Are Content Thieves Copying your Website?

Many webmasters put great effort into producing quality content for the web. But unknown to them is there are tens of thousands of other webmasters who are busy copying that content without permission. However you look at it, copying content is theft and there are hundreds of thousands of webmasters who are out there copying your content.

Who is publishing your content and violating your copyright? And most importantly, what can you do about it? There's a service called Copyscape.com that will help you find content thieves. You can fight back. We interviewed one of the principles of Copyscape.com, Gideon Greenspan, and what he reveals about content theft will open your eyes.

mb: For those who may not know what Copyscape.com is, can you explain in your own words what the website does, what kind of content it offers, and how it benefits the webmaster community?

Gideon: Copyscape finds copies of your content online. You simply enter the URL of your page, and Copyscape finds other pages on the web which have copied or quoted some of your content. Copyscape uses advanced text analysis techniques to ensure that it also finds copies which have been significantly modified from your original.

Judging from the feedback we have received from users, the benefits are significant. The 'copy-and-paste' method of website design is extremely widespread and it undermines the effort people put in to create good content for their site. Copyscape makes it quick and easy to protect your rights online by detecting these instances of theft.

mb: What inspired Copyscape? (ie a personal battle w/copy infringement, etc.). What are your motivations behind Copyscape?

Gideon: The original idea for Copyscape came from our Google Alert service (www.googlealert.com). Several webmasters told us they found instances of plagiarism from a Google Alert email. In these cases, the site had stolen some of their text, which happened to contain a search term they were tracking. But a simple search is not sufficient to detect many instances of plagiarism since the copied content is usually modified and therefore harder to find. That's why we decided to develop a new search service aimed specifically at detecting content theft.

mb: What kind of feedback are you receiving from webmasters?

Gideon: The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and appreciative. We keep hearing from webmasters that they are shocked at how many sites have copied their content, and that they had no idea that the problem was so widespread before they used Copyscape.

mb: Any thoughts of integrating other SEs (like Yahoo - which tends to spider dynamic URLs better) - and might show more results than G alone.

Gideon: Copyscape uses the Google Web APIs, which allow Google to be legitimately queried in an automated fashion. As far as we are aware, no other search engine provides a similar API or permits automated querying.

mb: Do you have any suggestions for preventative actions for deterring content theft?

Gideon: Since the Web is an open medium, there is no easy way to prevent the theft occurring, so the best prevention comes from the risk of detection and subsequent legal action. As a deterrent to would-be content thieves, we provide banners that can be placed on a site to warn potential infringers that they will be found.

mb: How much content on the web do you believe is stolen?

Gideon: It's hard to put a number on it. All I can tell you is that, as I mentioned before, we are constantly hearing from webmasters who are devastated when they find out how many other sites have plagiarized their content.

mb: Where do you see the Copyscape.com website going in the future?

Gideon: We are now developing a service which will regularly check the web for instances of plagiarism of any page on your site and send you an email alert when it happens. We're also continuing to develop Copyscape into a central resource for online copyright issues by expanding the information on the site. We've recently introduced a list of "10 easy steps to protect your content online".

mb: What kind of technical demands does it take to run Copyscape.com?

Gideon: We use a powerful server to handle the bandwidth and load. The front end of Copyscape runs on a standard Apache/PHP platform. Behind the scenes, some highly optimized compiled C code performs the page decoding and comparison.

mb: In your opinion, what is the mentality of the average content thief? Who is it that we are dealing with?

Gideon: In a word - laziness. It takes time, creativity and effort to develop original compelling content for a site. It is much quicker and easier to copy from someone else's page and then make minor modifications to suit your needs. Before Copyscape, the risk of detection was very low.

mb: What are we up against in the war against content thieves? How sophisticated are they?

Gideon: I do not believe that most content thieves are particularly sophisticated. They visit a website in their browser, select some text, hit 'Copy' and then 'Paste' into their own page. If they were sophisticated, they probably would have written their own content instead.

mb: Do you see content theft going away or diminishing anytime in the future?

Gideon: In the short term, I'm sure it will continue to increase as the web forms a larger and more integral part of the global economy. It will only begin diminishing once tools for fighting content theft like Copyscape become integral to the web landscape.

mb: Anything you'd like to emphasize to webmasters?

Gideon: It's important to be proactive. Keep an eye on what is happening on the Web and check regularly for any infringements of your rights. With a few simple clicks, someone can copy your entire website and post it under their own domain name and identity. If you don't act quickly, they will soon be taking away your traffic and sales.

mb: So there you have it. Visit Copyscape.com and plug in your url. You'll be surprised at what you find. Content thieves are out there but now you have a tool to help you fight back.

Robin Hood 2004? Ask Jeeves Takes from the Advertisers and Gives to the Red Cross

100% of Profits from RedCross.Ask.com to Be Donated
There's a thread in Webmasterworld about Ask Jeeves' latest promotion in which you visit a special subdomain and all profits are "donated" to the Red Cross. At first it seems like a generous gesture on Ask Jeeves' part, but it's a gesture that may be done at the expense of Google AdWords advertisers. The problem is that Ask Jeeves' program might incentivize web surfers to click on an ad for the purpose of donating an advertiser's ad budget to the Red Cross. Most online marketers may not appreciate the thought of thousands of well meaning surfers clicking on ads with the intention of helping to raise money for the Red Cross.

Follow the Money
There are charitable websites, like Working Assets' Shop for Change, that encourage people to buy something through their affiliate link, with the commission part of the sale donated to designated charities. Ask Jeeves program is different: Web surfers do not have to make a purchase to do their good deed. Because of this, the website visitors might have an incentive to click on an ad to do a good deed, without cost to themselves. Not only that, but it is feared that many of the website visitors visiting that subdomain will be there expressly for the purpose of clicking on an ad to generate "donations" from Google AdWords advertisers . Many AdWords advertisers may be upset to consider that scenario.

An Army of Ad Clickers
According to the Senior Vice President of Growth and Integrated Development for the American Red Cross:

"So, tell a friend. Tell a family member. Then start searching and giving. Ask Jeeves has made it simple to make a difference in the lives of others..."

That is precisely what might scare the hell out of advertisers on AdWords' network: An army of web surfers going to Ask Jeeves to search, and then clicking on ads to help hurricane disaster victims.

Ask Jeeves Does Not Explicity Incentivize Ad Clickers
To keep the record straight, Ask Jeeves never explicitly says that the trigger for creating a donation is to click an ad. Ask Jeeves is not explicitly encouraging people to click on ads. Their press release only encourages people to visit the site and search. That's it.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm not saying you're right either.
According to Steve Berkowitz, the CEO of Ask Jeeves:

"Now people can contribute just by going about their everyday searching,"

If a searcher clicks on an ad, then yes, money leaves an advertising budget and is deposited in the bank account of the American Red Cross. If you happen to click on a non-sponsored search result, then the Red Cross receives nothing. If a surfer clicks on a sponsored listing, a so-called donation is made. But is it really a donation? The answer depends on the searcher's motivation for being at redcross.ask.com. Are they there to search, or are they there to help raise money for the Red Cross' hurricane relief fund?

GoogleBot Goes Local... Again

Anyone who thought the supplemental maps to local businesses was Google's last word on Local Search is in for a surprise. A recent job posting by Google serves notice that Google is not done growing the Local Search market.

"Google is looking for a Strategic Partner Development
individual who can bring their excellent partner/business development experience
to assist us in structuring and negotiating significant and complex
relationships in our growing Local Search team. Ideal candidates must be
extremely partner-focused... Ideally the individual will have previous
experience working with a company that serviced the SME or local business
market..."

Google is looking for "significant" partnerships, so it will be interesting to see what deals they agree to with enterprise class online media companies. They had been rumored to have been in talks with Barry Diller's IAC for a partnership involving CitySearch but nothing came about. Look to Google to hook up with newspaper chains, ISP's and major information providers with a local focus like RateItAll.com.

If Google's AdWords program is any indication (judging by the classified ads in search of PPC experts), Google's expansion in the Local Search market should help grow the online component of the SME market. This is good for consultancies that facilitate the internet marketing for SME's.

The supplemental maps in Google's search results are only the beginning. Look to Google to expand the market and help it mature.

Google versus Webmaster?

It has been almost three months since the last time Google PageRank has updated on the toolbar. This, coupled with the fact that Google's backlink check command has been randomized, seems to indicate that Google does not want to be used as a search engine optimization tool.

Because Google strives to deliver accurate information, it is noteworthy that for the above described search functions, Google has decided to deliver stale or unusable information. Those search functions are mainly used by webmasters so it is clear the decision to render this information less useful is a step to protect their search results from being manipulated.

Although the toolbar has not been updated, it is very clear that there have been updates. Many people have reported anomalies that seem to correspond to update activity. The one thing that remains unclear (apart from where you stand for your pet phrases) is what is the PageRank of the website you are exchanging links with.

It is difficult to discern if a website has been penalized. You may unwittingly be exchanging links with a penalized website and subsequently opening yourself to a penalty and lost revenue.

There is no other search engine that has embraced the webmaster community like Google has. Google is not only in the forefront of creating a dialogue with webmasters, Google actually innovates new ways to address the concerns of webmasters. Because of Google's history of being responsive to the concerns of webmasters, some feel it is almost out of character for them to not continue the dialogue in terms of showing what the PageRank of their website is.

The word on the street is to scrutinize your potential link partner beyond the toolbar. Check their backlinks using Yahoo, etc. to determine the quality level you are dealing with. Ask yourself, is this Link Directory or Link Text Vendor high on Google's radar?

The net effect may be to encourage what Google itself has been encouraging all along: Build websites for your visitors, not the search engines.