Categories
- Community Gardening (7)
- Competitions (21)
- Compost, Soil, Mulch & Fertilisers (17)
- Container Gardening (12)
- Garden Tools (27)
- Gardening (119)
- Gardening Books & Gifts (14)
- Gardening Tips & Ideas (26)
- Gardens (4)
- Home Garden (33)
- Landscaping (54)
- Organic Gardening (21)
- Pests & Plant Diseases (14)
- Plants (22)
- Annuals, Shrubs & Perennials (10)
- Bulbs, Corms, Rhizomes & Tubers (11)
- Cactus & Succulents (12)
- Climbers & Creepers (2)
- Ferns & Shade Lovers (4)
- Flowers (28)
- Fruit & Berries (13)
- Fungi, Mushrooms & Toadstools (4)
- Grasses & Groundcovers (3)
- Hedges & Screening Plants (3)
- Herbs & Vegetables (19)
- Indoor & Tropical Plants (6)
- Native Plants & Wildflowers (13)
- Roses
- Trees & Conifers (28)
- Weeds (8)
Bloggers score a win against spam
Earlier in the week, jodi from Bloomingwriter (or should it be "jodi from Blotanical" - hard to tell where she spends her time these days :-) pointed out a site that had been scraping gardening blogs and using the content for their own purposes.
Now I'm not one to complain about other sites using my feed, provided they credit me with a link back to my blog. But this site wasn't even prepared to do that. While it all looked above board showing clickable links under each blog's name, the links just led to another page on this person's site.
Not surprising, when I tried to find some way to contact the owner, the Contact Us link was also bogus. So off I set for some moral justice trying to locate some info about the site's owner. After checking out the Whois data (most of it kept to private - surprise! surprise) it did list the dns data (or hosting service).
A quick email and a fast response indicated that the Host was happy with the site and that they hadn't contravened their Terms of Service. I pointed out that the links on the site were not external - therefore not crediting any individual blog - and while I didn't get a follow-up email, it was only a few hours later that this site no longer existed.
One small victory for garden bloggers!
On the other side of the world jodi was already reporting the site to Google's Adsense team to try and discredit the site's advertising potential. A quick reaction to bringing down a scamming opportunist.
While it may only be a small victory, it's still one step to ridding the web of people who are willing to scrape others hard work and efforts.
BTW - the host, which I would certainly recommend if they're willing to lose a customer for the sake of a better web, is NetJaguar.com. Kudos guys. And a big kudos to jodi for finding the offending site in the first place.
These articles may also be helpful...
Who's responsible for this...?
Get fresh posts in your Inbox
Recent Posts
My Other Blogs
Gardening Blogs
Australia & NZ
- A Grower's Delight [ACT, AUS]
- Balcony Flowers [WA, AUS]
- Frog Garden [QLD, AUS]
- Greenfoot [AUS]
- Outdoor Living Authority [Tas, AUS]
Canada
UK
USA
- A Study in Contrasts [OH, US]
- Angela's Garden Blog [CA, US]
- Cold Climate Gardening [US]
- Color's of the Garden [NY, US]
- Garden Djinn [MI, US]
- Gotta Garden [VA, US]
- In The Garden Online [MI, US]
- Katina's Little Gardeners [OH, USA]
- May Dreams Gardens [IN, US]
- North Country Maturing Gardener [NH, USA]
- The Garden Blog [SC, US]
- The Blogging Nurseryman [CA, US]
- The Transplantable Rose [TX, US]
- This Garden Is Illegal [OH, USA]
- Veggie Gardening Tips [PY, USA]
- Garden Rant [US]
- Gardening Launching Pad [Garden Blog Directory]
Comments
Thanks for all your work, Stuart. Good job.
Posted by: carolyn | February 9, 2008 9:04 PM
Thanks for your and Jodi's work to protect us unsuspecting bloggers. How did you know this was happening? Is there a way to see if your stuff is being used? I am unskilled at this aspect of it. Good job, though.
Frances at Faire Garden
Posted by: Frances | February 9, 2008 9:18 PM
Good work Stuart and Jodi.
Posted by: Crafty Gardener | February 9, 2008 9:27 PM
Frances - the best way to find these guys is to Google a phrase from one of your more recent posts and see what comes up. As an example, from my 'Growing Garlic Post One Season at a Time' post I took this phrase from the first paragraph: "It's strength of character would depend on distinct nuances between varieties," and clicked the search. I also do this with blogsearch.google.com.
Hopefully your post, and any other sanctioned blogs, are the only ones that come up in the list. If there are others, poke around and see if they're playing by the 'rules.'
You might want to try the same search on Yahoo! and MSN. Jodi may also have a few other avenues to offer.
Posted by: Stuart | February 9, 2008 10:02 PM
My blog was one of those used and given fake links, so thanks very much, Stuart! It's good to see a victory for our side once in awhile.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
Posted by: Annie in Austin | February 10, 2008 3:47 AM
Not sure we're completely in the clear yet, Stuart et. al. The site is back up but with a disclaimer. Doug Green was the one who put many of us on to this site initially, and i've got email in my inbox from him which I'm sure I can forward.
But here's what the site now says:
"Welcome in this free online gardening blogs aggregator.
This is the most comprehensive gardening blog aggregator - Here you can find and browse hundreds of gardening posts and then discover the original sites and find new interesting blogs.
If you want to submit your favourite blogs click here.
This feed-reading application is created using free online FEEDS (RSS and ATOM files) aggregated using Google Reader API
If you find there is any copyright abuse, contact us as soon as possible, thanks."
-------
Jodi again: The main thing to do if you don't want to be scraped is not have full posts in your feed...I clicked on the link to my blog, and while initially the title showed up in his site, the next click took me back to bloomingwriter.
I'm a bit backlogged with non-work work (and yeah, I do read a lot at Blotanical, at least til spring...;-) but I'll do a post soon about the dos and don'ts and how to protect against scrapers. Others have posted about this sort of thing before, too.
Posted by: jodi | February 10, 2008 12:00 PM
Too bad some folks can't work and grow and write their own content.
Posted by: Curtis | February 11, 2008 6:49 AM
Wow, I never would have thought of this. Thanks for the heads up. I am going to try the search and see what happens. I should only find my stuff right? If my stuff is listed under something else then what?
Posted by: LetsPlant | March 5, 2008 3:40 PM