's probably a pretty good way to get your own domain flagged as a malware distributor, too. Remember, the hotlinked image is associated with your domain, not the scraper's domain.

--
Ryan

[inbound]

Please remeber that the visitor to the scraper site is not the offender - so think of thier feelings whilst taking your revenge. Personally, if I was Google and saw you doing some of the things suggested here (because you had reported the scraper) I'd consider whether you were a worthwhile recipient of traffic.

[Andem]

>> I just had an idea. What would happen if I republished all MY content on a blogspot site? Could that be THE solution to Panda recovery? Just scrape your own sites.

I've actually experimented with this with varying levels of success. It appears right now that slowly over time, certain content of my own that I've scraped and republished elsewhere will actually rank above the original. This applies to both newer and older content.

[viralvideowall]

Thanks for the feedback everyone! I have an update... after over two weeks Google has finally removed ONE of the 20 or more Blogspot spam sites.

I think one thing everyone should do when blogging/creating content is to put a hidden 1x1 pixel on every page. Then set things up so if they are dumb enough to scrape your site and include your images you can change that image to something else.

Was thinking today that this could become a cottage industry. Perhaps a service where you can sell banner ads on a huge network of scraped sites?

[viralvideowall]

I toned down the image and now have this one showing up on the scraper's sites... lol

[images.sodahead.com...]

[kidder]

I recently found my content published on a blogspot site so I contacted Google, within a week or so Google killed the site. Well done Google.

[topr8]

while i sympathise with you entirely:

I toned down the image and now have this one showing up on the scraper's sites... lol

do you have the image rights for that image (and the pron one you used before) because if you haven't then you are doing the exact same thing you are accusing others of, eg. stealing content.

better to just remove the images (or rename them) from your server - why let them use your bandwidth as well as your content.

[walkman]

I guess the question is why scraped content is ranking in the serps.

This happened a while back, it was a penalty (for links) when the entire site was demoted and even a directory entry would outrank you. .

If Blogspot keeps it this way, they are playing with fire. Google has said that if enough sites have low quality (which copied is) content they will ban the entire domain. Blogspot will probably be banned from G search if they keep it this way.

Removing from Google's SE is way faster, second time was within hours.

[edited by: walkman at 6:42 am (utc) on Jul 7, 2011]

[viggen]

non a techie but is it possible and feasable to make the hotlinking image so big that it takes for ever to load and no one sees the scraper (as the visitor gives up after a few seconds?

[Andem]

>> make the hotlinking image so big that it takes for ever to load

I have something better. Instead of wasting your bandwidth..

.htaccess:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(.+\.)?mydomain\.com/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteRule .*\.(jpe?g|gif|png)$ http://www.mydomain.com/makethemwait.php [L] 

makethemwait.php:

 <?php
// Let em wait for a bit (300 seconds)
sleep(300);
print("Ok.. that's long enough");
?>