Western Mass Homes Lesley Lambert

Top FIVE Reasons Why Blog Scrapers Suck

This blog is the intellectual property of Lesley Lambert.  If you are not viewing this on either www.westernmahomes.net or www.lesleylambert.com this content has been stolen/plagiarized.

I write this for home owners and home buyers in Western MA to help them with their real estate decisions. I work hard at this effort and deserve attribution and credit for what I deliver.

Tonight I discovered that someone has been using an RSS feed of my blog to pretty much build his own website.  This kind of dirty pool makes me really PO’ed.  You like what I write?  You want to use it?  That is great, just give credit where it is due.

This tool is taking everything I work so hard on and poising it as his own content with no attribution or back linking to my site.

So you may ask yourself, why is Lesley writing this blog post?  WELL….

It is going to show up on his site, too.  SO…

TOP FIVE REASONS WHY BLOG SCRAPERS SUCK

#1- they are robbers.  Just ask:  nickmrandal@gmail.com

#2- they are bottom feeders.  See also: nickmrandal@gmail.com
#3- they reduce the value of original content.  Like: nickmrandal@gmail.com
#4- they survive because some of us are ignorant.  I am sure that nickmrandal@gmail.com is counting on me ignoring him.  Nick Randal is wrong.
#5- Nick M. Randal and his ilk are a nasty plagiaristic  bunch that need to be stopped.
Dear Nick M. Randal aka Mr. DOOSH, the next time you hear from me, it will be on my attorney’s letterhead.
Love,
the creator of much of your content (but not for long)
Lesley Lambert

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Lesley,
    I can assure you that if you spelled his name correctly, his cheating and robbing efforts are for not, because he doesn’t come up on Google when I search his name. Maybe once on ActiveRain, but I wouldn’t lose sleep over that. I hope he takes heed of your warning.
    Content theft sucks.

  3. Very good post.
    I like how you took something that obviously pissed you off and made it pretty funny to read.

    FYI pretty sure it is “Douche” 🙂

  4. Lesley – Ugh. Nothing fun about content theft – especially when *most* of us wouldn’t mind sharing, as long as there is proper attribution. The good news? Google is hunting down content farmers. The bad news? People actually think it’s a good idea. Lame.

    It won’t stop the stealing, but have you checked out Tynt? I use it to gauge how much my content is being used and attributed and it has returned quick a bit of useful information.

  5. I just read this – UGH! Not legal advice: When this happened to me a couple years ago, I sent a cease-and-desist letter to both the scraper and the scraper’s ISP. Who is the ISP, anyway?

  6. Lesley –
    My advice – save your money on paying your attorney – for now. You should start with a DCMA request. Email it to the offender and their host. There’s a 99% certainty that unless they are hosting their own content on their own servers that the host will respond by either forcing them to remove the content or the host will simply shut the site down. We’ve been scraped dozens of times and this works.

    Here’s an article I wrote back in ’06 that walks you through the steps you can take, including an email that you can copy and use (just fill in the blanks):
    How to Protect Your Website’s Copyright When Someone Steals Your Content

    I hope you find it useful and look forward to hearing about your resolution.

    Good luck,
    Josh

  7. Excellent post! There is a reason why websites and blogging platforms have a feature called “reference.” It lets bloggers give credit where credit is due. I have a couple extra reasons for you though…
    #6—They are unimaginative and thoughtless. And by thoughtless I mean no original thought in their head. Literally without a thought. Lacking in a single, solitary thought.
    #7—They are slacking, lazy sloths (my apologies to all the genuine animal sloths out there) and I’m pretty sure that’s a DEADLY sin!
    Nala

  8. You missed a perfectly good chance to blog about your last gynecological exam.

    I mean … why? Why would anyone link (or scrape or whatever it’s called) to content to which they have no control? What a nincompoop.

  9. Take Joshua’s advice. Just file a DMCA Takedown notice with their webhost.

    1.) Look up their webhost here:
    http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp

    2.) Create your DMCA takedown notice. Here is an example of one I’ve used:
    http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512c/notice.cgi?NoticeID=50712

    3.) Send it to abuse@[INFRINGER’S WEBHOST], or other similar contact method listed on the webhost’s website. They may even have a form you can fill out. If you have any troubles, send them an email to info@, sales@, contact@, admin@, and tell them you need to know where to file your DMCA notice.

    Don’t bother contacting the blogger directly. This just creates more headaches and delays as you waste time exchanging fruitless emails with someone who doesn’t really think what they are doing is wrong (or doesn’t care).

    Take a little time to study up on DMCA takedowns. It will make you feel better. They take less than 20 minutes each, although if someone has scraped dozens of articles, it’s going to take longer. It can be tedious, but if an infringer’s webhost receives enough complaints, their site may be pulled down altogether.

  11. Hi Leslie,

    I am a real estate agent for Scarfo Real Estate in Westfield. It is great to see established realtors who provide great value to clients in their market. I like your style and content. Good for you calling out the blog scraper. I believe in hard work, honesty and building a business around solid professionals and contacts. Keep up the good work and hope to co-broke soon.

    John