At Last, Google Declares War on Parasitic Link Farms and Feed Scraping Blogs

TechCrunch reports that "Google has declared jihad on link farms" and feed scraping blogs.

About damn time for Google to take action! But it won't go far enough until these sites are banned. I hope Google takes their advertising off these parasite sites. That's the only kind of penalty with teeth.

The site in the photo is a one of many scraper blogs that rip copyrighted content off many blogs, including my What's Next Blog RSS feed. When I asked this one to stop, they said no!

Twisted Logic
In his twisted logic, he has no responsibility to me because he takes my content from a third party that rips the content off from me.

"The only thing that is showing on my site is a snippet of an RSS feed that is provided to my site by a 3rd party supplier. I have no control over this, and I have no way of intercepting or stopping what they provide on this feed."

Then he explains why it's MY fault he steals my content every day. He wrote in an email exchange that I shared with Google:

"Using an RSS feed that posts indiscriminately to whomever wishes to pick it up, such as the one you are currently using, is in no way acting responsible [sic] where that is concerned. "

"Feeder Pages… What They Are And WHY They’re A Great Source Of FREE Traffic

"A “Feeder Page” is simply a single — Keyword Targeted — webpage that is designed to rank high in the Search Engines under the particular Keyword or Keyword Phrase that webpage is optimized for."

Legit Links Are Great, and Welcome
Many bloggers, who don't depend on their blogs for income, say they're happy to have their content run anywhere, any time so they can expand their audience. I love bloggers who refer to my posts by linking to them in their posts, and who attribute my work to me. I link to other bloggers every chance I get, and bend over backwards to credit my sources.

But I'm certainly not willing to have my content used without my permission, and that is exactly why my content -- which is also the content of my RSS feed -- is copyrighted and carries a Creative Commons license.

Comments

Posted by: Andy Beard at October 24, 2007 2:32 PM

Posted by: Max at October 25, 2007 12:22 PM

Posted by: LGR at October 26, 2007 3:41 AM

Posted by: boris at November 10, 2007 12:02 AM

Post a comment

Email this story to a friend

TrackBacks

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.whatsnextonline.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/4102