What Happens When Someone Copies Your Posts?

Contact Us

Duct Tape Marketing

Free Social Media for Business ebook

About John Jantsch

Entire Archive

twins There’s a bit of a debate that goes on in different corners of the blog world about the somewhat common practice of republishing blog posts via RSS feed. The republisher, generally someone trying to create content without any work for the purpose search engine traffic and AdSense revenue, simply creates sites and posts various RSS feeds for the content.

Some people view it as being ripped off, while others view it as additional exposure.

The ripped off camp suggests ways to combat this using various tools and services.

My feed gets republished frequently, but I happen to fall into the additional exposure is good camp. First off, the folks republishing the feed are likely getting no benefit to speak of as Google and Google AdSense folks frown on this activity, can spot it easily, and don’t usually reward it. Some people suggest the dreaded “Google duplicate content penalty” might come into play here, but I’ve not seen any impact of this on anyone but the republishers.

Now, there is one tactic that I do employ to assure that I get the proper exposure because I did notice the occasional republisher forget to even mention where the content came from or link back to the original. I’m sure it’s just an oversight so to help them I use a WordPress plugin called RSS-Footer.

RSS-Footer automatically adds a line of content to every post in the RSS feed. Since 99% of the folks participating in this kind of republishing simply publish the feed, this line starts every post – This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

Here’s an example of someone republishing my feed. Because I also use the Related Posts plugin that points to other posts on my site related to this one, this page has 6 links back to my blog – I can live with that.

Image credit: cybaea

Like this post? Share it with others

Posted by: John Jantsch on Sep 18, 09 | 4:04 am
Category: Blogging, Social Media | Tags: , AdSense, Google, Plugin, RSS, WordPress

Comments

« Facebook Adds Twitterlike Tagging Feature | Home | Weekend Favs September Twenty »

courane01

Have you tried http://www.tynt.com/tracer/home yet? It will track via RSS where your things to as well.

Ross Kimbarovsky

John - Google has disclosed that the duplicate content penalty is a myth: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008...

Even more reason now to not be afraid to follow your advice.

ducttape

Thanks Ross - yes, I've heard Matt Cutts state this in talks as well.

Chris

Quite right too, it is immoral and also pretty annoying when someone copies your posts with no reference at all.

I have a company blog and as it happens, I have used a post from you. The reason, my clients will find it very interesting. Based on what you mention here I have added links back to your site.
Previously I only had the Authors name present. Which quite frankly is not enough. I too believe if you use other people's content you should repay the loan with good feedback to the Authors site.

I have no problem with people using my posts, but like you point out only with the correct linking to the original post.

ducttape

Chris - agreed - should always give credit. I wasn't really talking about the occasional use when you point out something you like. It's more the folks that just scrap a feed and repost without regard for the actual content.

Point out my posts any time it helps!

Jumper2

If you demand to get a excellent paper about thefting content you can use plagiarism detector, and i'll recommend you to check it in http://www.plagiarismsearch.com ! unlike those services, they give excellent class guaranty that your work is free of plagiarism. You can order essays for sale selecting the plagiarism detection. They will give you an accurate plagiarism detection reporting without any delay.

Angie A Swartz

Great info John! We like that Wordpress plugin too! Duplicate content is always hard to understand and I'm always revisiting articles to make sure I understand what's ok and what isn't when someone asks about republishing content. Thanks again for always providing top notch info and continuing to be a great teacher! have to say I do miss your top commenter widget! I liked being at the TOP!

Steve

I like to place a couple links back to my site or maybe an affiliate link in the posts so all that gets republished.

Janet Fouts

I use Tynt's Tracer jscript to add a line of text "Read more at Janetfouts.com ". Even if they only copy and paste a portion of the post.

I find all kinds of copies of my posts on other sites but now they all have a link back to my blog to read more, so I'm calling it SEO juice.

Tynt has reporting as well so I can see where posts are re-published and decide if I want to make it an issue or be happy to be quoted.

grrlfriend

Thanks for sharing! It is sometimes a matter of being as sneaky as those who copy your posts - are those little devil horns I see in your photo?! As such, I will definitely use the plug-ins you mentioned. Also, I'm now following you on Twitter.

RedHotFranchises

Thanks for sharing the RSS-Footer plug-in, it's a big help! I too view it as additional exposure when they link back, but take appropriate measures when they do not, blatantly copying someone else's article without giving credit is false credibility and can be easily exposed to distinguish their online presence.
Always Give Credit Where Credit Is Due.

Ari Herzog

Thanks for the RSS Footer reminder. I've had it deactivated on my blog for many moons now; kudos for the way you use it.

Dennis Gibson

Indeed, there are some RSS feeds that has no content.. just the title itself.

flowersboy

Just goes to show, there are no shortcuts. If your serious you need original content. Thank you for this post. v informative

billbennett

As a journalist I'm used to having my copy stolen. About ten years ago I was working for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian Financial Review as a freelance and my stories were frequently published online by Chinese and Indonesian sites -- complete with translations.

I only found out when someone told me I was brilliant being able to write in those languages as well as English...

Amazingly I was getting mail from one of the site editors suggesting topics for me to write in my column.

Make Money with Blogs

I can clearly see, you put alot of work into your site. The tip on the RSS footer is good, alot of duplicate content online. Have you every used StatPress to track your blog statistics? Anyway I would appreciate if you could send me over a email, I have more questions for you. Ok, I found your site on StumbleUpon.

blog comments powered by Disqus

Small Business Marketing Magazines

Free - No strings attached - Business and Marketing Magazine Subscriptions

Target Marketing
CRM
Internet Retailer
eWeek
Electronic Publisher
Print Media and more

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial
-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

Subscribe to the Duct Tape Podcast

Duct Tape Marketing System

Duct Tape System - Complete small business marketing system in 14 workbooks and 4 audio CDs.

Marketing Plan Pro powered by Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing System now comes as Marketing Planning Software. We teamed up with Palo Alto Software, the makers of Business Plan Pro, to bring you the most powerful small business marketing plan tool going. More info here . . .

Referral Flood by John Jantsch

Referral Flood - How to create a flood of new business without spending one dime on advertising - by John Jantsch

Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

Duct Tape Marketing

Free Social Media for Business ebook

Recent Posts

Entire Archive

Categories