Just for fun I changed some file names and uploaded some new pictures. The blog that is stealing my content is proudly displaying this as part of a post. My own blog still has the real pictures, I just changed the file names. Hate to give a thief traffic but take a peek: http://ireference.org/real-estate/minnesota/20071206/sculptures/
This one was fun too: http://ireference.org/real-estate/minnesota/20071209/writers-block/
Have a great day and don’t even think about taking my stuff. 🙂
Nice work T. I love toying with these bozos.
Looks like the knucklehead running that splog has taken down your posts.
What a waste of valuable time…yours, not his. Morons like this abound. Why do they think stealing content is OK?
Actually it was therapeutic but you are correct it wasted my time ad I don’t have a post for tomorrow. Well I kind of have one because I found another thief. I set it up so I can change the pictures very fast and I have to say I really got creative this time 🙂
FANTASTIC!!! What weenies!
You made my day!
My content was stolen as well. The site owner is trying to tell me that there is some benefit to me to have my stolen content there. All I see is that he is trying to make money from homegain and google adwords.
Lani – I have gotten a few emails from him and yes he is telling me that he is doing me a favor by taking my content and that I may get 20 new visits to my site each month because of his splog. He is very arrogant and does not understand the meaning of the word “plagiarism” He told me that my friends want their content out there. None that I have talked to do. On top of it he does have a real estate license and is a member of NAR. I would say that his behavior does not match are standards that are as you know oh so high. He is misusing the R on one of his sites. If I have time later I might get him. 🙂
That is PRICELESS!!!! If I had blogging awards to hand out, Teresa — you’d get a big shiny one. :o)
You’re my hero :-)))
LOVE IT!!!
thanks, I really did enjoy it. I should put a link to the other picture I had up but I am not sure I want that coming from my blog. It was in really poor taste . . even for me. 🙂
Jay Thompson and now YOU are my heroes in this field… I still don’t get how you change the file name and your blog shows one photo and the Splog shows another. I am just not techy enough to understand that.
M, I’ll write instructions and post them on the weenie. All I do is take the graphic out of my post and put it back in. Since I did not delete the origional the new one will have a “_2” in the file name. I then create a graphic with the same file name as the stolen picture, upload it and it replaces the old file with one of my child like drawings which shows up on the other site because they are linked to it. I learned this very old trick in 1996. 🙂 Fun, fun, fun!
that’s awesome – it flew over my head, but I’m going to bookmark it in case I ever get famous enough to have my good stuff stolen. super cool T!!
I just saw which site it was. They were taking my content as well.
I sent them a request to take down my content and I received this res”ponse (Your way is more fun, though.)
“The information you are talking about is added through your RSS feed to the
site and linked back to your site to increase your search engine status.
With attribution, there is no copyright issue and this is done as a free
service to you.
We will gladly remove your RSS feed from our server if you so request,
however, be advised that all links to your site will be removed and someone
else in your area will take your place on our gateway.
Please advise.”
They took it down immediately and sent this response:
“Your feed and content has been removed. The opportunity was extended to
another Realtor® in your area.
Sorry to see you go – I enjoyed your content and your perspective on the
real estate market there. If you want to rejoin in the future, just stop
by the site and send in a request. The only reason you would not be
granted a request in the future is if we have too much activity in your
area as the site grows.”
wow! that is nervy. I have been working on this guy all day, along with several other bloggers and he still doesn’t get it. I think I am going to have to go another round because now he is starting to piss me off. I have been too nice. Bull shit on the free service he is stealing. he has no page rank and little traffic. None of us need his help or asked for it.
My content is there as well (thanks Jennifer). I’m looking into what he is actually doing wrong, but, I believe that as long as he is sourcing the info and leaving credit to the original author, he can do this. As I find out more about the legality of it, I’ll post back here. You could always ask him to stop, but, I’m not sure I see why. They are links back to your site. For now, I’m leaving it alone as it is actually not going to harm you (I don’t think). The concern would be duplicate content, but that refers more to content on your own site. The search engines will discern the more authoritive source and that will come up in the SE’s.
Ryan – I did ask him to stop and he is not taking my content any more and yes it is plagerism to take an entire post and it is illegal. Yes he does give a link back but it is at the end of the entire post. No it doesn’t not help us. people read the post and never click the link. His page rank is very low. duplicate content does not help bloggers. Why would anyone bother to stop at my blog if they can read the whole thing on his?
T- I checked out your links and it looks like he has been shut down. I clicked on Minnesota and it says they are now looking for bloggers in this area. I don’t think any of us are going to jump on that one. By the way, how did you find out about his blog?
Jennifer, I mentioned that they had stopped. maybe that was on another blog. I heard a rumor and then I went and checked my feed burner account. If you look at the “uncommon” uses tab it shows who is pulling content via RSS. I also have some other ways of searching for my content and I usually find it.
Way to go Teresa.
We have had our share of thieves. Many seem to be highjacking based on keywords– so your posts can end up anywhere.
Here’s what we did to one of them. We tracked down the domain name owner and gave him a call around midnight. He was totally shocked we were able to find him. We broke it down for him and he removed the feed.
Maybe we should insert a tagline in every post so that it gets sucked up on the splogs– something like “if you are not reading this content on (your link), it was stolen. Leave a comment for this thief that “stealing sucks”.
hijacking 🙂
I’m a little late to this conversation, but I did decide to have irefference..org remove all my content, which he did quickly and easily.
I’m not sure if there is benefit to those links or not but i decided that i would prefer readers on the web adn in teh SE to find my site, rather than my post on someone else’s site. I didn’t like the fact that attribution was so hidden. It is my blood sweat and tears in all those posts.
Kevin Warmath
Alpharetta, GA
Looks like the good guys won this battle. irefferennce..org has changed his approach all together and given up on us realtors…he got “tired of dealing with it”, i.e. us, i guess he means!
“IReference.org used to be a blog portal for local area blogs. After some time, I got tired of dealing with it and decided to turn it into a funny reference blog.
As the site grows you will be able to search for different things that I find interesting and have put a funny twist on or simply some useless information that you may find funny or interesting.”