The Arcive of Official vBulletin Modifications Site.

Acers · #1 08-09-2007, 07:53 AM

A user on my site today reported a copied content violation on another site. I thought this was one more case of 1 thread copied, only to find the whole site is running on copied content of our forums.

Check my site home page: http://www.funenclave.com/

and then see this: http://www.stepheniansonline.com/forum/home.php?

^^rather an innovative style choice and use of title. I know imitation is best form of flattery but there should be some limits

It doesn't stop there. The fellow seems to be using some kind of a scraper to put our content on his site(His site and our site). I find whole forums running on stuff from our site. Ok anyway point is not to crib about that, our site is pretty big but what i wanna know is couple of things

1) I have warned the guy to stop copy pasting stuff from my site and he atm says he won't. Can anyone tell what do i do about the duplicate content created thus far. Google ain't gonna like my whole forum running on a new site copied word to word.

I am worried his antics will cost us critical positions in rankings.

2) The tool he is using to copy stuff is this: (Ico Content)(https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...ht=ico-content)
Can't a protest be lodged against that company. I don't think any forum owner allows or will allow his content to be scraped like this. And thats what the tool does do(apart from copying yahoo answers).

Any ideas on how to tackle this situation? Top it all i am terribly busy these days and didn't even notice this thing going on.

StrifeX · #2 08-09-2007, 08:46 AM

Spam the sh*t out of his forum with posts saying the site is ripped

Acers · #3 08-09-2007, 08:54 AM

lol.. its a new forum, I will only be wasting my own time. Its the google that worries me

StrifeX · #4 08-09-2007, 09:05 AM

I have an idea... How about you edit the postbit / postbit_legacy template, and add text that says "posted on yoursitename.com" and set the text color to the same color as your alt1/alt2 (so that when it's posted on his site it will be seen, but on your site it will look invisible

.) Also, change your alt1/2slightly since his is the same, and use this code around the text: <if condition="!$GLOBALS['FIRSTPOSTID']"></if>

In conclusion, if anyone is led to his site by google, they will see they are a fake site that ripped from you, and that might make them want to come back to you

.

Acers · #5 08-09-2007, 09:36 AM

correct,
depends on what is the procedure thats used for ripping though. I think the software automatically replaces the main site name. I still can't believe what honest use can be of that software. Legitimate copying can be done via direct DB callback's also if the aim is to maintain same content on two different forums.

Here is from the FAQ
http://www.icomotion.com/ico-content/faq.html#G14

Quote:

Technically this will indeed result in what may be called 'duplicate content'. Particularly people concerned with boosting page count for SEO reasons may find this a limitation. However, remember that ICO-Content is not designed to be an SEO tool. It serves to help you get your forum going. Having said that, if your forum features a unique template, chances are this will not result in being duplicate content at all. The surrounding content will make the page unique (enough), and it only takes you posting one reply to each ICo-Content generated topic/thread for it to be truly unique. Read the opinions of a vBulletin expert on this matter here. Another point to remember is that if you set ICo-Content to run regularly, say every 5 minutes, chances are that the search engine spiders find the content on your forum before they do so on Yahoo! or elsewhere. At the end of the day, ICo-Content is designed to be a community booster, not a page count inflation tool!

Community Booster, more of a rip someone else to boost a new one. lol

Ohiosweetheart · #6 08-09-2007, 10:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by StrifeX

I have an idea... How about you edit the postbit / postbit_legacy template, and add text that says "posted on yoursitename.com" and set the text color to the same color as your alt1/alt2 (so that when it's posted on his site it will be seen, but on your site it will look invisible

.) Also, change your alt1/2slightly since his is the same, and use this code around the text: <if condition="!$GLOBALS['FIRSTPOSTID']"></if>

In conclusion, if anyone is led to his site by google, they will see they are a fake site that ripped from you, and that might make them want to come back to you

.

Good idea!!

G0F0RBR0KE · #7 08-09-2007, 11:45 AM

*sniff*

What do I smell? A lawsuit, that right, a lawsuit for taking your content and having a duplicate without your permission.

You can always ask your host provider for tips.

Copyright infrigment ;D

#8 08-09-2007, 11:45 AM

error #1, that site CAN'T use ico-content to grab the content of your forum and bring it on his site... if they do, they completely rebuilt it, so it is not ico-content anymore.

ico-content is used to grab content from Answers.yahoo.com ONLY... you can't accuse a software to do a job it is not doing. if you put a protest against that company, i'm the one who will handle it, so give me legals about this before doing so.

error #2: your full forum is opened to RSS leech... any moron can grab your content from the RSS you let active, so don't call it if you do not want your content to be seeded... close that feature.

error #3: did you check if someone could have access your database?!

Acers · #9 08-09-2007, 12:00 PM

Quote:

error #1, that site CAN'T use ico-content to grab the content of your forum and bring it on his site... if they do, they completely rebuilt it, so it is not ico-content anymore.

ahh ok. The guy actually told me this when i confronted him:

Quote:

CopyCat says:
this time i am 99% not at fault : ICo-Content - Instant Community Content
CopyCat says:
this is wat i`m using

Looking at the features again, you are right its only grabbing yahoo feeds by default. So maybe he did modify it.

The RSS is open but thats more cos our userbase reads most of the stuff on rss readers at work. Obviously that does open the site up for leeching but you don't expect a complete site rip. Thanks though, i think its time to rethink the rss feeds part.

Quote:

error #3: did you check if someone could have access your database?!

Yes, Thats safe.

Quote:

What do I smell? A lawsuit, that right, a lawsuit for taking your content and having a duplicate without your permission.

Lol No way. More than the actual copied stuff, its the duplicate content thats the issue here.

#10 08-09-2007, 12:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Acers

ahh ok. The guy actually told me this when i confronted him:

Looking at the features again, you are right its only grabbing yahoo feeds by default. So maybe he did modify it.

actually, ico-content does not only grab yahoo feeds by defaults, but it can't do it with anyother feed right now, because it is grabbing the content from the developpers site, not the feeds themselves, so to ensure the content is actually grabbed from yahoo, we use the secure way, and the ico-content engine is not built to read anyother kind of rss feed...

i suppose the guy told you about ico-content because it's safe passage to piracy to have an excuse...

if you really think he pirated ico-content to make his piracy, you can contact us:
http://www.catnine.net/forum/showthread.php?t=199

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