Have you had a problem with “content scraping”? This has confused a lot of my clients. If you are noticing your blog posts showing up on other people’s blogs, you are probably experiencing “content scraping”. This is a relatively easy “black hat” way for blogs to get content, and there for search engine returns, without having to actually write it them selves. It can be confusing and really disturbing, especially if the offending blogs are receiving better ranking than you.

The Hyperarts.com blog post “The Definitive Guide to Blog Content Scraping, and How To Stop It” offers a very in-depth discussion of this practice.

That post also contains some advice on techniques you can use to stop content scraping. Since I don’t have too much of a problem with that on my blog, I decided to go with the most basic solution. You can do this too. Here is what I did:

1. Ping Google & Other Search Engines and RSS Feed Sites when you Publish: the previously mentioned article has great instructions on how to do this)
2. Include links to other posts on your blog: The IDENTIGENE blog, which I used to manage experienced a TON of scraping. However, since each post had multiple links to the corporate site, as well as other blog posts, it ment that readers usually got back to our site eventually. This was particularly entertaining when our scraped content ended up on competitors blogs. They then had blog posts, linking to IDENTIGENE.com
3. Added the rel=”author” Attribute: Google uses the “rel=author” tag to determine who the author of the web page content is. This is useful when the search engine is dealing with duplicate content (this will mean something to you if you are familiar with SEO, if not, move on).

The Hyperarts.com posts provides details on many ways to do this. I went with the most simple choice, one which you can easily replicate on YOUR blog. It requires no coding, if you can write a blog post, you can do this.

1. At the bottom of each post, add a link to your google+ profile, like this: <a href=”https://plus.google.com/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/posts?rel=author”>My Google Profile+</a> (yes, you will need a google+ profile to do this, go get one now. I’ll wait.)
2. See those x’s? replace those with the numbers from your google profile URL. This is mine: https://plus.google.com/u/0/110244599272006543178/about
3.  For my site, I added the little Google+ icon, instead of the text “My Google Profile+”. Just cause I’m fancy like that.
4. Complete the loop, by going to your Google+ Profile and clicking “edit”. In the right hand column, you will see something that says “Contributor to” Click that and add the Title and URL for your blog.

Apologies if this seems written at a very basic level. I wanted it to be clear enough for my dad to understand. I’d love any additional tips you have, and encourage you to share it with those in your life that might not be as well versed in Facebook as we are.

I love Facebook, both for the ability to share with my friends, and the ability to easily stay up-to-date with family. Because of my work, I keep a lot of my information public, but I know that scares a lot of people. So I thought I’d share with you tips, for staying safe on Facebook.

First, we want to make sure your login in secure. Doing this will go a long way in preventing your account from being hacked, or accessed by someone other than you.

Secure your Account

Facebook actually has some really good things in place, if you know where to find them. To start with, Log in and in the top right click on “account“. Select “account settings” and scroll down till you come to “account security“. I’ll walk you though the settings I use.

Secure Browsing (https): Make sure this is checked.

Login Notifications: I have “send me a text message” checked. You can choose to be notified by e-mail or text, or not at all. This one isn’t so important. It will send you a notification if someone other than you tries to access your account.

Login Approvals: This is the best one, which is probably NOT turned on. You will want to click this and follow the instructions.

To use this feature you will need a mobile phone with text messaging. You will be sent one text message with a short code which you will enter to authorize the computer you are on. You will only have to do this ONE time, for each computer you plan to use to access facebook. This will prevent anyone from accessing your account from another computer.

Only “friend” people you know: I’ve recently read of a way that hackers can gain access to your account though fake people that they plant as “friends”. I won’t go into the details, but you can easily avoid this by only accepting friend requests from people who’s names you recognize. It’s not critical that you know everything about them and be best buds, but if you have NEVER met them before, don’t friend them. The old “don’t talk to strangers” works well when it comes to Facebook friend requests.

Keep your account secure

Like a lot of the internet, things that you click on can be dangerous. There are LOTS of scams out there. And because of the social nature of facebook, you can’t always trust that because a friend sent you something, it is safe. I’ll go over a few of the most obvious:

1. The “I can’t believe you did this” or “Is this you? lol” messages. If you get a message from someone with a link to click that promises to show you a photo of you in a compromising or surprising situation, don’t click it. THINK. If you REALLY believe that it might be legit, send a message to the person who sent it, asking them about it. I can pretty much guarantee this means your friend’s account was hacked, and they will not have a clue what you are talking about.
2. “See who viewed your profile” or “Top 10 Friends” and similar applications. There is no application that does this. This is a scam. Clicking the link will take you to a page that directs you to copy and paste something into your address bar.
3. NEVER copy and paste something into your address bar. There is never any good reason you would have to do this.
4. “Like this page to…“Many company pages will instruct you to “like” their page in order to receive coupons, enter contests or see exclusive content. While not technically a scam, this is an easy way to find yourself inundated with spam from a company you have never heard of before. Before you click “like” consider this. A “like” is a lot like becoming a friend with a company. Once you “like” them, the company will have more access to your information and more ways to contact you. Consider if it’s worth it before blindly hitting “like” for access to an application or contest. [edit; thanks for the feedback, Snipe!]

If you have “liked” a company but now find them too spammy:

Ok. So before you read this blog post, you didn’t know any better and clicked some spammy pages….

Petco is NOT a spammy page. They actually are awesome. I just needed a company page from my feed as an example.

When you see an update from the page in your newsfeed, click the invisible x at the right. This X will be invisible until you put your mouse on the area, as shown below. Simply select “unlike” and no more messages from the page will show in your feed or your inbox.

For more information on Facebook Scams and keeping your account secure

Find and “like” Social Media Scams and Alerts. This Facebook page does a great job of staying on top of the latest facebook scams.

Check out Facebook’s help section for more information on keeping your account secure. https://www.facebook.com/help/new/?page=18887 I don’t know why they make this so hard to find, but there it is.

In my next post I’ll share how to control access to your personal information using custom groups and the Facebook privacy settings.