I am reeling

jak · Post by **jak** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 6:31 am

Yes I am. From the shock of finding my article on Madurodam on 17 different websites when I googled it just now - thinking it would be nice to see where it was, having sold full rights. The one at the top of the list was isnare, so that explains some of it. But it is also on several other free article sites. Nothing has been changed except the by-line.

I wondered if this was a common occurrence for CC veterans.

Ed · Post by Ed » Mon Mar 03, 2008 6:59 am

Plagiarism, unfortunately, occurs all the time to all writers published on the internet - not just those who write for CC. Contact Support if your content has been stolen.

Ed

Edited to add - under what license was your article purchased?

jak · Post by **jak** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 7:39 am

I don't think this is plagiarism, Ed. I sold the full rights, so I think it is all legit. I was just amazed at how much the buyer did with it.

On all the free sites it was listed with the same byline, presumably the person who bought it here. There was also usually an ad for what must be his company, so he is using it to generate exposure. Ingenious, really - a very cheap way to do it. Anyone can download articles from those sites to use elsewhere, so that's why it came up so many times.

I do realise that the only way for an author to avoid this multi-use of their work would be not to offer the full rights, but then, of course, it might not sell.

Ed · Post by Ed » Mon Mar 03, 2008 8:05 am

Okay - after reading your post a second time, I wondered if this might be the case.

Remember that most people won't do this. Duplicate content is not looked upon favorably by Google's algorithm, and won't get this guy any points with page rank. Most customers purchase content for their websites, which they want to rank highly in Google for certain information and search terms.

Ed

jwatkins · Post by **jwatkins** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 8:28 am

What I have seen with some of my works is a person buys full rights and then puts it up on a free article site. They have a link at the bottom of the page that leads to their website. One of my works is on over 100 pages so that's 100 sites that this person has their link on. It may not impress Google but it is a good way to get traffic.

Ed · Post by Ed » Mon Mar 03, 2008 8:36 am

No, it isn't really a good way to get traffic. People have to find the article first, and they do this through search. Most people get to pages through search - this has been established by those who have the means to test such a hypothesis. If Google sees duplicate content, this information is going to be placed in search backfill . . . searchers might not even come across this information as all original content comes up first.

Even if people do stumble across this article, only a small fraction of those will actually click on the link. Most won't.

That is why CC puts such an emphasis on offering *original* content for sale.

Ed

jwatkins · Post by **jwatkins** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 10:02 am

Ed I agree that if I want my site to rank well in search engine rankings that I will not use duplicate content. However, these people and this particular gentleman who submitted my article (his after he purchased it) to the free article site only cares about accidental conversions. They know a free article is not going to rank well. Think of this too. The people who used this article on their site may in fact end up being customers of this guy. All the sites are in the same "genre" and they may be interested in what he has to offer.

Anyway, I just wanted to explain my point a little better. It isn't good for SEO but it is great for sales.

Ed · Post by Ed » Mon Mar 03, 2008 10:06 am

Yeah, I see your point.

jak · Post by **jak** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 11:46 am

Thanks JW for pitching in. At least I know that I am not alone in my experience.

And thanks, Ed for pointing out that it is not the norm.