MSN links--Thousand of pages linking from all different domains but seem the same?

[chirosche]

Hello All,

I was checking backlinks on MSN for my site and I found this: Live Search: "cherrysage.com" -site:cherrysage.com. It gave me 4680 sites linking to me. There appears to be thousands of sites linking to me, which at first glance would seem very nice. Then I realized when I went into each of these pages, that they were very similar and seemed as if they were produced 'en mass' by some software creating all these pages. They also contain links back to similar sites to articles on mine and others sites.

Start on page 4 or 5 and you'll see the trend and it goes on and on. Is this good or bad? Seems only MSN is picking them up.

Does anybody know what this is and can you offer any feedback on this.

Thank you guys.

Beverly

[crankydave]

Scrapers.

Scraping content for pages serving adsense.

Dave

[MursPlace]

Originally Posted by crankydave

Scrapers.

Scraping content for pages serving adsense.

Dave

Ugh, now I know what they are called. And I was just getting used to calling them "Leeches" (Blood and Content Suckers)

I've been using "Report a Spam" from Google and just love wasting time reporting these misleading sites. I think Google just took everything out even my valid links. (Lucky me)

Guess when you have good content for very good AdSense words you will be "Scraped" I'm sure glad I started making Video's to replace written content.

Don't tell me later they can decode my video articles and .... ugh will it ever end?

[chirosche]

Thanks, now I know. I'd never seen them before and I was concerned at first, didn't know whether it was good or bad. Definitely leeches. I'm surprised the search engines allow this type of parasitic behavior for profit. Was just making sure I didn't have thousands of bad neighborhoods linking to my site.

Thanks again.

[chandrika]

I have been having a similar problem, and found this blog that gives some handy tips to try to stop rogue softwares lifting all your content.

Use a simple bottrap to block bad bots - stop others from stealing your content today

I have only just implemented it, so cant say for sure how effective it will be, but it sounds good in principle.

My only concern is that doing stuff like this, could cost me some backlinks. I dont really know whether scraper sites cause any harm to the site they scrape, I was thinking they do.

[MursPlace]

Originally Posted by chandrika

I have been having a similar problem, and found this blog that gives some handy tips to try to stop rogue softwares lifting all your content.

Use a simple bottrap to block bad bots - stop others from stealing your content today

That was a good bit of information.
If you're doing the "Ban" or "Disallow" to all those types of USER_AGENT connections I'll give a try to reverse it and only allow "Human" and the big 3 search engines.

The concept is sound but only time will tell. Drawback is that you have to create a new Disallow for any new bad bot so it might be easier to just allow the good search engine spiders, content copyright bots, plagiarism bots etc.

• Do you have a method of tracking bots attempting to copy your site or at least your articles section?
• Wound you agree to share your results in about 30 days?

I feel plagiarism, leeching, scraping confuses more consumers and directly affects valid storefront owners. I learned by the "School of Hard Knocks" by posting on wordpress some articles I wrote for my site. I will never do that again.

[chandrika]

Originally Posted by MursPlace

• Do you have a method of tracking bots attempting to copy your site or at least your articles section?
• Wound you agree to share your results in about 30 days?

When you say tracking them, do you mean finding out where they originated from? If so...

i dont personally try to track them down, but by making the honeypot data public and available to About Us | Project Honey Pot

They do track and enforce laws on spammers and stuff, they share the data with spam law enforcement agencies.

I will certainly post here again if I get any results, find any drawbacks or anything.

[MursPlace]

Originally Posted by chandrika

When you say tracking them, do you mean finding out where they originated from? If so...

No not really like tracking them down and stalking the bot to his house and cutting the power lines.

I think you are going with the honeypot of known bots while I was going to reverse the process and treat everything as a bot but good known User Agents (browsers).

If all holds true you should be spammed (scrapped) from unknown or new bots while I will be notified of bots not listed in the list. Between the two tests the results I get should match yours plus unknown but only Al Gore and his Internet really knows.

It's like Data Mining to see what bots visit your site. Block them all and alert yourself of their visit so you can add them to your "Good Bot List". They always return.

[chandrika]

Originally Posted by MursPlace

No not really like tracking them down and stalking the bot to his house and cutting the power lines.

hmmm...now theres a thought!

Yes your reverse way does sound more comprehensive and to be honest how much traffic does anyone get from searches outside the top few.

I will see how it goes and what happens for a while as it is, will be interested to hear how you get on later.

[chandrika]

I have had my honeypot test up for some weeks now, and its reassuring in a way, as only one spambot has so far been caught going where it shouldnt.

I am monitoring it here
Most Recent Spam Harvesters | Targeting www.findallsorts.com | Project Honey Pot.