Rant: EZA Content "Syndication"... More Like "SIN-dication"

11 replies
I recently wrote an article and published it to Ezinearticles, with a link back to my website in the resource box. (I of course dutifully posted it to my own domain name's Wordpress blog first.)

And as I always do, I set up a Google Alert to notify me when any content with an exact match of my article title gets indexed.

Every couple of days, I get a Google Alert that another site has been indexed with my unique article title. So I click through to check out the new site.... It's got my article on it, so I'm all happy and excited that someone syndicated my article...

... until I scroll down and see that the resource box has been replaced with their own (or has been omitted altogether), and the author's name has changed. And the worst part is that the article isn't even spun. Only the first sentence or two has been changed ever so slightly.

I got so flaming mad at first, , that I decided to chase down some of the offenders by:

- Including my own comment to their blog post, with a quick one liner and a back link back to my own website.
- Sending a private message nastygram to the blog / website owner.

But I don't have time to bother with chasing down every offender, so I've given up...

So, unfortunately, publishing content on Ezinearticles is an open market for plagiarism.

The only bright side, is that at least I know that the quality of my article writing was superior enough that people out there thought it was worthy copying! :confused:


Hey I just thought of an idea for a Fiverr gig: Offer to chase down people who steal your content, for $5!
#content #eza #rant #sindication #syndication
  • Profile picture of the author Wills
    Yeah this does unfortunately happen. You can of course report those sites to their providers but it can get very tedious.

    I usually take comfort from the fact that, these website scraping content are usually autoblogs or low-quality sites, that do not rank anyway. So do not get to worked up, over it.
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  • Profile picture of the author takanomi
    IMHO you're better off getting the article on as many sites in the first place rather than just putting it on EZA ... then if anyone does steal your content/not give you a link, the odd instance of this is far outweighed by all the other places that are correctly publishing your content
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    • Profile picture of the author tpw
      Originally Posted by takanomi View Post

      IMHO you're better off getting the article on as many sites in the first place rather than just putting it on EZA ... then if anyone does steal your content/not give you a link, the odd instance of this is far outweighed by all the other places that are correctly publishing your content

      I agree with Steve.

      But you can DMCA to Google to get the site blocked in Google.

      You can also DMCA the web hosting company to get the page taken down.
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      • Profile picture of the author hyderkhan
        Originally Posted by tpw View Post

        I agree with Steve.

        But you can DMCA to Google to get the site blocked in Google.

        You can also DMCA the web hosting company to get the page taken down.
        Definitely a good idea. But it could very well turn out to be a time-consuming task, when we should be focusing on moving forward with producing more content. This is definitely something to outsource to someone like a VA, or maybe as a Fiverr gig, or something....
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  • Profile picture of the author peter gibson
    It's not all that hard to hurt the folks who decide it's OK to benefit (read: steal) from your work. It shouldn't be at all tedious or "not worth your time", since these buggers will do it again, and again, to you and others. It only takes a bit of due diligence, some patience. A few fired off email warnings, a subsequent DMCA notification - CC'd to whatever advertising programs they are running on the offending site(s). They can end up having their accounts banned at their respective ad networks with the quickness, with unpaid revenue being frozen.

    Also, contacting their hosting provider (by phone is best) with proof of the content stolen - along with the TOS violation being cited, you can get their entire network of sites tanked - if they own more than one domain or site with that hosting company. No company openly associates with thieves, it just doesn't happen. If you have proof of their offense, the companies that associate with them will blacklist them within minutes of your notification.

    I would suggest you take the time and do something about it. When you allow this sort of thing to go unpunished you're letting other authors be potentially at the mercy of the scumbags who stole your content. And your setting yourself up for future thievery. It sets a dangerous precedent.

    I'd definitely jump knee deep in their s**t and make life miserable for them. In the end, if they make one dime off that piece of writing it's just the same as stealing money from your pocket. Believe me, I've had tons of stolen content removed from sites, and I've caused sites (entire networks) to lose their ad networks and hosting when they didn't heed my warnings and replaced their links with my own. It's worth it both to you and to the honest writing community at large for you to take aggressive action against these buggers.
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    • Profile picture of the author hyderkhan
      Originally Posted by peter gibson View Post

      It's not all that hard to hurt the folks who decide it's OK to benefit (read: steal) from your work. It shouldn't be at all tedious or "not worth your time", since these buggers will do it again, and again, to you and others. It only takes a bit of due diligence, some patience. A few fired off email warnings, a subsequent DMCA notification - CC'd to whatever advertising programs they are running on the offending site(s). They can end up having their accounts banned at their respective ad networks with the quickness, with unpaid revenue being frozen.

      Also, contacting their hosting provider (by phone is best) with proof of the content stolen - along with the TOS violation being cited, you can get their entire network of sites tanked - if they own more than one domain or site with that hosting company. No company openly associates with thieves, it just doesn't happen. If you have proof of their offense, the companies that associate with them will blacklist them within minutes of your notification.

      I would suggest you take the time and do something about it. When you allow this sort of thing to go unpunished you're letting other authors be potentially at the mercy of the scumbags who stole your content. And your setting yourself up for future thievery. It sets a dangerous precedent.

      I'd definitely jump knee deep in their s**t and make life miserable for them. In the end, if they make one dime off that piece of writing it's just the same as stealing money from your pocket. Believe me, I've had tons of stolen content removed from sites, and I've caused sites (entire networks) to lose their ad networks and hosting when they didn't heed my warnings and replaced their links with my own. It's worth it both to you and to the honest writing community at large for you to take aggressive action against these buggers.
      Agreed... Just need to be able to prioritize these efforts if you are operating on a limited time budget per week.
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  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
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    Originally Posted by hyderkhan View Post

    So, unfortunately, publishing content on Ezinearticles is an open market for plagiarism.
    So is publishing it on your own site, hello ...

    Just serve a DMCA notice on them and move on. The only downside is the time taken to send out one or two pre-written emails. No big deal.
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  • Profile picture of the author Raindance
    Well apart from giving them a kick at the right spots, you can also stay convinced that it is your content that is on Google. The search engine's top priority is that same content is not repeated in their results. Hence, as your content is indexed first and you also have backlinks pointing at it (at least from article directories), the thieves don't gain anything in the rankings from the stolen content.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kierkegaard
    Leave stuff laying around and people will nick it. Wherever content is published - on an article directory webpage, on your own site, on any site - anyone can copy and paste it onto their own site.

    Not just blatent copy and paste either. Many of my articles are just bascially re-written and posted elsewhere.

    There's no point getting worked up about it. Like Alexa said, serve a DMCA notice on them and move on
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    • Profile picture of the author Steven Dybka
      Originally Posted by Kierkegaard View Post

      Leave stuff laying around and people will nick it. Wherever content is published - on an article directory webpage, on your own site, on any site - anyone can copy and paste it onto their own site.

      Not just blatent copy and paste either. Many of my articles are just bascially re-written and posted elsewhere.

      There's no point getting worked up about it. Like Alexa said, serve a DMCA notice on them and move on
      The thing is that every spammer out there knows that they can pull content from article directories and put it on their site,there are dozens of plugins that will pull articles from ezinearticles and will give you the option to keep the bio box or not,odds are content will be used from article directories more than someones own site anyway.
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  • Profile picture of the author Steven Dybka
    article directories are only good for backlinks to your site,you should only post the highest quality articles on your site only,why would you want to post high quality to article directories and build their business instead of yours,and on top of that leave your article open for anyone to steal it from you without providing you a proper credit back to your site.
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