Certainly, it’s not possible to stop scraper sites as the web is a huge place but if you’re a webmaster or blogger then you must be aware of sites who copy-paste aka scraps your hard written content. Spam blogs are usually a scrapper site which automatically pulls the entire post via sites RSS feed and publishes it on their site without the consent of original author. This can be generally referred as stealing of content.
Unfortunately, the recent Google Search algorithm (PANDA update) seems to give more importance to these splogs rather than the original site. I’ve seen many instances where our site was being outranked by the content scrappers in Google search, this makes me sad and is pretty bothersome. A small example of this can be seen below:
As you can see in above screenshot, the scrapper site is ranking at 1st position whereas the original site is at 3rd position. This definitely drops down our organic traffic and the sploggers who just steal our work enjoy the benefit of it.
To combat against this, Google seems to have finally started working to improve their search algorithm and they need data points for testing. Matt Cutts (head of the Google webspam team) just tweeted a link, using which site owners can report about blog scrapers to Google. This is a specialised webpage to Report scraper pages, it says:
Google is testing algorithmic changes for scraper sites (especially blog scrapers). We are asking for examples, and may use data you submit to test and improve our algorithms.
From now onwards, if you ever find any spam site or blog who is lifting your articles and is ranking above your site in Google, then do report about them and help Google in improving their algorithm. For me, Panda is a sort of nightmare that has turned into reality, resulting in 50% drop in both traffic and revenue since last few months. 🙁
To Report a Scraper site, just visit here. Input the search query, then URL of original site page and the scrapper site page. You can share some details too. Click Submit!
Note: This form does not perform a spam report or notice of copyright infringement.
Very informative about the scrapper site, This article is very good and never knew previously that they would copy the whole content of a website, its too bad.
Thanks a lot for the Tip Buddy. I think Google must look for some other alternative support teams with which they need to provide some guarantee and assurance for the Web-Masters in the Fight against Content Scrappers as well as Auto Blogs.
I will be the first one to report. I lost all SERPs of one of my hard worked blog, just because someone was pulling my RSS. Thanks for sharing. Can you also tell us an effective way to check, if currently anyone is pulling my RSS?
Also, is Yousaytoo among the scrapper site?
Thanks for this tip. I’m loosing traffic due to these scraper sites. These sites are copying my posts and ranking better. Few days ago I’m filed DMCA against some of these sites and got positive response from Google.
Good initiative from Google. Waite and see how it works! Thanks for the news.
@Vikash I’ve no idea of such tool. You’ve to manually search your post title in Google and locate the scrapper sites. We’ve developed an online service that tells site position in search results for a specific search query. Check it here: Removed
@plaban I’m myself dealing with this, there are lots of sploggers that scrap our content and rank better than original site. Filing DMCA helps only if it’s a blogspot site, it’s difficult to deal with self-hosted wordpress sites and many others. Also, lot of time gets wasted in reporting all this. I hope they do something.
Thats a great step taken from the google team, it was the most needed thing as these scrappers leave us in pain and enjoy organic traffic with out hard work, from today onwards thebwar starts, and this time it is against these scrappers, common guys lets report the maximum we can.
right after i put advertisements in my website rss feed the scapper that was doing this to me stopped. 🙂 This is nice information to have though thanks.
You can use the site called ‘Copyscape’ to search…However I don’t find it to be very thorough.