So you put a lot of time and effort into making a blog that's entertaining and useful.
To keep it that way, you regularly watch to see who's viewing your blog, so you can keep your content useful.
And one day, you check out your incoming hits log, and you find a visitor to another web site, with content identical to yours. Except for the ads, or other amenities.
Everybody who publishes interesting or useful content will find this happen, at some time or another.
There will always be folks who have no ideas of their own, so they pirate other folks work.
This is similar to search engines, except with search engines you submit your blog, intentionally, to be indexed.
Maybe it's more like search engines than you thought at first. A search engine links to you, and gets you readers. The search engine gains from linking to you, and you gain from being linked. And you can do the same, with the pirates.
So how do you benefit from being pirated? Simple.
Use the power. The power of hypertext. Write content in small chunks, linked to each other. Your wanna be reader, reading the pirated copy of your blog, follows a hyperlink inside the pirated content. Bing! He's now reading your blog.
In a way, having your content pirated is better than using a search engine.
If you publish new content regularly, folks reading the pirated content will bookmark your blog, rather than the pirated content. More bookmarks eventually lead to more readers. More readers for you. The pirate will spend his time, constantly trying to catch up with you.
You can still publish legal permissions, to protect yourself. But spend your time publishing content, not chasing pirates. More content = more pirates = more readers.
A hit is a hit. Enjoy the hits. Work from the hits.
(Update 9/23 9:00): I posted the above between 6:00 and 8:00. And now, I see
Now Ron, that makes no sense. Surely, you have one already??
For third parties, be advised that Ron lives in Texas, U.S.A. Gun ownership, in Texas, is almost mandated by law.
But seriously, I guess my advice is a bit complex, for Texans anyway. So I will simplify.
To keep it that way, you regularly watch to see who's viewing your blog, so you can keep your content useful.
And one day, you check out your incoming hits log, and you find a visitor to another web site, with content identical to yours. Except for the ads, or other amenities.
My content, their web site! My work, their ads??!!
Everybody who publishes interesting or useful content will find this happen, at some time or another.
There will always be folks who have no ideas of their own, so they pirate other folks work.
This is similar to search engines, except with search engines you submit your blog, intentionally, to be indexed.
Maybe it's more like search engines than you thought at first. A search engine links to you, and gets you readers. The search engine gains from linking to you, and you gain from being linked. And you can do the same, with the pirates.
So how do you benefit from being pirated? Simple.
Use the power. The power of hypertext. Write content in small chunks, linked to each other. Your wanna be reader, reading the pirated copy of your blog, follows a hyperlink inside the pirated content. Bing! He's now reading your blog.
In a way, having your content pirated is better than using a search engine.
- It's an affirmation of the usefulness of your blog. The pirates aren't going to waste time pirating crap.
- You don't waste any time filling out yet another search engine form, and getting more useless spam. All search engines won't market to folks who will be interested in your blog.
- Unless you use the same search engines as the pirates, or frequent the same forums, chances are the folks reading the pirated content wouldn't have found your web site anyway. You didn't lose anything.
- The pirate is a targeted search engine. He pirated your content, because it's useful. He will spend his time publicising his website, which leads to your content, and to your web site. He will end up working for you, if you let him.
If you publish new content regularly, folks reading the pirated content will bookmark your blog, rather than the pirated content. More bookmarks eventually lead to more readers. More readers for you. The pirate will spend his time, constantly trying to catch up with you.
You can still publish legal permissions, to protect yourself. But spend your time publishing content, not chasing pirates. More content = more pirates = more readers.
A hit is a hit. Enjoy the hits. Work from the hits.
(Update 9/23 9:00): I posted the above between 6:00 and 8:00. And now, I see
This sounds too complicated, Chuck. Couldn't I just go get a gun?
Now Ron, that makes no sense. Surely, you have one already??
For third parties, be advised that Ron lives in Texas, U.S.A. Gun ownership, in Texas, is almost mandated by law.
But seriously, I guess my advice is a bit complex, for Texans anyway. So I will simplify.
- Publish your blog. Write lots of content, and make hyperlinks between the posts.
- See step 1.
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