This article here is really just a small hint for the bloggers under you. Be pretty careful if you reblog content from other blogs, especially if you don´t know the person who published the content. I tell you this as I have noticed something now several times…
On WordPress.com you can find content thieves (No generalization… please read further). The thing is that you might reblog content from a person who has stolen the full text content from a well established bigger blog or magazine. And you don´t really want to reblog the stolen content and it is no good idea to make business with those thieves as Google can punish you if you link back to such crappy blogs which are filled with stolen content.
My tip is the following… there is nothing bad with reblogging but you really should copy and paste some sentences of the article you want to reblog, to Google. I know this will cost you a minute more but it is worthwhile as you can find out pretty fast if the content you want to reblog is clean and not stolen.
It´s not only that Google could punish your blog if you reblog stolen content. The thing is that the original right holder could try that too. I think that is not so likely as they rather would fill out the DMCA against the thief, but I think it must be mentioned anyway. But it is more likely that Google will punish you. Do you want your site to be unranked and maybe de-indexed and so? That´s the point I mean. There is really a risk if you reblog stolen content even if you are not aware of it. That´s why I post this friendly advice.
If you find a blog author who has stolen content on the blog, I also want to mention that it is possible to fight copyright infringement. Sure it will cost you some minutes, but it will make WordPress.com a better community. Indeed, WordPress is already a very good community full of creative and friendly people. But there are also some black sheep’s. Always fight them! As said this will help us all, who publish on the fair way!
I just mention all this in the light of the recent events. Today I found again a content thief on WordPress. I reblogged content of another blog and found out that the article was original from another magazine and not from the author I reblogged. I had to delete the reblog as I do not want to be punished by Google for linking to bad blogs.
This happened to me now several times in the past, which is why I always proof today with Google, if the content I want to reblog is stolen. And that´s why you read my advice. Be careful.
Diary of Dennis 
Great advice! Thanks for posting. I would never have thought of anyone doing this.
Some sadly do so…
Fortunately the majority of bloggers here a fair and only interested in creating own content. If they have to use some text content from other sites, they mostly do quote and link back or ask the writer to use parts.
Bad sadly there is a small amount of people here who steal 100% text content from other sites and even images. In three years of blogging I have seen it several times.. Today again. I think they are those 2% of black sheeps here in the community.
It´s just had to be mentioned as it can also hurt our blogs if we reblog or link back to such bad blogs.
It´s funny that the thiefs think that they could have an easy life and a good blog soon by stealing a lot of great articles instead of working for it and writing own content. The fact is and I proofed it many times (I know a lot about search engines)… the sites with stolen content don´t rank well in google. They are punished and mostly unranked or even deindexed. The result is the oposite… a crap blog without attention of google.
Thanks for your comment, Be careful 🙂
And, thanks for the extra info. I often reblog stuff, but I am pretty sure the blogs they come from are trustworthy. BUT, you never know, and I will certainly take extra care in future 🙂
Agree. Most are trustworthy. But you are right… extra care makes sense 🙂 Have much fun with blogging. 🙂
🙂
Excellent information. I had not thought about it before. You should send a note to WordPress to put a tip in their daily blog posts about this!
Good idea Amanda. I think I might do that. Just need to find the best way to suggest it to them. Either forums or direct support contact. Let me see. I will think about it now. Best wishes to you.
Thanks for your advice
I am glad you found it helpful. 🙂
Yeah alot
Thank you! This was really helpful, as I’ve been wanting to reblog some articles, and in fact recently read one by an author who said she was inspired by a particular blog, and then provided a link to it. The good thing is the author did credit the source, but I need to take a look back and make sure the inspiration is just that; inspiration. In addition, I have had content from my own blog stolen. The good thing is I kept records and screenshots of everything, and have proof of the woman saying she felt she basically had a right to copy my work, because I put it out free to the public! What was shocking to me was not that someone copied my work, but that she was someone professing to be a Christian, completely ignoring my copyright. Her Facebook posts with MY work were being shared by others, and she had also copied and pasted my work onto her website without my permission. So I really appreciate the reminder to do a Google check, as this will also help me look for my own content if stolen. Have a great day! God bless you!
Yeah, my general rule is too, if the author is inspired by a different source but credits the original content creator, I might take pieces of it or both but credit both authors, but especially the original author. I completely stopped to use the reblog button of wordpress because it doesn’t meet that standard. Crediting sources is not only good for the original content creator but also for my readers, because I want them to know where I got my information’s from.
That woman who has stolen your content is indeed wrong. I think the general consensus in the web is that you can take pieces of content from others if the own content is pointing in a way back to the original content. It’s probably still better to ask, because there can be indeed copyright issues, but in my experience most people don’t have a problem with it if we give credit where credit is due. However, being careful is always good.
I remember one guy who had stolen around 10 of my technology related turorials and published it on his freshly created technology site. I was a bit mad about this at that time, but at the end it didn’t matter too much. The thing is, I believe as soon as you publish something, and after the Google crawlers found it, they probably do index it with a timestamp and source in their database. It’s my own theory, but after blogging since some years I experiences that people could basically steal my text content and I would still outrank them in the search index. I always wondered how this would be possible, but as said, my theory is that they attach information’s to the database entry so that their search algorythm knows that you are the creator and that you deserve much more power to be listed. That makes it almost impossible for someone else to outrank you with content stolen from your site. But that’s just talking about text content, I think it doesn’t work well with photo content or images, especially since some people steal that kind of stuff to publish on social media (so, unrelated to Google) where they gain followers with your work.
Anyway, I don’t care too much if people steal, because if it’s text content, they shoot themselves in the own leg and de-value their own site… if it’s photo content and social media, users are not stupid their and most people like you and me do value original content much more than people who only share stolen material. At first it might work for content thefts, but in the long run those that really produce content will always win. The site Reddit for example is a great example… when so called karma-whores (people who try to get as much upvotes on their account as possible) steal content and go so far to share it under their own name, it happens quite often that many comments of other users point out who the original creator is, including source links. These comments tend to be the most visible (most upvoted) comments under the submission. What I took from this is, that it sometimes happens fast, sometimes slowly, but at the end people will notice who really created the particular content. It even happened to me, because I can remember one day when I got 10k traffic in a single day and I was wondering where it would come from. It was a submission at social media with a link to a website that had stolen my content, but a stranger placed a comment that the original article is hosted on my site. That was basically free advertisement for me… and funny that someone either knew my blog or did research well to mention the real source.
So, in my experience, the longer your content is present online or as long as you keep your web presence updated, the stronger your small realm will get, even against content thefts. That means content theft is no real problem…. what can be a problem is that we content creators sometimes have to rely on information’s or content of other people, and that’s were we must make sure that we don’t link to sources that have stolen content from other sites, or that use other shady strategies, because even a few links to a bad site could mean that our own sites lose rankings or reputation. That’s why I gave these tips in this article… always make sure what you share and where you link to… and yes, craft your own reblogs, don’t use these reblog buttons. Typing it on the own is more quality, and it allows us to judge if it’s really worth to include a certain source, or if it’s better to use a different source.
I am glad you liked my reminder… Google is always my tool, even while crafting content, or to judge if I share reputable stuff and sources 🙂 Have fun!