> keeping content thieves away!
After targeting spam techniques and illicit backlinks, Google’s Penguin is carrying on the fight against NSEO (Negative SEO): it will now officially penalize websites with important/chonic copyrights infractions!
The will of Google making this update is to reduce the SERPs visibility of pirate websites, for example the ones offering illegal content (mainly multimedia such as movies or music), or the ones that are subject to valid DMCA complaints – an American law of 1998 criminalizing intellectual property violations in numeric technologies.
But to me all of this well-meant issue rather sounds like a trickery: you may know that important platforms such as YouTube will not be touched by the update despite the huge part of illegal content they may display… How surprising – Google actually owns YouTube. Learn more about this point reading this interesting SearchEngineLand.com post: “How YouTube Will Escape Google’s New Pirate Penalty“.
Yet let’s hope this attempt of piracy fight will at least help protect web editors who provide unique and original content… Indeed it seems like all of this directly has to deal with duplicate content too, which also is a major axis of Google’s ranking algorithm. Yes, copyright definitely concerns images and videos as well as text – what blogger would like to find posts he/she wrote on a “foreign” web page? Not I – if web is about sharing thanks to hyperlinks, there’s no excuse for those who “steal” and appropriate others’ production!
Here are my few tips to avoid content getting duplicated:
- watermark your images! use PhotoShop or any other image software to place your name or brand copyright mention on images that belong to you. You can also do it via DMCA WaterMarker.
- register at DMCA.com (it’s free) to display a protection badge on your page to deter bad-minded users from using your stuff.
- write unique things in an original style! finding your own editorial line is surely the best way to keep copycats away.
WAY – What About You?
What is your opinion on this recent Penguin’s whim about copyrights? Real pertinence standard or illusion smokescreen?
And do you have any other idea about how to prevent misuse of your content?
