Autoblogs - Getting a free ride, by using other Bloggers Content
I came across a comment on the Mike's Money Making Mission about a site that is republishing articles from blogs apparently without permission from the authors. A quick scan of the site shows a large number of articles seemingly scraped from Mikes Money Making Mission - so I thought that it was worth having a look into.
I don't want to give the guy a free link, so you will have to type this one if you want to have a look its.... make-easy dot com
The software used is software by Elliot Back - I don't think by looking at his site it was created with the idea of copying content from sites, basically it appears to publish from RSS feeds, so I guess this is how these sites are getting their content republished on a regular basis.
This could be a useful tool if say you had 3 or 4 blogs and wanted to collate all the material into one master blog - however has the potential to be abused if placed in the hands of an unethical autoblogger.
If someone said to you - hey do you mind me republishing all your articles and placing my adverts on them so that I can make some easy money with you doing all the work is that cool? - what would you say - my answer of course would be no, even though it creates links to your site, the fact is that someone else could be earning money from your hard work and they never asked.
This is different from quoting an excerpt or talking about a post that you liked and linking to it - I think so anyway.
What are your thoughts? How do you deal with this kind of issue?
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18 comments:
That sucks big time. Hope it is stopped soon and doesn't happen to many more people.
keep up the good work.
Also I think I am having problems with technorati when I log into it it says I havn't updated on like 13 days which is untrue and also have no like to my site which is also untrue. I have email them last week and this week but no response any advice?
It seems to be a bit of a problem, check out this site which hasn't been updated for 39 days.. http://www.technorati.com/search/laura211.blogspot.com%2F
Anyway it did happen to me once for a week or two, then it just seemed to come right. Might just have to be patient and hope that it gets updated soon.
Thanks. also enjoy the pennies Your making off me on mylot.. lol
quick Q - how mnay referral do you have on ther qand how much you making off them? thanks
Rob: Thanks for that post. As you say it would be polite to at least for him to ask permission. I'm not sure though that he can actually be stopped.
From what I've seen he has lots of blogs running and I've seen other of my posts included. The only good thing is that the links are included - even to affiliate programs (with my reference).
I'm going to try contacting him.
Hope all is well with you and your family.
Mike.
Stratz: I have 11 referrals on mylot (however only about 4 are active) and its bringing in about 15 - 20 cents a day. Not big money however its a few bucks every month. I just need to multiply that by 10! Keep posting, I appreciate it!
Mike: Thanks for calling by, all is well, good luck with contacting him - will be interesting to hear the results if any.
rob: Yeah but even with your 10-20 cents a day your have created a residual income. Even though it is small right now maybe with some luck you can get it up to 1 dollar a day.
I just got my second referral but with none of them posting so far. The first one I got says I jsut like to read them not post.. lol oh well. keep up teh good work.
Hi - useful info here. Thanks. Found you through a mylot search. Just getting started but I see it's working out well for some. Keep writing. :)
stratz, sounds like your referral is like about 7 of mine hehe.
Trish: Thanks heaps for calling by, I had a look at your blog looks like you are making a few bucks there yourself!
Hi rob,
nice article.
Mike: I have tried to contact him all possible ways, but no response until now. The worst thing what can happen is, search engines may find our articles duplicate.
Regarding sites with RSS feeds, a solution if you are on Gooigle Blogger, is to change the feed to "short" instead of "full".
That way only the first few lines of your post will appear on the aggregator site, and the reader will have to click through to your blog to read more.
teatree: Nice thinking, sounds like a good solution to me. That way people will definitely have to click through to your site.
Hi Rob - I have had people do that to my shopping & money blogs at various times - My money feed gets taken by the same guy every time. I was reading a blog about what some guy did this morning (but I forget where it was now - he found out the guys number & rung him up - needless to say it soon stopped). It hasn't bothered me too much - he's using my affiliate links as well.
But the Duplicate Content issue could be a problem though!
I've found one of these sites that has lifted articles directly from my personal blog. I really don't mind because I place a lot of internal links in my articles so if they cut and paste it means more links to me! I also have a policy allowing people free copy of my material as long as they link back. Less hassle all around. Every cloud has a silver lining.
Actually - take my last comment back. I just found someone that's taking my articles but changing them slightly - so they look like his (yes he's using his own affiliate link) - he's even taken my customised colours from my blog and used them! Will ask him to stop immediately - the blog is coolhomejobs dot blogspot dot com. (Now tell me - if that's not an "almost" copy of ifyawant.com I don't know what is. I even wrote about playing with Vista before doing any software reviews (his take - I need to lad Vista before I do any software reviews)....
At least if someones going to copy you, they can at least give you the benefit by putting your links in.
Anyway - enough ranting - off to email him!
ANNOYING
Shirlene
tom: yes I guess thats not so bad if they at least use your links, still would be polite to ask though or at least let you know I guess..
Shirlene: I just had a look at that site, thats terrible its just a blatant copy of your site with the guys own referrals as though he wrote the articles! that guy should be blacklisted. Let us know how you get on.
This approach can hurt legitimate blogs from the eyes of the search engine for duplicate issues.
We may not feel the impact of this right away but try to think of this – your search engine ranking will soon drop and not only that, you will also have a very close competition on search results by no less than your on copycat. We maybe saying, that we still gain the benefits through the active affiliate links but who can keep this guy from using his own affiliate link later. To change your RSS feed to partial may sound good to the blog owner but not to the RSS readers entirely.
My "copy cat" blogger removed his blog - so all good for me! Hope that everyone else in the situation gets things cleared up quick smart.
ruben: You are right, it is possible however noone really knows how much duplicate content will really hurt your rankings and should it even do so? Surely popular sites must have their content reproduced all over the place.
shirlene: thats good to hear, he must be running scared!!
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