Blog scraping
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Blog scraping is the process of scanning through a large number of blogs, usually daily, searching for and copying content. This process is conducted through automated software. The software and the individuals who run the software are sometimes referred to as blog scrapers.
Scraping is copying a blog that is not owned by the individual initiating the scraping process. If the material is copyrighted it is considered copyright infringement, unless there is a license relaxing the copyright. The scraped content is often used on spam blogs or splogs. [Think: backtype]
[edit] Issues
A blog scraper who gathers content that is copyrighted material is considered in violation of the law. Blog scraping can create problems for the individual or business who owns the blog. Blog scraping is particularly worrisome for business owners and business bloggers. Scrapers can copy an entire post from an independent or business blog. The duplicated content will include the author’s tag and a link back to the author’s site (if that link appears in the author’s tag). However, most blog scrapers copy only a portion of the content that is keyword-relevant to their splog topic. By doing this, the keyword relevancy of the scraper’s site is increased. Secondly, by not scraping the entire post, any outbound links are eliminated which means their search engine ranking is not reduced.
Additionally, scraped content can appear on literally any type of splog or RSS-fed spam site. This means an unsuspecting individual could find their creative or copyrighted material copied onto a site promoting pornography or similar type of content that may be offensive to the original author and his/her audience. This may be damaging to the original author’s reputation.
More at Cooper’s blog.
1 Comment
April 18, 2009 at 12:39 am
The scrapers are impossible to stop there are so many the comment thing though if those gus do start making money off scraped comments, that kind of sucks. I think it should be sing up but that was too hard…it’s easier to scrape people content.
The stalker thing bother me nost with the comments.
Don’t ya love finding your blog on some splog full of posts about auto mechanics…lol