imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?

[self-taught-mba]

Hellomandarin.com are to blame for that one -

Care to explain?

[roddy]

Take a look at the links on the left side, plus also this stunning piece of SEO genius from the late 1990's:

chinese school, teach chinese, chinese schools, learn mandarin, learning mandarin, learning chinese, study in chinese, learn chinese abroad, learn chinese words, speak chinese, chinese studies, how to learn chinese, learn chinese china, learn chinese online, chinese language online, learn chinese in china, study chinese online, chinese language program, chinese language school, chinese language schools, chinese speaking, learn chinese, learn mandarin online, learn to write chinese, beijing chinese language school, chinese language china, chinese language classes, chinese language courses, chinese language learning, chinese language lessons, learn chinese language, learn to speak chinese, mandarin learn, study chinese, study chinese in china, studying chinese, china chinese in learning, chinese language class, chinese language exchange, chinese language in china, chinese language lesson, chinese language study, chinese language tutor, learn chinese beijing, learn chinese in beijing, learn chinese pinyin, learn to speak mandarin chinese, learning chinese online, learning the chinese language, http://www.hellomandarin.com , mandarin learn online, study chinese china, studying chinese online,

The url is also associated with them.

[self-taught-mba]

Ok, I didn't see the connection. Clear now.

If I steal the community's content can it help my business too?

I told you before this industry can be really shady.

[roddy]

Help me out here . . . are they really that stupid, or just having a bit of a laugh . . .

[self-taught-mba]

Wow. That's bold.

[roddy]

Obviously it didn't work the first time. So they're doing it again. I'm not sure what astounds me most, the idiocy or the optimism.

[muyongshi]

The astounding for me comes more in the form of how their doctors (/parents/teachers/etc.) ever allowed them back into society....

[Luobot]

People on other sites are not likely to realize that the content they're reading was copied, since there's nothing in the posts that "watermarks" them.

Would it slow them (and others) down if you embedded a fixed statement at the bottom of each post, something to the effect that: “This post is the content of Chinese-Forums.com” ?

If nothing else, it gets the name of this site out there to people who aren't familiar with it.

[roddy]

Moved your post, Luobot.

To be honest I doubt they actually get any traffic anyway, and I'm not about to start making changes to this site just to try and catch them out. If I could say with any certainty that they are going to copy a certain post at a certain time I would certainly replace that post with some more interesting content, but I can't, so.

Really can't do much to stop these people, not going to spend much time thinking about it.

[roddy]

Have been taking a more proactive approach lately, as certain people really were getting out of hand. Been pleasantly surprised by how much I've managed to get done, and although i can't be 100% sure* that the attached image is a result of some emails I sent out earlier, I can hope . . .

They'll be back though, and there's no indication they'll stop stealing content. Although I have noticed they've started stealing other people's, which is a start.

*Actually I'm not even 10% sure, but it makes me laugh anyway.

Edit: Meh, back already . . .

Edited January 5, 2009 at 12:08 PM by roddy

[roddy]

Here's a list of blogs and websites I've managed to get shut down recently. As of the time of writing they're not active. They may come back. These have either been using forums content directly, or are spam weblogs apparently being run by the same people which have been shut down after I've sent in spam reports to blog providers.

I'm quite pleased with managing to get these shut down. I have processes underway (DMCA takedown notices for those of you who also deal with this kind of nonsense) for a further fifty-plus sites.

If you notice someone lifting forums content, let me know. If there's anything I can do, I will.

http://teacher2you.com

http://net2english.net

http://net2english.org

http://www.net2english.com/

http://learnchineseonline.cn

http://net2english.cn

http://study.hellomandarin.net/

http://learnchinese.net2english.org

http://chinesetutor.net2english.org/

http://course.learnchineseonline.cn

http://blog.net2english.org

http://school.net2english.net

http://blog.learnchineseonline.cn

http://speakchinese.hellomandarin.net

http://mandarin.learnchineseonline.cn

http://pinyin.net2english.org

http://learnchinese.hellomandarin.net/

http://learnchinese.net2english.org

http://learn-mandarin.learnchineseonline.cn

http://blog.mandarin.bj.cn

http://studychinesebeijing.spaces.live.com

http://learnmandarinonline.spaces.live.com

http://learnchinese68.spaces.live.com

http://learnmandarinbeijing.spaces.live.com

http://beijingbaozhi.wordpress.com

http://maofengcha.wordpress.com

[Shadowdh]

Man thats quite a list!

[roddy]

There's a longer 'to do' one. I'm doing it.

[roddy]

Another batch bites the dust. I'm actually a little surprised how easy all this is - it takes time (roughly three weeks between the complaint to MSN and the email telling me they've shut them down in this case) but it does work.

This has been a pretty time-consuming issue over the last couple of months, but now I've figured out how to approach it I'll relegate it to 15 minutes every week or so - quick Google search, send out a fax or email or two, and wait for results.

http://chinese-class-88256.spaces.live.com/

http://chineselangauge.spaces.live.com/

http://chinese-language-0806252.spaces.live.com/

http://chinese-language-0806253.spaces.live.com/

http://chinesemandarin.spaces.live.com/

http://chinese-mandarin-0625-1.spaces.live.com/

http://chinesemandarin1210.spaces.live.com/

http://chinese-mandarin-88254.spaces.live.com/

http://chinese-school-88255.spaces.live.com/

http://chinese-language-882535.spaces.live.com/

http://learn-chinese-882548.spaces.live.com/

http://hsk-88258.spaces.live.com/

http://learnchinese1212.spaces.live.com/

http://learn-chinese-882510.spaces.live.com/

http://learnchinesebeijing.spaces.live.com/

http://learnchinesegood.spaces.live.com/

http://learnchineseonline1211.spaces.live.com/

http://learnchineseonline1215.spaces.live.com/

http://learnchineseonline22.spaces.live.com/

http://learnchineseonlinenow.spaces.live.com/

http://learn-mandarin-080625-4.spaces.live.com/

http://learn-mandarin-0808252.spaces.live.com/

http://learnmandarin1215.spaces.live.com/

http://learnmandarin1216.spaces.live.com/

http://learnmandarin19.spaces.live.com/

http://learnmandarin58.spaces.live.com/

http://learn-mandarin-882511.spaces.live.com/

http://learn-mandarin-882521.spaces.live.com/

http://learn-mandarin-882538.spaces.live.com/

http://learnmandarinonline1209.spaces.live.com/

http://learnmandarinonlinenow.spaces.live.com/

http://studychinesebeijing.spaces.live.com/

[trevelyan]

I've noticed a lot of this stuff as well - it shows up for me under my Google Alerts for Adso. Usually a bunch of pirated text from this site with a major banner on the side advertising a school. I can forward them to you if you're collecting the stuff.

Clearly a quite intentional effort at gaming SEO so I doubt it matters how many hoops you jump through to shut them down individually. Perhaps you could try sending a cease and desist to the school in question?

[roddy]

I've made efforts to get in touch with them but been ignored, and they don't make it easy. I could just jump on a bus and go and talk to them, but I can't see that doing any good, and it's now getting easier and easier to deal with it.

Do email over any sites you spot - I may already have them on a list, may not. They could also be second-tier rubbish providers - ie site1 copies stuff from here, site2 aggregates site1's RSS feed. I'm not going to bother with the site2's yet. At the moment it's just a matter of figuring out which of their sites are the best-established / best-ranking, and then going after those.

[adrianlondon]

Or we could have a huge thread saying how rubbish their school is, and see if they copy that.