Copyright © 2009 Yorgo Nestoridis. Visit the original article at http://yorgonestoridis.com/yorgo-nestoridis/protect-your-site-content-101/.

Contents

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  1. 1 Protect your Content: the contradiction
  2. 1.1 Contradiction 1: Protection vs Communication
  3. 1.2 Contradiction 2: Your Rights vs your Means
  4. 1.3 Contradiction 3: On-site Protection vs Off-site Protection
  5. 1.4 Contradiction 4: Your Brand Stamp vs your Content

Protect your Content: the contradiction

One major frustrations of authors, editors and publishers of original content is content scraping. The following series of posts show some of the possibilities we have to protect our content. while still leaving a door open for people who would like to import our feeds into their feed reader.

Contradiction 1: Protection vs Communication

Maximum protection means minimum of communication. We can protect our posts and other content by hiding on password protected pages, with the consequence that neither Google nor a passing visitor will be able to read your content, unless they get a password and  log in to access your content.

Our objective is therefore to allow access, while protecting. In any case there will always be a risk that the content is scraped, a risk we have to live with for as long as we want to communicate.

Contradiction 2: Your Rights vs your Means

You have copyrights to your original content, no doubt. But do you have the means to defend those rights and to impose them throughout the Internet? Do you have the means to even monitor scrapping? Total or partial scrapping?

Let’s be honest and admit: we do not have the means to do so. Means can be time or money to go internationally after people violating your rights. Means can also be technology allowing to monitor, track, screen and spider the net for eventual violations or infringements.

Contradiction 3: On-site Protection vs Off-site Protection

On your own site, you content usually is embedded in a branded environment controlled by you. The origin of the content is supposed to be yours. A Copyright notice often at the bottom of the page, signals your rights. On your own site, you can publish what and how you wish with the goal to protect and brand your content.

How about off-site protection? Did you protect your feed, the post as such, text and images or other media in a way satisfactory to you? If your post is syndicated into someone else’s framework, your copyright notices on the bottom of your site will not appear, nor your header, nor your about page. Your post is just imported into another framework letting the owner of that framework profit from your content by reaching better Google ranking and listing, by getting more traffic and ultimately more cash from the ads associated in his frame with your post.

Off-site protection has to do with the way you edit your materials (text and media). Most people use Brand Stamps, Watermarks, Author Notices and Links to the Original publication. It’s efficient for as long as the scrapping publisher does not neutralize links or even eliminate your notices and media. However, you still lose the financial benefits resulting from the association of your content with ads.

Contradiction 4: Your Brand Stamp vs your Content

You could build commercial links into your post and ad copyright notices to feeds, posts and media: don’t overdo it as you may create an unbalanced post where your brand links prevail over the importance of the factual content of the post, reducing it’s chances to be well listed by search engines as the overall relevance decreases.

At Semiomantics we offer integrated solutions for on-site and off-site protection without reducing our freedom of communication and without reducing the flow of information.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics.

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