My Content Has Been Stolen? Wait...

I'm always very interested in what brings people to this site, who is linking to me and why, and that kind of stuff. I'm sure anyone who has a blog can relate. So I was checking out who links to me, and I came across some curious sites. There were three in particular that caught my attention.

The first one I found is a website about Beauty Tips. This should not surprise you as I am the authority on beauty. If you need any beauty tips, just ask.

What is surprising is this: if you'll check that link above, you can see a column on the right side of the page entitled, "Recent Skin Care Blogs." In that column is this link: Thanksgiving Weekend 2006. That is a post that I wrote about my Thanksgiving Weekend. Unfortunately, it provides no tips on beauty, or skin care. This link is also next to a post entitled, "Skin Care - Acne And The Changes In Girls During Puberty." I can assure you that I know nothing about this topic. So why have they linked to me?

Well, I really don't know, but I have a guess. That particular post generated a lot of hits for me. At least more than normal. It also mentions the word "skin," one time. As in, "we fought over the crispy skin as usual." So maybe this site did a random search for "crispy skin" or something, and found my blog. Then they linked to me, thinking it might boost their blog cred or something. I really have no idea.

Okay, so the next blog is entitled, Pluto Planet or Something... They actually copied part of the text from one of my posts. Ironically, it was part that I copied from IndyStar. But this site seems to just search for "planet Pluto," then copy whatever they find into their website. They link back to the original blogpost, so it seems legal under copyright stuff (Creative Commons). I really don't care.

So why did they choose me? It looks like they just find a hot topic (Pluto is no longer a planet), then find any blog that recently posted anything about Pluto, and then they copy that into their site. Then they try to generate tons of money from AdWare and Google AdSense. That way anyone looking for Pluto stuff will invariably find their site and probably click on a few ads. It does serve the purpose of showing you everyone who posted about Pluto, but unfortunately, most of these posts have nothing to do with Pluto (other than mentioning it). I also tried doing a Google search for "Pluto planet" and never found their site. So maybe it's not working.

The last site I found is actually two sites. They both "stole" the same post. It's funny because of which post they found. Here's a link to both sites: Boxing Fitness and Vision Fitness. (I've also found that they have a Fitness Bike Blog as well)


To my great joy and amusement, they chose to link to Proud of My Manhood. Probably the worst possible post of mine that a legitimate site could link to. That post has nothing to do with boxing or vision, as far as I can tell.

This site actually copies five full paragraphs of my post. They give it an awesome introduction (on the Vision blog):

"Today i was thinking alot about different things which surronds me. I though about good and bad and how they can cooperate in this world. i don't think it's very interesting but this problem get over me last days. Surfing the web i found some interesting material which has interest for me."

And then at the end, they say, "Awesome article. Thanks" I went to the About page for these blogs and found this:

"
Hello.

Welcome to Vision fitness blog. This site contains digest of most intresting blog articles about Vision fitness. Fell free to leave any comments about this site. Help us to improve this service.

All contents are taken from publically available places. Link to original article is always provided to maintain copyright rules."

Each one is exactly the same (with "feel" misspelled every time), except for being a "Boxing Fitness" or "Fitness Bike."

I honestly have no idea why they've taken my content and put it on their site. They do link back to me, which as they explain, maintains copyright rules. So again, I have no problem with it. I just can't figure it out. It must be for the money they would make from advertising, but it seems like they could find content that actually fits their purpose. I can't imagine it would be that much more work. Anyways, this was all very interesting and humorous to me, so I thought I would share. Please let me know if I should be at all concerned here.