Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Have you been scraped?

    Has your blog been scraped?  Not scraps, but scraped by the Wicked Witch and the Winged Monkeys? Or maybe by some other unsavory sites on the net.
   As bloggers we put time and effort into our posts.  We take photos---or in my case, try to take decent photos---and create tutorials to share what we love with others.  We log our efforts at home and share our travels, review our favorite books and quilt shops.  We give quilt show tours.  All because we love fabric and quilts and sharing.  And yet, their are some bad guys out there, lurking and leering at what we do.   They are "scraping" content from blogs--including photos--- to post on their sites to increase traffic on their site.
     I was reading a post at Happy Cottage Quilter  (be sure to follow her links) and found  a quick mention of this.    Then I clicked over for more information to betweennapsontheporch .  She has a long article on how to stop the scrapers from stealing your blog posts and photos.  It is worth the time to read, even if you don't worry about this stuff.
     The bottom line.....I found some of my blog content has been scraped and is on some very ugly sites.  I may not get it removed, but I have taken steps to prevent ---at least to discourage---the winged monkeys.  Most of us are now at least marking our photos, in hopes of preventing others from taking credit.   And just for good measure, I am calling in a favor from my old friend......Thanks, Shannon, for sharing a Clint photo.
Happy stitching....and be safe out there.

8 comments:

shannon said...

you're welcome!!

i saw all the talk about scrapers...how can you find if it has...i have copyscape and they didn't find anything...

Cheree @ The Morning Latte said...

WOW, I had no idea!! Occasionally, I will use a photo from somewhere but I always try to credit it/link back (unless it's something that's just so open like Starbucks pictures or something--and using THAT picture is actually an ad for them!). I never thought much about all if it and couldn't really understand why people were getting that upset but now, wow! I stopped using the watermark when my photo editing site when away but I can see I need to get it back. This makes me kinda sick to my stomach. Thank you so much for posting this!! I have work to do...

Mary said...

Thanks, for the heads up, Debbie.

Nicki said...

I have never heard of scraping before. Wisdom is knowledge & thank you for informing me of this. The things some people do just truly boggles my mind.

Kelli Fannin Quilts said...

Thanks for the info. I'll have to check this out. I've been wanting to learn how to watermark my photos, too. I need to get on that.

Lynne said...

Thanks, Debbie, I'd never even heard of scraping. I'm off to read the linked article.

The Nifty Stitcher said...

Thank you for sharing this Debbie - it really opened my eyes. I have just recently started using websites like picmonkey.com or ipiccy.com to write my name across photos of my work.

Barb said...

I love your pumpkin below.....and I saw that post too..great information.

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