Handle blog scrapers using image replacement

On my personal finance blog, Gather Little by Little, I often find my copyrighted content being scraped by other sites.  If you aren’t familiar with the concept of scraping, it’s basically when someone takes your blog’s content and posts it on their blog in order to use it to make money.

Typically, the scraper uses a WordPress plugin that reads your blog’s RSS feed and automatically places your content on their blog.  Shockingly, there is even software that will scrap your entire blog (theme and all) and copy it to the scrapers site so they have an exact replica of your site and content!

Combating scrapers

There are multiple ways of dealing with scrapers.  Some are more effective than others and some are dependent on where the hosting company is located.  Here are the one’s that I typically use and in the order that I use them:

1 – Send them an email

Some (although not many) will stop scraping your site if you just take the time to ask them to stop.  This is always the first thing I do and then I give them a few days to reply.  Some scrapper sites don’t offer and email or contact page, so this isn’t an option.  If you can’t contact them or they don’t respond, on to step 2.

2- Report them to their host

Hosting companies in the US are required to respond to reports of copyright violations.  Technically, US law says that a formal DMCA notification is required, but many hosting companies will respond via a simple email that contains the URL for the violating site along with examples of the copyright violation, including links to the original content.  Not sure who’s hosting the site?  Use Who is Hosting This.

3 – Report them to Google Adsense

Most scrappers are using your content in order to run Google Adsense for revenue.  One effective means of really hitting the scraper in the bottom line is by reporting them to Adsense, as using copyrighted content is against Google’s terms of service.

To report a blog to to Google:

  1. click on the “Ads by Google” text located on Adsense ads.
  2. Next, scroll down to the bottom of the window that opens and select “Send Google your thoughts on the site or the ads you just saw“.
  3. Scroll down a little further now and select “Also Report a Violation?” followed by “The ads”.
  4. This will allow you to check “The site is hosting/distributing my copyrighted content“.

I don’t recommend putting your email address as this will cause Google to just send you an email requesting a formal DMCA nofication, which is a pain.  If you leave out your email they will typically suspend the blog owner’s Adsense account right away.

Image replacement

The final weapon I use after I’ve done all of the above is image replacement.  Every article I write on Gather Little by Little contains a 500×150 graphic just below the article title.  This has become a “signature style” for me.  The advantage of this style is that I can really hit the scraper, here’s how.

First, create a replacement image.  The one I use on Gather Little by Little looks as follows:

stolenUpload this graphic to a directory on your blog’s webserver.  I put mine in a directory off the root named “wp-images” and named it stolen.jpg.

Next, you’ll need to ftp to your blog’s server and edit the .htaccess file located in the root directory.  Mine happens to be \httpdocs (I’m on Media Temple).  Using a text editor add the following to your .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(.+\.)?site1\.com/ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(.+\.)?site2\.com/ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(.+\.)?site3\.com/ [NC]
RewriteRule .*\.(jpe?g|gif|bmp|png)$ /wp-images/stolen.jpg [L]

The script above will take any image requests from site1.com, site2.com, or site 3.com and reroute the image request to your stolen.jpg (or whatever you named it) file. To add additional sites, just add additional “RewriteCond” lines and replace the siteX.com part with the additional site URL.

If you only want to block one site for now, use the following code:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(.+\.)?site1\.com/ [NC]
RewriteRule .*\.(jpe?g|gif|bmp|png)$ /wp-images/stolen.jpg [L]

Wouldn’t you love to see the look on those scrapers faces when they see their blog full of “Stolen content” images???

I’d like to thank @capitalfellow on Twtter for making me aware of this technique and to AltLab for providing the article with the .htaccess code.

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Thesis 1.4 is out!

Chris Pearson announced that Thesis 1.4 is now available for download.   I actually found out by following Chris on Twitter.  Thesis 1.4 adds some really nice new features:

  • A new multiple-instance sidebar widget – The widget ads the ability to display posts from any category.  The widget ads the ability to choose whether to only show posts from a certain category, select how many posts to list, and select whether or not to display how many comments the post has.  Multiple-instance means you can ad as many of these as you want (read: one for each category if you would like).
  • Say good-bye to painful custom fields – Thesis 1.4 ads new post editing options that replace the need for custom fields.
  • Post images and thumbnail features – These new features add a number of options and features to increase the visual flexibility of your site.  Chris is going to announce more on this in the official announcement post coming later today.
  • Improved Options pages – Not only are there more options, the pages have been reorganized to make them more usable.  There are also lots of new options to customize the new features.
  • Feature box – I’m looking forward into digging into this one.  Right now, it’s just a hookable element that you can position in various places around your site. Chris teases us though and says “Expect this box to gain a healthy set of customization options in future release of Thesis“.  Great, 1.4 just came out and I already can’t wait for 1.5!
  • Features and Teasers – This is the most exciting feature for me.  Features are displayed just like normal blog posts (but customizable via the custom CSS file).  Teasers are a new and customizable way to display your posts. Teasers have lots of various options that allow you to customize how they are displayed.  No more having to use plugins and I can’t wait to dig in and start playing around with teasers.  You can even change the fonts!

Upgrading to Thesis 1.4

Upgrading is painless.  The only big restriction is that Thesis 1.4 now works only on WordPress 2.7.  To upgrade, just download the Thesis 1.4 files and upload them to the thesis directory on your site.  Login to your WordPress admin console, head over to the Thesis Options page, click on the Big A## Save Button, then visit the Design options page, do the same and you’re ready to rock!  Saving adds in the new features for Thesis 1.4.

It literally took me less than 3 minutes to upgrade this site.  That to me is hands down the best feature of Thesis, the theme is completely seperate from your customizations.   I’ve been playing around with the new feature set for the past hour, and no bugs at all.  The release seems very stable and all of the new abilities work as expected.  Looking forward to digging into some of the new customization features.  Look forward to some articles coming soon!

Whether you are buying Thesis for the first time or just upgrading, you can download Thesis 1.4 on the DIYThemes site.

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Starting a blogging website

So you want to start a blog?  Personally, I think that’s a great idea.  I have a few and if I had more time to write I’d have even more.  I like to create blogs for any topic that interests me and that I’m actively learning about.  Not only does blogging on the topic document your learnings, but it shares those learnings with others.  Blogs in general are a great way to share information, build a business, make money online, and interact with others.

Don’t be mislead though, starting a blogging website is far more than just creating a wordpress.com website and writing every so often.  Building a successful blog that has blog reach takes a great deal of work and commitment.  Here are just a few of the things you need to have and consider when starting a blogging website:

Passion

Passion is key.  If you aren’t passionate about the topic you’ll be writing on, it will reflect in your writing and to your readers.  When choosing a topic to blog about, pick a topic that greatly interests you.  Pick a topic related to a hobby you really enjoy or something related to the type of work you do (and love).  For example, I love blogging so I write here about blogging.  I also enjoy saltwater aquariums and write about my hobby over on my saltwater aquarium blog.  I also really enjoy model trains and hope to start a blog on models trains some day.

Again, passion is key.  If you aren’t passionate, excited and love the subject you’re blogging about, then pick another topic.

Knowledge and Authority

Tightly coupled with passion is knowledge and authority.  To have a success blog, you not only need to be passionate, but you also need to exhort knowledge and authority.  People will read your blog because they trust you and respect your knowledge and authority on the topic you are writing about.  If you don’t provide knowledge, they’ll move on to another blog that does.

Let’s first examine what authority means.  According to Dictionary.com an authority in the context we’re using is: an expert on a subject. Through sharing the knowledge that you have, you establish yourself as an expert and therefore an authority on the subject.  One of the niches I enjoy writing in is personal finance.  PaidTwice from I’ve Paid For This Twice Already doesn’t like to consider herself an authority.  She tells more of a personal story that people can relate to, however whether intentional or not, she has established herself as an authority on snow flaking and by doing so gets linked to and receives traffic as a result.  She even started something called the Snow Flake Revolution along with an associated blog carnival (see below) to further establish that authority.

What is crucial to understand is that being an expert is all about perception.  There is no documented or defined set of criteria that makes someone an expert.  A common saying is that: Perception is reality.  This is true for being perceived as an expert.  If you write like you are an expert, than you’ll be perceived as an expert and thus receive authority in your field.

Marketing ability

In the 1989 movie Field of Dreams, the voice said: “If you build it, they will come“.  In the world of blogging, this is only somewhat true.  Search engines will eventually find your content and visitors will arrive from organic searches, but unless you are just very lucky and stumble into some traffic rich keywords, this will not be enough to grow your blog.

There are more than 175,000 blogs created everyday according to Technorati.  With that amount of “competition”, it’s easy to see that just building a site and expecting thousands of readers to flock to your site is unrealistic.  As with most any business, marketing plays a key role in the success (or failure) of your blog.

Fortunately there are more ways to market your blog than I can count and new ways appear daily.  Part of your responsibility as a blogger will be to determine which of these work and which don’t.  It also involves staying on the leading edge of these new opportunities when they arrive.

Here are just a few of the many ways to market your blog as of the time of this writing.  Remember, there are new one’s daily, so keep an eye out:

Commenting – Adding thoughtful and value added comments to blogs related to your blog’s niche will not only expose others to your blog, but will also help to establish your authority.  Do not make the mistake of writing thoughtless comments like: “Great article, thanks!” or using it for obvious promotion by adding comments like: “Please come read my blog: http://www.ihavenoclue.com”.  These types of comments wont’ help you but hurt you.  Instead, add value.  Let’s say you read an article about using social media to promote your blog.  The article is good and very thorough, but that missed a social media service you’ve found to be very helpful.  Add a comment like this:

Very thorough write-up.  I’ve been using a few of the one’s you’ve listed and look forward to trying out the one’s I’m not familiar with.  Recently, I’ve been using XYZ as well, which you didn’t include.  Over the past month, it’s generated an additional 1,000+ unique visits to my blog and increased my number of subscribers.  I really like the way they categorize the topics as well. You mentioned the ABC service, one tip I’ve found that really makes a difference is …

Well, you get the picture.

Forums – Forums are a great way to add exposure to your blog and help to establish your authority as well.  They key to forums is not just participating to expose your blog.  Many forums require you to participate for a while before they will even allow you to add your blogs link to your forums posts.  I think this is a good practice.  Participate in the forum to learn and share your knowledge.  Let the marketing be a secondary focus and I guarantee you’ll get more readers and traffic as a result.  People are smart, and they’ll see right through someone just joining to promote their blog.

Blog Carnivals – Blog Carnivals are generally hosted by different sites each week.  Carnivals of blog events that include articles submitted to the carnival from many different blogs.  Blog Carnivals are generally focused on a particular topic. Blog Carnival has lots of different blog carnivals indexed for pretty much any category or niche you might be trying to fill.  You can also create your own.  The primary benefit of participating in carnivals is visibility.  Submitting your articles to blog carnivals is a great way to expose your writing to other people.  Submit early and often when you are first starting out and host as often as you can.

Social Media – Social media is the craze these days with sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, and Twitter just to name a few of the really big one’s.   These sites can really bring a significant amount of traffic to your site if your articles become popular.  Go read about the Digg Effect if you aren’t familiar with what I mean.  These sites can literally bring your web server down due to the amount of traffic they can generate.  Social media isn’t just fun, but is a very effective way to market your blog.  Recently, I’ve really enjoyed interacting with people on Twitter, so I’d invite you to follow me and let me know you found me via this article!

Social Skills

When I first started blogging, I learned very quickly that blogging is very social.  Making friends and developing relationships with other bloggers,especially more seasoned and A-list bloggers can really help you and your blog.  Getting a link from Problogger, Get Rich Slowly, Lifehacker, or anyone of the other “big time” blogs on the internet can cause a huge surge in your subscriber base just from the exposure.

Within the first couple of months of starting my Christian personal finance site, I was invited by Pinyo of Moolanomy to start a blogging network with him.  Looking back, this is as probably the single most beneficial thing that happened to my blog.  Not only did I get links from other very credible personal finance blogs, I also made some great friends that I cherish very much.  Friends that I trust to bounce idea off, provide feedback on myblogs, and share ideas with.  Finding a group like that early in your blogging career can have a significant positive impact on it’s future.  Seek out opportunities like this and maybe even start your own blogging network.

Technical knowledge

Many people start blogs thinking all they need to do is write.  They head over to wordpress.com or blogger.com, create a new blog in a few minutes and start writing.  This will of course work and get you online, but the trick is to differentiate yourself from others and to personalize your blog to your style.  In order to do this, you’ll need some technical knowledge or someone who can fill that niche for you.  Typical technologies you’ll need to be familiar with when blogging include: PHP, HTML, Domain Names, FTP, the various browsers like Firefox and Internet Explorer (unfortunately they don’t all work the same).

Being from a technical background, I enjoy the technical aspects of blogging; however if this is something you don’t want to do or hassle with, than you’ll need to find a blog consulting and blog coaching service that can take care of the technical details for you.

Time and commitment

Finally, blogging takes time and commitment.  Writing authoritative and knowledge based articles require time to write.  I average 1 – 2 hour per article depending on how difficult the topic and how long the article is.  I write daily on my Christian personal finance blog, and weekly on most of my other blogs.  Just writing articles consumes 9 – 18 hours a week.  This doesn’t include time for marketing, socializing, managing advertisers, doing my financial book keeping, writing guest articles, fixing technical issues, etc.

I enjoy it, so it’s time well spent, but it’s far more time than most people realize.  I wake each weekday morning at 5:00am and work on my blogs until 8:00am where I start my full-time job.  I am usually working on them in the  evening as well from 8 – 10:00pm or so.  I also work on weekends (as I am right now) when not spending time with my family.

Don’t think that starting and running a successful blog will only take an hour or so a week.  Blogging takes a considerable time investment, and the more time spent doing it, the greater the reward.

For those of you reading this that are blogging, what have I missed?  What would you add?

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