You may have read about bloggers publishing someone else’s content on their site and claiming it as their own. You may have seen it and thought it could never happen to you. But I’m here to tell you. It can happen to you unless you take the right precautions to protect your blog and your content!
How and Why You Need to Protect Your Blog Content
Don’t be a statistic and have to fight your way to regain your content. Be Proactive and take action now! Not sure how to? Read below for a few examples and if you still need help, just ask below in the comment area.
Don’t Let Bloggers Steal Your Content – Cyber Protect Your Blog!
The blogging community is, on the whole, a very welcoming and friendly place to be. Bloggers are always happy to collaborate and help each other bring more readers to their sites. But there are always going to be people that want to get ahead of the competition using dishonest means, like content theft.
Often a blogger doesn’t even realize it’s happened to them! But another blog could be posting your content and passing it off as their own. That means they’re getting credit for your work. They are building a readership off the back of your hard work. Imagine that?
In an ideal world, you wouldn’t have to worry about this but it does happen so you must protect yourself. These are some of the best ways to protect your blog against content theft.
Copyright Notices
If you don’t lay out, in clear terms, how others are allowed to use your content then you’re going to run into problems. It’s ok for people to share your content on their blog. It can be beneficial as long as they’re doing it with your permission. And, most importantly, giving you the credit and posting a link back to the original article on your site. That’s a great way to get more readers.
However, what you don’t want is people posting it as their work. So you’ve got to have clear guidelines. Write a clear copyright notice that is easily visible on the blog. It should outline how people should proceed if they want to share your content.
You have to have clear guidelines! Write a clear copyright notice that is easily visible on the blog! #blog #protect #theft #content
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You can find an example of a copyright notice for a blog here. If you don’t have a creative copyright notice on your site, a lot of people will think that means they’re allowed to share your content freely without consequence, even if you don’t want them to.
Online Security to Protect Your Blog
Cyber-security attacks are big news at the moment and a lot of companies are falling prey to them. Everybody knows that online security is important for big companies, but a lot of bloggers don’t realize that it’s just as important for them as well.
If you don’t have good security systems in place, that makes it easier for people to log into your blog account and make posts that you haven’t even published yet.
One of the best ways of protecting your blog is to use a virtual private network. Private networks are not that expensive. A private network will ensure that your blog isn’t at risk of being hacked and they protect your IP address. If you’re not very tech-savvy and you may be asking, what is my IP?
An IP address is a unique number that all devices have when they connect to the internet, so other devices know where to send and receive data. It’s important to protect it because hackers can use it to get at all sorts of other information. They can get your details or your credit card number, etc.
The more personal details that they have, the easier it is for them to get onto your blog account and steal content.
Google Alerts
Knowing whether someone has already stolen your content and published it is hard because of the sheer number of different sites on the internet. But you can set up Google alerts to search for particular words and phrases.
If you put your name or the name of the blog at the bottom of posts, you can set up a Google alert so you’ll get an email if it pops up anywhere else. You should also set up alerts for post titles so you’ll know if somebody posts your article elsewhere. I love using Google alerts!
Use Google alerts to protect your blog content from others stealing content.
Have The Blog Content Removed
If you do get alerts and you find that somebody is using your work without crediting you, you need to get it taken down. You probably don’t want to hear it, but you need to pick your battles in these situations.
Getting a blog post taken down can be a lengthy process if the site owner doesn’t play ball with you. Sometimes, it’s just not worth your time. If you find your post on a site that ranks very low on Google searches and has a tiny amount of subscribers no worries. Nobody is reading it and it’s not worth spending ages fighting over it.
However, if a big website that is making a lot of money is using your content, that’s a different story.
Getting a blog post taken down can be a lengthy process if the site owner doesn’t play ball. #protectyourcontent #blog
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Contact The Blogger To Protect Your Blog Content
The first port of call is to contact the blogger. Let them know that they’re violating copyright and ask them to take the post down in 24 hours. Usually, they’ll put their hands up and admit they’ve been caught out and the post will disappear.
If that doesn’t work, you should find the company that is hosting the blog. A website owner can get in a lot of trouble if they’re hosting sites that are breaking copyright law, so they’ll get it sorted for you.
It’s a real shame that there are people out there stealing your content. But unfortunately, it’s a reality of the blogging world so you must protect your blog. Protecting it is imperative for your blogging business today.
Your Turn
Have you ever had content stolen from your blog or website? How do you protect your blog? I’d love to know more in the comments below.
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