Has Your Content Been Stolen?
Content Thieves are a common threat nowadays with the wide popularity of blogs. We have all heard in same fashion or another that these content thieves are popping up everywhere. Is the content you write safe? Sad to tell you but, NO it is not! There are ways that you find out if your content has been reproduced.
Here are 3 Great ways to help you track down those foolish content thieves!
Phrase Search
What are phrase searches you may ask? Phrase Searches are those that look like this; "How do you track content thieves?" By using this approach, the search results will display that exact sentence where ever it may be on the internet. You have to make sure that you use the quotes are the text or else it will search each word individually. After you write an article, wait for about a month, just to let your content float around on the internet, then start making "phrase searches." After your article has been out on the internet for about a month, pick a couple of sentences from your article and run a "phrase search" on them. You might be surprised!Hidden Link
You may also want to use a hidden link somewhere in your article. Most content thieves are STUPID and just copy/paste from your blog into theirs. By using this approach, it will copy the hidden link right into their article. Here is an example of a legal way of including that hidden link within your article so that you will be able to track it.What the display:none; attribute does is hide the entire link so that the content thief doesn't see it when copying your article. After you have done that, you will now be able to use a search engine to see all sites that link to that particular page. Which of course will only be the content thieves. If you are using Google as your search engine, use the following code to search that page:
link:http://www.example.com/haha.htmNow you want to make sure to create an actual page on your site so that the search engines don't show that you have a broken link. You will not link to that page within your site though, just use it to catch theives.
So You Have Found a Thief, Now What?
If you've noticed that your content has been stolen, here is a few ways to resolve the situation.Start off kind but firm
After you find the content theives site where they are posting your stolen content, try and email that person stating that they are using your content without your approval and is copyright infringement. Ask them to remove it from their site or you will be obligated to take greater measures.Amp It Up
If the previous option has no luck, you will have to amp it up a notch. You can use Domain Tools' WhoIs function to look up the information for the domain name. For instance, who registered it, the contact information for that particular person, server information, etc. Most of the time, you will be able to find a phone number that you can contact the thief directly.Extreme Measures
If you are still have no luck with getting the content thief to remove the copywritten article from their site, you will have to proceed in getting an attorney. No one wants to get involved with legal issues, but sometimes that is what will have to happen. Look at it this way, you have taking the time and research to write your article, why should another person flourish at your expense?Your Experiences
Have you ran into this problem with your articles? I would like to hear about them and what you did to rectify the issue. Also, if you have any other suggestions on how to catch this crooks, leave a comment and I would love to add them to the post!Great Tips from Readers
Here are some great tips from some of my readers. Thank all for such great support!Rich Pearson - From Fairshare.cc I’d encourage you to try out FairShare - it’s free and tells you exacly who is copying your content all in a convenient RSS feed. It’ launched 3 weeks ago and is currently in beta at http://beta.fairshare.cc
Jonathan Bailey - From Plagarism Today On the resolution side, you can always file a DMCA notice with the host of the site if it is hosted within the U.S. A similar notice should work for sites in the EU, Australia and most other countries. Finally, you can use the same law if needed to remove the site from the search engines. Google, Yahoo, etc. all offer a process to file DMCA notices.~ Kyle Reddoch
