A simple way to catch post thieves aka splogs

If you subscribe to my blog feed Dear Reader* you may have noticed a strange little phrase at the end of every post. This phrase is what I call my ‘splog detector’. It may be odd, it may not make sense, but that phrase tracks down sploggers who are using my blog posts to furnish their sleazy sites and line their grimy pockets.

Sploggers don’t copy posts directly from your blog, that would take a long time and a degree of effort, but those guys are after easy money. So, instead they use something called scraping software. This software basically trawls the internet looking for whatever words or phrases the splogger has decided to concentrate on. Therefore, if a splogger is scraping using the word ‘shoes’ and you write a post about buying a new pair of shoes, the software will drag your post into the splog.

This is where my funny little phrase comes in. I take that meaningless sentence, encase it in quotations marks and create a Google Alert. This is a free Google service which is designed to send you an email listing results for any search term you specify. It has many uses. For example, if you were a fan of Terry Pratchett, you could use it to search for news about him. However, I use it to find illicit uses of my posts.

Once I have created the alert, the Googlebots search the internet and email me if they find any uses of that phrase.

So, how do you add a phrase to your feed in the first place? That depends on which blogging platform you are using. I have only ever done this with Blogger and self-hosted WordPress blogs. However, I’m sure there are ways of doing it with other platforms, so if you know about that, share the info in the comments.

Blogger: Log in to your dashboard and go to Settings/Site Feed. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you will see a box marked ‘Post Feed Footer’. Add your phrase to that and click save. That’s it! Your phrase will automatically be added to your feed.

WordPress: This takes a little longer. First, you need to install the Digital Fingerprint plugin. Once that is uploaded and activated, go to Manage/Digital Fingerprint, add your phrase. You will also need to click a box to specify where in your post you want it to appear, there are 3 choices: the phrase can be a the top of every post, after the first paragraph or at the end. Now, click update. Once again, that’s it. You have the option of searching for your phrase from the DF page in your dashboard along with links to some useful copyright related information.

* And why on Earth wouldn’t you, it’s fabulous! And available at the top of the page. Go on, you know you want to ;-)

Updated to add: It has been announced that Google Alerts will shortly be available via RSS as well as email. For more information see this article.

This post was first published on 28th September, 2007