Stealing articles

by parker3773

Posted: 15 years ago 19 replies

Folks

I was doing my normal blog commenting this morning and got an e-mail from Google Alerts which took me to a site with my article posted on it with another guy taking credit for writing it. This is his posting. I wrote this on Saturday (which is why it has a "Saturday financial tip" that he didn't change)

What is the proper thing to do? I posted a comment saying that if we was going to repost my article, he could at least give me credit and link to my site.

I know that it's going to happen but it's frustrating when I'm working my backside off trying to get some traffic.

Thanks

#articles #stealing

IowaGal 15 years ago

I know that it's no comfort to know that this kind of thing happens all the time - which is incredibly unfortunate. However, I do know of someone who had successfully contacted the hosting company of the person who had stolen some content and had the site shut down.

This is an extreme instance but you could let the thief know that you intend on contacting their hosting company and reporting them.

Hope that helps.
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Solidsnake Banned 15 years ago

As what iowagal said, contacting the host is the only option unless he is using blogger or worpress where you can contact both providers directly...
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- bgmacaw 15 years ago
  
  You can worry yourself to death about it, leave comments on their blog they Akismet you and kill your ability to leave comments. They may even file a spamming/copying complaint against you or bomb your Adsense account and get your account banned. This happens while you spend your valuable time complaining about it to whoever will listen and watch while their host company does nothing.
  
  Or...
  
  You can get backlinks to your site, improve other aspects of your SEO and outrank them in search results and make money while they don't. Right now, Google's algorithms appear to think you're the copier because their site ranks and yours doesn't even appear to be indexed.
  
  Thanks
  
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  parker3773 15 years ago
  
  Yes, my site is only a week old so I don't have much Google pull right now. So are you saying that when somebody copies my article I can suffer as far as Google is concerned?
  
  I'm not going to go after it. You're right. Time is valuable.
  
  Thanks
  
  2 replies
  
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  parker3773 15 years ago
  
  Well, I guess I feel a little better because he allowed my comment to be posted so at least for now, I have a link back to my site as the top comment.
  
  Tips Pay yourself | trapez-finance.org
  
  Hopefully it speaks to the quality of my content if others are reprinting it so I'm happy to see it in other places but just put a link.
  
  Thanks, everybody, for the advice. I'm a blog commenting machine today!
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
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  ManAbout 15 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by parker3773
  
  Well, I guess I feel a little better because he allowed my comment to be posted so at least for now, I have a link back to my site as the top comment.
  
  !
  
  Maybe I am missing something, but I don't see your comment on the article. Is that your site? Or the site that stole your article?
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
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  parker3773 15 years ago
  
  His site...maybe he took it down. It was there a couple of hours ago.
  
  Thanks
  
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  bgmacaw 15 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by parker3773
  
  So are you saying that when somebody copies my article I can suffer as far as Google is concerned?
  
  You can, especially as a new site that's just getting started and that isn't completely indexed by Google. Once you get rolling and having Google Blog Search and other RSS aggregation sites pick up your feed when you ping them you'll have less of a problem with it. This helps make it clear that your article is the original. Right now, it's kind of ambiguous since you aren't getting indexed quickly. So Google gives the benefit of the doubt to the established site, not yours.
  
  I had something like this happen with an antique niche site where a long established scrapper site was republishing my articles and outranking me. Now, after building links and establishing some authority, I easily outrank them.
  
  Thanks
  
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luckycharmz336

15 years ago

people are jerks! I have had this happen as well

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Joel McLaughlin
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parker3773

15 years ago

So the thing that all of young bloggers can learn from this is when it happens, keep on posting, keep on SEOing, and the problem will take care of itself when we become bigger fish in the pond.

Thanks again

Thanks
1 reply

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Nick.A

15 years ago

Originally Posted by parker3773

Very frustrating but, unfortunately, that is the real world! Don't lose too much sleep worrying about it.

Thanks

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Nick

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luckycharmz336 15 years ago

I agree Parker,

People that steal articles are lazy. Their laziness will wear off fast and if you work hard and are persistent you will succeed. I love this quote

Many Constantly Dream Of Success While Others Rise Up And Work Relentlessly To Obtain It Each And Every Day.
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Joel McLaughlin
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DeanJames 15 years ago

Hi Tim,

It's one of those things that happens. Most people are honest and some are not. A small percentage are not and this is the way things will always be. It's natural to get wound up about it but don't let that happen, just keep moving forward

- Dean
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- davesharp 15 years ago
  
  Hi,
  
  It happened to me today on a blogger site. I just reported the site and moved on. Most people leave the resource box intact and that is fine,but some don't and that's not so clever.
  
  Not worth spending a lot of time on though.
  
  Dave
  
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GotWebHost 15 years ago

Is he picking it up off an RSS feed? If so, limit what goes out.
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Ryan6 15 years ago

Is your work copyrighted? Give him a warning of legal action... that should do the trick! You should consider informing his web host as well.
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Lenders4u.co.uk
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shorwood 15 years ago

I have had quite a few of my articles stolen, in a few different niches. Just take it as a compliment. I don't bother doing anything about it. Just keep posting your content, keep working, and like you said, you will become a big fish and the lazy people that steal your articles will be left in your dust. There will always be people stealing your articles. It's just something you have to live with.
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mfleisch 15 years ago

Tim,

I use article marketing quite a bit and find this relatively common. In each case, I have contacted the "author" and requested that they pull down the article or add proper credit. In my email, I always provide the html about the author section so that it can easily be added. Additionally, I provide a pretty strong warning about plagiarism and let them know that I will report them to their hosting provider if they do not take action within 24 hours. This seems to get them to move on it sooner rather than later.
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- paulgl 15 years ago
  
  That sucks, but many have the same thing happened. Think about all the other stuff that gets stolen-photos, graphics, etc. I have often wondered how many of mine are stolen as well. I did a search with some exact content of my articles that I knew were unique. Sure enough, there was a couple found. If you write articles, you may try this little search to see who may have stolen some of yours. The thing is, its really hard to stop it. I myself have stopped worrying much about it. On some of my important ones, I have gotten into the habit of writing a copyright notice and the date. That way, people know up front and I have sort of a record as to when it was published. But outright stealers will never prosper as much as they (we) think.
  
  Paul
  
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