I didn’t want to do it but I have to. I am sorry if you hate me-I hope you don’t. I know you might quit following me but I hope you will stick with me.
Plagarism
If you read my post in a feed you will notice that I have truncated my posts. Why? because of the scrapers that are stealing posts-word for word. I work hard to create projects and not only that but I have to look out for the people that I feature. I don’t want their content posted on one of these aggregator sites with no link backs–it isn’t right and a lot of bloggers are taking a stand. It takes hours and hours of my time to get the stolen content removed. I recently had one of my posts ripped off–word for word from beginning to end. I contacted the owner and asked them to please remove the post-no response–post still up. I left another message–still nothing. I went through Google to get my post removed. These people don’t do this for fun–they do it because they make money doing it and they make a lot of money doing it. They steal my content and they could be stealing your content. After several days it was still up. (Google can take quite a while to get it down.) These sites make money and a lot of it to scrape our posts so they are in no hurry to remove the posts. I went through several steps–DMCA, contact their host, send a cease and desist, and finally got the site shut down but it is back up, stealing content again. The cease and desist only worked for my post, once it was removed they were free to go about stealing again.
These sites use programs that go in and steal the content so the only way to protect is to truncate.
It takes hours–hours away from creating projects, preparing food, taking photos, editing photos, posting… I have 3 sites to monitor so not only am I trying to stay on top of everything here at Its So Very Cheri but also The DIY Club and 50 Plus More so I have decided to band together with other great bloggers like Sawdust and Paper Scraps and Infarrantly Creative and many many others and try to stop these people from stealing.
If you see this at the bottom of a feed post–now you know why… (I need to work on getting that added in as well.)
So now you understand why and I hope you aren’t mad at me but I just had to do it.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Still following! I support you!
I can’t believe this! I am so mad for you! I just discovered a handful of you great DIY blogs and they are all truncating. I must admit that I always thought it was annoying but now that I know the reasoning behind it I totally get it! I’m still following 🙂
How do you monitor that kind of thing? I’m not nearly as big as you wonderful ladies, but I’m beginning to wonder if I should do something before there is a problem.
Thanks Jen–I will pop over to see what you are up to.
Cheri
Cheri,
I will still follow you! But I have a question, is Google Reader bad? I follow many blogs using google reader but I do not want to continue using the service if it is stealing your posts.
I completely understand! One of my biggest pet peeves are people that steal your hard work! I do free printables on my blog every now and again, and I can’t even tell you how much it bothers me to see my content on other people’s blogs and they are taking credit for my work and not giving any kind of credit back to me. I even put a disclaimer at the bottom, saying that I would love for the printable to be used, but please give credit back to me. Nope! There are people out there saying that they created the printable on their own! Grr! All the power to you, girl – and keep up the good work! We all love your content!
Courtney @ Between U & Me recently posted..Birthday Girl Shirt – Silhouette Cameo
Thanks Courtney. It is too bad when people don’t give credit back. I know there are times that people come up with the same idea around the same time. I have done it myself and you post it and see it all over. I like to thing they just happened upon the same idea at the same time. Unfortunately a lot of these people taking printables will just change a font here or there and say it isn’t the same. yoou should add the disclaimer to the bottom of your feed too.
People who read in Google Reader are not clicking over to the blog so it is a bad thing for us because we don’t get the click and that means we don’t make as much money but Google Reader isn’t necessarily stealing content.
Courtney I just happened upon the most recent one. who knows how many are out there that I don’t know about. Yes you should do something now. They steal good content.
Cheri, I’m so sorry this is happening. I don’t blame you at all and I support whatever you and other bloggers need to do. I have no idea what it is to truncate your blog posts but I agree with it. 🙂
xo
Pat
Pat recently posted..~ Colors of Fall ~
Cheri I will be joining the bandwagon too… hopefully I’ll have time in my schedule to make the necessary changes. You know I’ll still be popping in and sending you some love. 🙂
Maryann @ Domestically Speaking recently posted..141st Power of Paint Party… Burlap Painted Leaf Art
I’ve seen a lot of bloggers doing this to protect themselves. I agree with them! Anything to stop the thieves and keep the credit where it belongs. When I have a minute, I need to look into this for myself. I am still a tiny blog, but are the fussy on who they steal from? And, can you do this when you are on blogspot? So many questions I need to find answers to.
Yes, I will still follow you! I am on Google+ and when I see a post I want to read, I will click on the site so I don’t miss anything. I’ll comment there and quite often still comment on the google board.
Debbie 🙂
Debbie 🙂
Debbie recently posted..Putting Up Tomatoes
Thanks Maryann and Debbie. I will try to get some more info in a post by next week to help you navigate getting it done.
Hi Cheri,
I read your post and I believe there are alternative solutions you might consider. I’ll say up front, please forgive me for self-promoting but it seems very relevant to you current situation. My company Distil (http://www.distil.it) helps protect websites against web scraping and content theft, while improving the performance and load time.
Consider the impact: If you can stop the duplication before it happens, you’ll no longer need to deal with all Google takedown request you’ve been waiting on.
As a side note, it would be very interesting to see what impact the feed modification has your traffic over the next few weeks.