As plugins for WordPress become more sophisticated, many people are running blogs that use some of these kinds of plugins to scrape and copy your content. This is different from syndicated content where people publish your content, but give you credit for that content and provide a link back to your website.
What content scrapers are doing, in essence, is stealing your hard work and calling it their own. Content scraping plugins do not credit the original website nor do they provide a link. Some webmasters will actually do a search for their keywords and then copy and paste your article to their website, not even changing it up a little to make it unique. Not only is this blatant plagiarism, it is just plain lazy!
So what can you do to prevent theft of your content by plugins and thieves alike?
Use Summaries in your posts
While RSS Feeds are one way to make your posts viral, they also alert content scrapers when you have posted new content. RSS Feeds can allow a webmaster to post your content automatically through the use of a plugin. Instead of posting the full article that you want to add to your site, post a small snippet of your article. A short summary will still have some of the content you want to post, but it can’t be scraped by bots or plugins because the reader has to click on the post to open it and read the full article.
WordPress allows you to modify posts by changing your settings. Simply go to “settingsâ€, then choose “reading†and finally, under the selection “for each article in a feed â€" show summaryâ€. Save this and then exit. Now, when you post content, it will simply show a summary. After you have done this the result is that if RSS Feed plugins grab your summary, what they will get is one paragraph only from your article, along with a link back to your website.
Add Hotlink Protection
Not only do thieves take your content, they also steal your images. When an entire article is copied from your site and posted on another site, it usually comes complete with the images that you have posted within that article. This is commonly called “hot linkingâ€.
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WordPress has a solution for that too. Simply install a plugin called “automatic image hotlink protection†into your blog and activate it with a few easy steps. Now, when someone steals your images, what will be displayed instead is a small caption that lets the reader know that the image was taken from your website, as well as displaying a link to your website.
Find the thief
Make absolutely certain that you add the appropriate copyright notice to your website, because it gives you “teeth†when you need to track down a thief. If you find that your content has been stolen, track down the thief. You can simply type in a snippet of your content and then see where it pops up. Once you are on a different site and you see that this is your exact content, your next move is to contact the owner of that web page. You can use “Who is†and any other number of sources to find contact information for the owner of the page.
Your next move is to contact the owner of the webpage. Tell them that they are using your content without your permission and ask them to remove it and to cease and desist. Make sure you keep copies of all of this correspondence. Be sure to remain professional at all times. Some people do not even realize that they are stealing your content, and will be more than happy to remove it at your request. You must remain calm and keep the dialogue open, even if your first instinct is to be brutal. You will have to prove that the content is yours, and you can use backed up data to do this or the “way back†website.
Most people will remove your content that is copied to their webpage without much fuss. This is because they were either unaware that the content was stolen, or they had no idea that the content was copyrighted. Ignorance is not protection, however, and it is up to you to be ever vigilant and be aware of people taking your content and calling it their own.
Once you have been in touch with a webmaster and they have responded to you, you can give that person several options:
- Remove your content from their page altogether
- Provide the original link back to your website in the post and state that it is reproduced
- Pay you a certain sum of money for the use of your original copyrighted content.
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