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Starting today I will start a new category, “Scrapers (the wall of shame)”. This is because today, Mad Stratter sent me an email pointing me to www.discountguitarsinfo.com, informing me about the fact that this site scraps our content. I can tell you I recognized there a lot of the articles we all post day by day, a lot of articles from Mad Stratter’s blog, from Jon’s GuitarNoize, from Stratoblogster, and a lot more blogs I enjoy and read every day.
This is not the first time I see this. A couple of weeks ago, Danny from GuitarPlayersCenter.com sent me an email complaining me about the same thing, but about another site.
A couple of good months ago, Jon started a conversation with me and IG about another site scraping content.
I guess we all know how difficult it is to come up with original content each and every day so this kind of situations should not go unpunished. There are ways to fight this. I know a few and I am sure you also know a few. I will tell you my best one, IMO: the only reason this kind of websites exist is to build content for AdSense or similar advertising systems. Content builds search traffic. Traffic means money, the reason this kind of sites exits. Google gives you the possibility to report such sites for duplicated, scrapped content, terminating the account associated to the site. No money, no reason for the site to exist.
OK, there are other ways to make money, but in such cases, AdSense is a very important one.
You add here your own methods, let’s see if we can fight this! And when you find other sites scraping our content, share it with the rest of us, we might be interested…
I think that we join our forces, we might just start a movement here: “Say NO to scraping!”
What do you say?
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23 Responses to “Scrapers(Wall Of Shame)”
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Ovidiu OprescuRomania, 31 years
Playing the guitar since 17 and enjoying every moment of it!
Come meet me also on Mixx, StumbleUpon, Technorati, Digg, MySpace, MyBlogLog, Twitter, BlogCatalog
Also, why don't you add me to your blogroll? It's known to bring fortune and it will make you a better player! Honestly! ;-)
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Jon
December 24th, 2008 at 12:07 am
Hi Ovidiu yeah I had the same message from Mad Stratter it really is annoying when people steal our content to get money from adsense! Just a quick note, don’t mean to be the grammar police but it is actually Scraping not Scrapping as that has an entirely different meaning
I have left a comment on the offending site as has Mad Stratter so the next step will be to report a Google Adsense violation and let Google deal with them!
Stratoblogster
December 24th, 2008 at 12:40 am
Time to wake up!!!
I’m lovin’ this! That “scrapper” is not only linking back to our blogs as source, but he’s duplicating my merchant affiliate links and banners. I couldn’t be happier that someone is out there duplicating my stuff and leveraging my gear pimping business!
This is GOOD!
On the other hand, when somebody DOESN’T link back to source or acknowledge– OR kills/replaces affiliate links, THEN we have a problem.
By the time this guy gets enough rank to make anything from Adsense, he’ll be making more money for me. Better than a sub-affiliate!!!
I’m even gonna blogroll him. Makes sense! This ain’t lemons folks– this is lemonade!!!
Mad Stratter
December 24th, 2008 at 2:27 am
I think this should be said publicly in reply to JP’s comment:
most affiliate programs track the source of their incoming links so that affiliate links from anywhere besides the registered domain to no count. This is to prevent using affiliate links in IMs, emails, forums and the like, but it also means that my affiliate links posted on any domain besides madstratter.com will not earn me any credit.
Also, the damage of having duplicate content posted so closely to it’s creation on the original site hurts our search engine results. Too what degree, I can’t say, as I’m not SEO expert, but most people insist that it does.
I think that linking to him like this only helps him. Perhaps you could replace the link with “http : // discount guitars info [dot] com” so that he doesn’t get the credit of a backlink from a respected site, which will boost his own search engine results and page rank.
One last thing: I have received a reply from Google notifying me that I need to send a physical cease and desist letter before they take any action. The offending website has since removed all of my articles after a barrage of blog comments, so I have no recourse anymore, but if any of you would care to hit em in the Adsense Account, you’ll need to send a cease and desist letter to Google, who will forward it to him (since they have his address information which is unavailable to the rest of the world).
Ovidiu
December 24th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
@Jon: That’s so cool!! Thanks for pointing me! Scraper, not scrapper, always better to fix a mistake than to let it there so everybody make fun of it! Like the hunt and haunt of a few months ago
Regarding the affiliate ids, I don’t think it depends too much on where the links come from, some track the site the link is on, but not everybody since you can just add your link in a book and spread it all over the internet, so JP has a point there
Regarding the link, well, I added as NOFOLLOW exactly because of this.
Stratoblogster
December 24th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
MadStratter is concerned about how rapidly our content is being re-posted, and if this may negatively affect Google’s indexing of our own posts. This is a good point worthy of some research.
Mad Stratter
December 24th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Ah, I didn’t even think of making it a nofollow link.
It looks like Mr. Discount has taken his website offline for a bit while he restrategizes…
Ovidiu
December 24th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Seems our action already had a positive result! Way to go!
ZUrlocker
December 25th, 2008 at 12:01 am
I had this problem earlier, and I posted a short article with some helpful links on dealing with this. Basically, send an email and given them 24-48 hours to license the content or remove it otherwise you send email to Google and to their ISP.
http://www.guitarvibe.com/2007/07/theft-of-copyri.html
In some cases, people may not even understand that content is copyright, that’s why I suggest giving a warning.
–Zack
Jeff F
December 25th, 2008 at 12:37 am
Another one of these sites that scrapes my content a lot is actoguitar or acttoguitar.com.
I do some work at an Interactive Marketing Consultancy and do some SEO and whatnot…the duplicate content is an issue, but not much of a problem as you may think for our original sites.
Google’s algorithm is smart enough to recognize the age of domains and the authority of our sites over these scrapers, and thus the duplicate content is only going to hurt the scraper sites.
Also, the web is really moving toward subjective search as you may have noticed in your own iGoogle accounts and searches. They way these sites are set up, not many people are going to be going to these sites, and even if they accidentally go to them, it’s pretty obvious that they are just rip off sites and will most likely hit the back button faster than Yngwie can shred some 16th notes.
Like Stratoblogster says, it actually helps (even though hardly at all) our sites out by getting more links, even though those type of links are pretty much worthless.
Not too much to worry about really. I doubt these scrapers even make much of their sites. The way SEO & Google is changing, sites like these have no chance at all in surviving or making money, nonetheless showing up in the searches.
Mad Stratter
December 26th, 2008 at 2:05 am
Thanks Jeff, all very helpful information… I’m really diggin’ your site, by the way, I’m really glad I finally found it.
Gear-Vault
December 26th, 2008 at 2:10 am
I don’t mind if others use my site’s content just as long as it’s sourced. And in some cases, such as Stratoblogster’s, it could pay out in clicks and recognition…
As far as duplicate content goes, there’s no harm. It’s an old myth.. if this was true, google and yahoo would be de-indexed.
But I could understand why some people are pissed.
Merry Christmas, btw. Yep, that’s right, no rest for the wicked!
Ovidiu
December 26th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Well, no matter the “advantages” I don’t want my site content to be duplicated somewhere else. I hold the copyrights so I want to only have this content on my site not on 10 other sites!
Chris - GuitarToyBox.com
December 26th, 2008 at 10:57 am
yeah spot on… I know I get a lot of inspiration for my posts from you guys, and I’ll always give credit, but flat out stealing…. yeah, it bums you out. I’ve been coping it a lot over the past few months and that has been really discouraging.
sarge1875
December 27th, 2008 at 1:33 am
I take a couple days off and the blog sphere goes to pot…lol…..j/k all. It is definitely a problem. The link you all are talking about is dead, well actually it says “coming soon”.
Stratoblogster
December 28th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Jeff from Zen mentioned Actoguitar. I discovered them a few months ago at Technorati’s blogs linking to my blog. At first, those Actoguitar links re-directed to a porn site instead of my blog. After reporting this to Technorati, the redirects were promptly removed.
Mad Stratter
December 28th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Maybe that’s what we need to try, since the guitar affiliate links don’t exactly seem to be a high-paying business… use our guitar blogs as a front for guitar porn blogs…
although I don’t know how many people would be into a porn starring Quarter Inch Jack…
Jon
December 29th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
“although I don’t know how many people would be into a porn starring Quarter Inch Jack”
Haha that’s an awesome idea, although I consider some of my content to already BE guitar porn!
Jeff F
December 30th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Porn and guitar….what can be a better combination!?!?!
We should all photo ourselves in the nude with our favorite guitars and start a new site, see where things take us. good idea Mad Stratter!
And thanks for the nice words too! I am really digging your new magazine style layout. Looks really sharp!
This whole thing reminds me of the RIAA and free music downloads….I guess we can either be Metallica or just accept the fact that there will always be someone out there ripping off material.
Oh well at least we have each other!
Gear-Vault
December 30th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
“We should all photo ourselves in the nude with our favorite guitars and start a new site, see where things take us. good idea Mad Stratter!”
Not so much. Unless you`all are 5′6 120ibs ‘C’-size cup and silky hair down to your bra-strap, I’ll decline visiting this website as tempting as it may be, some things are just not meant to be seen.
I’d much rather see images of your flame top axe with double humbuckers and lock nut!
Mad Stratter
December 30th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
There you go again, wantin’ to see “flame”in’ and “hum”in’ and the “nuts”. Get your mind outta the gutter and back on guitars!
Ovidiu
December 31st, 2008 at 12:35 am
Man, you’re nuts! I didn’t comment too much on this, waiting to see where you’re heading
Guitar and porn, man, that’s a killer combination. Just that, you know, somebody else already thought about it: Jackson!
In case you missed, it, they associated their brand with Jenna Jameson for a while, see here http://www.synergyguitars.com/images/jenna2.jpg , http://www.national-music.com/images/brands/fender/JENNA%20JAMESON/FEN-0990171000-POSTER.jpg , http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Lisa426w/GUITARS/jenna9_large.jpg But hey, we can always start such a site, just that, please, guys, realizing that about 95% of my readers are men, please, don’t send me photos with you naked…OK?
Mad Stratter
December 31st, 2008 at 1:34 am
oops…..
um… just got ahead and delete the slow of “From: Mad Stratter” emails in your inbox…
no need to open
Mad Stratter
December 31st, 2008 at 1:35 am
go* slew*
I’m still sleepy.