OMG are you effing insane?
Today comes the announcement that WordPressDirect.com has reached 10,000 users. WordPress Direct is a site that allows users to click a few buttons and potentially scrape steal kidnap plagiarize automatically post content from blogs by simply entering keywords. So now, sploggers (and apparently there are 10,000ish of them now) can enter keywords, set up an account with Google allowing them to be paid for page views, and VOILA, your content is on their site and making them money. Thanks, WordPress Direct.
From their press release: “Armed with little more than a desire to publish on a topic, users can create and maintain any number of content-packed, automatically-updated, search engine optimized (SEO) niche websites powered by the WordPress blog engine.
Every WordPressDirect site comes “pre-optimized” for maximum ranking and maximum traffic. By clicking a few radio buttons and entering a few search phrases, WordPressDirect will create a blog-driven website, create the blog categories, install the theme, and automatically post content. WordPressDirect contains special software that identifies relevant content and then automatically posts it to the site with proper categorization and tagging to aid visitors and searchers alike.“
What do YOU think?
I think they sum it up best on their FAQ site when they answer a question, “We are a pretty sucky bunch, it’s true.” What do YOU think?
“Armed with little more than a desire to publish on a topic..” and obviously the inability (or desire) to publish original content. Hopefully people know about the Google spam reporting tools and will report every one of these they find.
Makes me glad I don’t have a WP blog!
Protect yourself and your content. Make sure to write “Original content from XX.” at the bottom of each and every post.
It’s brutally hard to stop scrappers, but at least you can make sure people know the information was lifted.
Hateful people.
I thought this was creepy from the minute I heard about it.
Clarification: WordPress Direct generates content from ALL user-generated content sites (like WordPress blogs, Blogger blogs, TypePad blogs, YouTube, Viddler, etc.) and RUNS on WordPress, making ALL blogs are vulnerable to this “service.”
We have and will continue to cover how to fight content theft (or “borrowing” as some will surely call it).
I wonder if they are playing with fire as far as trade mark is concerned. But if guys at WordPress own the trade mark they can probably challenge WordPressDirect.
I recommend all bloggers who use wordpress and have an RSS feed to use this plug in.
It adds a footer to your feed so worst case you get a link back to your post, best case it stops the splogger dead in their tracks.
Oh my word… this really whomps! I am very particular about my stuff. It’s mine. I have Daffy Duck syndrome when it comes to my blog. MINE! Mine! MINE! Mine! (LOL). We gotta do something… Seriously. I want Lenn Harley and her attorney on my side when I start fighting about this. Thanks for the tweet. I love AG. I am so down with the program and agree that this major league sucks!
I’m wondering how I can utilize this to combine the content of all 3 of my blogs into another blog… hum…
Not hard to write your own content.
Jackholes! Guess this stays in line with everyone wanting to get something for nothing.
Interesting that this ‘tool’ came from WordPress. WTH are they thinking? Thanks for bringing it to our attention, Lani — I saw a news item about it earlier today and blew right past it.
Sherry, as far as I can tell, there is no affiliation and Vlad is right that this could potentially be a trademark violation. Benn told me in conversation today that most companies using the word “WordPress” in their company name or URL have removed it and I suspect WordPress is aware of WPDirect.
Like I said on Twitter, I don’t get mad easily, but I’m already so tired of the SEVERAL blogs we have that we continually monitor, this just sucks more time out of our week having to be vigilant, and despite plug-ins, footers and the like, it still happens.
Thanks for the DM, Lani. That WPDirect is not part of WP *really* pisses me off — can just imagine what WP thinks about it. Probably nothing we can do to stop this company except continue to monitor like we’re doing now. Think I’ll be a little more diligent now.
If anyone else here is using Typepad (which I absolutely LOVE, btw), please let me know if Typepad is doing anything about this. I don’t think Typepad and WordPress absolutely love each other LOL…
[...] WordPress Direct, Have You Lost Your Mind?? I have to agree with Lani on this one. Although some of you may be thinking “But Nick, don’t you link to other articles on your site as if it were a blog post?” Yes, yes I do. But I’ve scoured the internet to read and digest 16,737 articles (in the last 30 days) and share them with you, complete with my reasons why you should read them. So no, it’s not the same thing. [...]
Don’t worry.
I tried to sign up for an account to see what it was about… total hilarity. Typos in their calls-to-action, 3 sets of ARE YOU SURE YOU DON’T WANT TO BUY THIS?? messages, and an error message as you try to sign up.
The site I tried to set up was wpd_sucks.profitcruiser.com, so if you are looking for that URL, I have taken it.
It still seems to me that the only reason sploggers exist is make money with Google Ads. I suppose Google makes tons of money from those ads, but it would sure be nice if they found another way. That would eliminate 90% of the plagiarism.
Even if WP does challenge them on the trademark of their name, those folks will just set up a new name. What a scam! Wonder if they’ve advised those 10K people that they are risking being sued for copyright violation.
Pretty sucky bunch is right. They seriously need to check their integrity and invoke some self-control.
Subject change. Ding. That post title is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time.
Okay. Back to the topic. How does Jay attach that footer: If you’re reading this outside your feed reader…? Could you put some key words in there that you could do Google Alerts on to catch sploggers?
Vicki, sorry for misspelling your name.
Finally, my total failure in SEO is paying off! My blog has absolutely no keywords of value and no posts worth scraping. I’m safe.
Lani, I am probalby mistaken about this, and I am clearly not up on copywrite laws, but it seems to me that copywriting content would at least offer creators some recourse, or is everything placed on the web now considered “public domain”? What is the latest word on this aspect of creative protection?
This is insanity. Someone has to do something here. I suggest boycotting all Google ads (banner ads as well) – seriously we will survive without those ads! They won’t.
Amen!!!
“We are a pretty sucky bunch, it’s true.”
What more could one say? They describe themselves well!
[...] OMG are you effing insane? Print This Post This entry was posted on November 28, 2008 at 8:00 am, filed under blogging, tools and tagged spam, WordPressDirect. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL. « What Are Your Expectations? [...]
To those that assume there is viable recourse:
While I understand the outrage, know this, most battle that are successful in this arean have Goliath besting David. Meaning the large concern usually wins over the small content thief; the reason is enforcement is never guaranteed, it is time consuming, costly and with limited reward to the victor.
Sad but there are no “Content Police”, and there is no shortage of those who feel no remorse for taking the words of another as their own. Your best options have been outlined already (the footer and active links to your site in the post’s body).
You might add, if comments are permitted on the site that word burgled, a comment saying you wrote this post and the person publishing the blog stole it?
I signed up for this service, BUT my foot hit the brake as soon as they asked for my ftp login information. It is one thing to ask for my WP self hosted user ID and pw but for the ftp root?
I was able to install and learn about IonCube and with it installed what is the reason for the ftp access?
Does anyone know this answer, it might be a simple one I am overlooking. Why would they need this root access, this is what seems very fishy to me. Easy to install programs that they could use to their advantage like bots…
But maybe I am wrong..
Original content from XX
Is this the correct attribution?
Thanks
[...] came across an interesting discussion on AgentGenius.com on how to deal with splogs. Tom Royce of Real Estate Bloggers suggested a plugin called RSS footer- this plugin allows you to [...]
This makes more more than angry to read this. We work hard to do what we do. Seriously, how difficult is it to write your own blog posts?
[...] WordPress Direct, Have You Lost Your Mind?? (agentgenius.com) [...]
[...] morning and was flabbergasted by how badly some of the commenter’s misunderstood what was going on: http://agentgenius.com/?p=7479 [...]
Well, I tried it.
Unfortunately, for me, I liked it.
You see… the idea was they offered me a chance to load up a blog with content immediately. Obviously, I’m not greedy or lazy so I also wrote some of my own content.
But, it was convenient to have an instant-and-ready blog.
Everytime I post unoriginal content (maybe yours)… I ALWAYS include a link back to your site (thus increasing your ranking in Google) and allowing the reader a chance to check out your site (thus creating a testimonial and FREE advertising for you).
I really don’t see what’s wrong with that. If it was stealing… I wouldn’t allow the reader to know who originally created the content and how to contact them. This system isn’t like that. I credit the originator.
If you use this “tool” intelligently and not like everyone here is jumping to the conclusion and THINKS people are doing… it will really help your business.
Heck, it helped mine tremendously!
- Ron
P.S. — I dunno. I probably shouldn’t have opened my big fat mouth because I’m the only one on this blog who uses WordPressDirect.
I completely understand if you don’t agree with me. After all, I’m walking into a tiger den with everyone bashing the product.
Just do me a favor… don’t judge the tool based on what scam-artists and content theives would use it for.
Obviously, the developers should have made this a little more reserved and not open to the public. However, remember this tool is only available to those who are willing to spend over $100 per month to utilize. It’s not available to freebies and bottom-feeders.
Sure, the basic product is free, but this particular feature called “auto-content” is only available to high-paying members.
The system is advertised to help your business grow… and it does if used ethically and honestly.
Just my two cents.
Wowza, Does anyone do any research before commenting?
Did you know that Yahoo! has a free feature called Yahoo Pipes! That you can put any rss feed information into and put the resulting code on any web page?
RSS is made for this sort of thing.
And how did Google get brought into this? roflmao
There are plenty of ways to make money with a website besides Adsense. Most of the WPDirect sites are running affiliate ads rather than Adsense.
As far as wpdirect goes, they aren’t out to steal your content. The content it ads to your site comes from places that make content syndication easy because that is what it is designed for. Blog rss feeds are for syndicating content, Youtube videos can be embedded in any webpage, etc.
Spammers or Sploggers are going to steal content till the end of time and it’s just something you have to deal with. You don’t have to like it, but you can’t stop it.
I have personally used WPDirect but I did not use it to steal content. The features that gather content and auto publish to your blog have to be enabled. The reason I would use it is to get a quick install and optimization of a blog without having to manually gather, install and setup all the plugins you need to SEO optimize your blog(which can take hours even when you know what your doing).
Surely they are not scraping content, that would be illegal I think?
As a blogger I only syndicate excerpts of my posts that people can do what they like with. Hopefully they also link back to my site.
I could be wrong but WPD are not “scraping” anyone’s personal blogs. It uses content that has been made available for syndication by the copyright owner (whether or not the owner realises that they have made it available for syndication). If you’ve ever posted a video to you tube or submitted content to an article directory then anyone can use it on their blog. This is no different.
Many bloggers and content creators use Creative commons licenses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.....s_licenses because they WANT their content to be freely distributed to as wide an audience as possible. After all, why are you creating content? to be read right?
And if you got a few 1000 extra subscribers because of all that exposure wouldn’t you be pretty happy?
Another take on the issue anyway.
Andrew
[...] WordPress Direct, Have You Lost Your Mind?? I have to agree with Lani on this one. Although some of you may be thinking “But Nick, don’t you link to other articles on your site as if it were a blog post?” Yes, yes I do. But I’ve scoured the internet to read and digest 16,737 articles (in the last 30 days) and share them with you, complete with my reasons why you should read them. So no, it’s not the same thing. [...]