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Are Sinister Sites Stealing Your Link Juice?

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Sinister Sites

tanley Kubrick’s, Dr. Strangelove“I can no longer sit back and allow conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.”
– Stanley Kubrick’s, Dr. Strangelove

There was a conspiracy hatched against me recently.  If not for my watchful eye, hardened discipline, and unwavering diligence, the unsavory plot may have succeeded.

Allow me to elaborate.

One of my pages received a Trackback posting. A Trackback appears when another site links to one of the articles on your blog. We all like it when we get a link, of course, and in a spirit of comradery, we allow a Trackback onto our page. This Trackback is a link back to their site.

The Trackback itself a feature of a WordPress blog and doesn’t require the other site to actually do anything for the Trackback to appear. The Trackback is completely under your control.

It’s kind of like a link exchange, except you get the better part of the deal. Friends link and Trackback to friends. And if a major site links back to your article, you quickly become friends 🙂 The Trackback is like a Badge of Honour, letting your visitors know that your Content is so good that other sites want their own readers to see it.

Nefarious Sites with Sinister Intent

But there is a dark side to all of this.

Today when I opened my email, I saw a Trackback from a site I didn’t recognize. When I went to the site to check it out, I found a low-traffic site stuffed with advertising, and with a NoFollow link to my article. In other words, this was not a legitimate link to my content, so they had no business expecting a Trackback on my page.

Besides linking to my article, my description had been changed, apparently to fit his own keywords. My word, “Niche,” was changed to, get this— “Hidey-Hole” ?!?!?

At least one other word was changed as well. I don’t know if the site owner did this himself or if it was part of the software he is using to pull things from other blogs to populate his site.

Now, read the last line of the of the description in the screen shot below. It’s crossed out in the Chrome browser to show that it’s NoFollow. What’s the idea of anchoring the search engine, Bing, with his goofy keyword, “Hidey-Hole market,”  and the URL of my article? It would seem an attempt to screw up my Keyword.

And if all that is not bad enough, if you look closely, you will notice at the top in his breadcrumbs, he also posted me under his Category, “Niche Marketing on Crack.”

That’s just nasty!

Niche Market Websites: Gateway or Authority?
Niche Market Websites: Gateway or Authority?

In the screen shot above, I removed the big display ad that dominated the link box. As I said, everywhere you turn on this site is a carpet of advertising.

When reviewing his stats, I saw that his Alexa is 27 million, which means zero traffic. These types of sites usually never see a visitor. They are Leaches—Vampires dwelling in darkness.

Several things are going on here.

  • Even though he was only linking to me, he was still using my content in some way to populate his own Sinister Site
  • His link to me was NoFollow, but he was hoping to receive DoFollow from me—he set up a One Way Street at my expense to drain my Link Juice and give it to himself.
  • It would appear he is trying to “Re-Anchor” my URL Anchor Text to make me look bad to the Search Engines

Over the last month or so, I have seen several articles about Sinister Sites stealing content whole, which goes way beyond simply stealing the description.

Article theft has happened to me here with my last article for FamousBloggers. It’s happened when I’ve written for other sites. And it has happened with content from my own sites. Article theft is part of blogging it would seem, and it can be a constant battle trying to get these things deleted.

But this is a different twist on an old idea.

They Come for You When You Least Expect It

Many blogs are set as DoFollow as a service to their readers who comment. This gives them a link back to their own site.

When a legitimate site Trackbacks, I allow it to remain on my page. But if I don’t recognize the domain, I will investigate. If it’s a Sinister Site, I remove it immediately. Otherwise I could be giving them a DoFollow backlink.

Last Thanksgiving one of my articles was linked by a major site, and a Trackback appeared on my page, which was great!

But then Sinister Sites began stealing the major site’s article in its entirety, which included the link to me. I began to be hit by Trackbacks for 2 days from all these Sinister Sites—for awhile, every 15-30 minutes. I was forced to turn Trackbacks off completely for a couple days because I couldn’t keep up with deleting them all.

You don’t want a Trackback link to a Sinister Site
because Google may look upon you unfavourably.

How to Protect Yourself

I do keep in mind, however, that there is a bit controversy about just how much juice a Trackback will give to the other site. A Trackback may not be recognized by Google as having any weight. But what concerns me is that I don’t want any “connection” being assumed between the Sinister Site and my own. Leaving a Trackback is tacit approval of the other site.

You have several ways to deal with a Nefarious Trackback:

  • Watch every day and remove them immediately
  • Turn OFF Trackbacks altogether
  • Turn OFF DoFollow for your comments and remove Trackbacks as you see them
  • Ensure your comments are always moderated, or only non-moderated after X number of approved comments

Content scraping, nefarious linking, and other practices are here to stay. Google has indicated they are trying to deal with these sites, because having them show up in the search results is a bad reflection on Google, as well.

There is no need to sit back helplessly and allow black hat villains to steal your precious Link Juice, especially when it’s so easy to prevent.

BTW, If my article was good enough to steal, it must be worth reading: Niche Market Websites: Gateway or Authority?

Now it’s your turn.

Tell me all about YOUR Horror Stories in dealing with Sinister Sites!

About

RickLaPoint has years of experience with Inside and Outside Sales & Marketing. He has developed software products with C++ for anticipating turning points for stocks, forex, and futures, and has given many live presentations teaching technical analysis skills. For more of Rick's Online Business Ideas visit his website.

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{ 49 Responses }

  1. Astro Gremlin says:
    Rick, this is excellent advice. I turned off trackbacks because I had so few legitimate ones coming in. I would like to try BEING you, and compare ride roughness!
  2. Urban Daddy says:
    This was a very helpful article, Rick. Thank you so much. I've been blogging for over 8 years and I always approved the trackbacks if they looked legit because I liked the comments, until recently when I realized that I'm okay with zero comments on a post. I received a trackback this morning but thought before approving it because it looked legit, to check out what trackbacks are online and after a couple articles I came across this one who was the only one I found which clearly explained the pitfalls of approving them. Thank you. I'll make sure to check more cautiously before approving any more. Cheers. Warren
  3. Adeline says:
    It was a good thing that I got to read this post, thanks to Ileane mentioning this in one of her blog tips. I just checked my blog and found a couple of sinister sites that leeched one of my posts. I'm just hoping that even if they don't get to be seen by other people, I won't get penalized by search engines for duplicate content. *sigh*
  4. Karen says:
    Talking of sinister sites Rick... as you know we have to click through to check sites links quite often and yes there are very many that are sinister as you describe. BUT there is a NEW BREED of sinister and one caught me out the other day BIG STYLE. I went to check the link.... I was even hesitant so heck knows why I went ahead. The site was one of those where nobody can escape no matter how many crosses you tick in the corner. And the content was pure filth. I had to use control alt delete to shut my comp down and it nearly crashed my comp completely. Now this wasnt a trackback. This was a very well written and relative comment on the post and even had a gravatar image of a decent looking business woman. Unfortunately I never got chance to check and report as in my panick it was deleted asap. Anyone else had experience of these tactics by porn filth yet? You WILL!
  5. Sherryl Perry says:
    Rick, Great tip to turn off Trackbacks for a few days if you're getting trackbacks from sinister sites. Hopefully, this won't happen to me but it's probably just a matter of time. I do get trackbacks that I delete but up until now, it's been a volume that I can keep up with. Thanks for a great post!
  6. Rose says:
    I got a trackback recently from someone who linked to me, but also hot linked most of my images. So I was supposed to give them a link for using up my bandwidth! Needless to say I didn't approve it.
  7. Steven Heron says:
    I used to have this problem on my blog too rick. I ended up having to remove Trackbacks altogether, just as you mentioned.
  8. Selina says:
    Rick, Great topic to address. I recently moved away from Akismet to G.A.S.P. and the topic of Pingbacks came to my attention. I decided after asking some other bloggers what they do. To just block them all is not really fair if they are giving you links so what did I decide to do? I will click on each pingback in the pending category and see if they indeed linked to me and if it is a DF or NF link. I think being fair is the only way to be. I also look at their PR, if they are trying to get links from a PR4 site of mine with a Alexa of 45,678 and they are PR0 and 22M in Alexa then should I treat it as a fair proposal? There are a lot of trash sites that just take your content with a "what's in it for them attitude". They don't create original content. Why should I share linkjuice? Ideas? Selina
  9. Bill says:
    Really sorry to hear that. I must admit, I know a few things about the net but really didn't understand the trackback part of it. I will start looking at the trackbacks for now on. Thanks!
  10. Saket Jajodia says:
    I never used Trackback.. And never knew about all this, thanks for info.. :)
    • Rick LaPoint says:
      Hi Saket, There's something new to deal with every day. It never ends! Thank you for letting me know this was helpful :-) Rick
  11. Shiva says:
    Hi Rick, I too have been getting a lot of spam trackbacks to my blog. Most of the time akismet does a great job and blocks almost all of the spam trackbacks but sometimes even Akismet cannot filter the trackpacks and a few trackbacks escapes. I always checks my trackbacks and delete all the bad looking ones specially those from auto blogs. Well, once I thought I would disabled the trackbacks system completely but then again how would I know when my friends linked me. Still thanks a lot for the tips and the heads up. Regards, Shiva
    • Rick LaPoint says:
      Hi Shiva, Yes, there is a downside to turning off Trackbacks. I'm like you; I would rather put up with the annoyance so I can keep them up for friends. Thanks for stopping by! Rick
  12. Jimmy Sigenstroem says:
    After I started to publish articles including on article database.com, my blog spammed by trackbacks to sites that have downloaded my articles. And yet there is not a single one of them, that have used Doflollow on the links to my pages. Therefore do I also Aksimet and all links and trackbacks has to be approved before they get on the blog. And the same is actually also true with wordpress themes, here are people stealing your designs just to republish them with their own link at the foot of the page. I´ll love to bring these sites down. ;o)
    • Rick LaPoint says:
      Hi Jimmy, Yes, the NoFollow aspect gets me the most. Not that anyone is actually seeing it in the first place to follow the link. It all kind of reminds me of the guy who steals a camera and then sends pictures to the person he stole it from. I have never used Aksimet, because I would always have to check it for mistakes anway. Thanks for your comment, Jimmy. Rick
      • Jimmy Sigenstroem says:
        You are welcome.! Yes you stille need to check for mistakes, it´s reather quick to do. Atleast in my case. Because title of the trackbacks always is the head title of one of my articles. It all kind of reminds me of the guy who steals a camera and then sends pictures to the person he stole it from. Damn, but then again you can buy e new camera but not the pic´s
  13. Alex says:
    Well trackbacks are spammed to death, especially with all those software out there that do it automatically. I suppose sure that the website you are talking about may have used a plugin that searched for certain website on the internet crawl their content and then send them fake trackbacks (well, actually this wasn't fake entirely). Although, this is common practice, trackbacks still remain a way bloggers mention and announce one an other that they linked someone in their article. So disallowing them all together might not seem like a great idea, but creating a blacklist or whitelist of websites you shouldn't allow, respectively allow it's the best way in my opinion. This way you still get the legit trackbacks and with time depending on what kind of list you decide to make it will become more easily to weed out the spam.
    • Rick LaPoint says:
      Hi Alex, Yes, I agree, that although it's a hassle to keep the bad guys out, allowing the good guys in is a good thing to do. When a really big site links to you, the Trackback can be "social proof" that your stuff is good. When a smaller site links to you it's a favour to them to allow the Trackback, and I see it as working like another ComLuv type of thing. Thanks for stopping by! Rick
  14. The Bad Blogger says:
    Well, each day I got more then 150 to 200 trackback being in my spam folders... guess what I never see any of them... click the delete button and all are gone... to me... it doesn't matter what kind of site link back to me, as long as it's in the spam folder... it must have done something to it or else it won't be in my spam folder... that's for sure... Here's something, that I had been thinking about... why do this people do this sort of trackback? and what benefit does they got? You know, I sometime think... out of nowhere someone must hate you a lot and try to bring you down with all this stupid trackback... because if you did realize... most of the trackback always came from the same site... Well that's what I thought....lol
    • Rick LaPoint says:
      Wow, that's a lot of Spam. I get a whole lot of trackbacks from various sites that all say, "[...]here you will find the link to a couple websites we think you should visit[...]" These sites are totally unrelated to my topics, and when I go to the site to see how they are linking to me, there is no link at all. So these are phony, non-existent trackbacks sent by bots for the purpose of getting a Backlink FROM me, not linking TO me. Thanks for your comment :-)
  15. Vijayraj Reddy says:
    i Turned off Trackbacks totally, thanks for the suggestion...
    • Rick LaPoint says:
      Hi Vijayraj, I'm this post was helpful :-) Rick
  16. RonLeyba says:
    For sure those kind of trackbacks are done via automated softwares out there. I think it will be nice if you will always take a quick look at your incoming links or trackbacks and always moderate them as often as possible.
  17. Alex says:
    Hehe, kinda funny because my site is roughly 2 months old and in the beginning when I got trackbacks to my articles I was verry happy, because that meant extra exposure to the rest of the net. So I approved them. Now, 2 months later I get about 10-15 trackbacks EVERY day from sites that just copy my rss feed and post it on their own blog. About 90% of them provide a DoFollow backlink to my websites but the rest has NoFollow turned on. I have stopped approving trackbacks as well because it would over-populate my comment section and it would get really messy with the current wordpress theme I am using. It seems that I had an enormous burst in trackback after my site got a few hundred links from social bookmarking/networking websites. And the more it got shared on those sites, the more people started to auto-copy my rss feed. I don't even want to think about what could of happend if I did not only allow excerpts of my posts to be published in my rss feed. Well, Even if they are low values spammy backlinks I doubt that they will have any negative effect on my website's value so I have stopped caring about it. There will always be leechers and some day I hope that Google will come up with an algorithm good enough to sort most of them out.
    • Rick LaPoint says:
      Hi Alex, It's nice that that your new site is doing so well :-) But sorry that some Vampires have latched onto you :-( Being popular is a curse. But it's part of the game. Thanks for sharing your experience! Rick
  18. Steve says:
    Rick, thanks for the great info. It seems like every time you figure out ways to stop these guys and the nefarious plots they figure out a few more ways to get at you. Is a never-ending struggle. I've seen some of the same TrackBack scams on my site. I've wasted time investigating a few myself. It is a shame. It seems to me that these guys were spent part of the time doing work in the proper way rather than trying to figure out ways to cheat the system they can be doing quite well anyway.
    • Rick LaPoint says:
      Hi Steve, I knew a guy who would waste 10 times the time & energy trying to figure out a scheme to do the job the easy way, than it would have taken to simply do the job. I get emails from the Easy Money guys all the time for Instant Websites that scrape "free content" from RSS feeds. It's obviously a sucker's game because we all know how much time and effort and pure hard work that goes into getting traffic. These guys are just throwing up a site and waiting for the money to roll in. Thanks for stopping by :-) Rick
  19. Blazing Minds says:
    I've said this many times when this situation arises, can't these "lazy bloggers" do anything that is 100% their own work without stealing the juice from ourselves, it's nothing than an attack on those that work hard on their blogs, ok, I don't mind the trackbacks, but for crying out loud at least keep the keywords to the original blog post. Hmmm, I feely stranger better now ;)
    • Rick LaPoint says:
      That's right, Ms Blaze, get it all out! Yes, this was definitely a weird twist. I don't know if his software did this (per his instructions) or what. The whole thing is just stupid :-) I'm really at a loss to understand what the keyword change was all about. Maybe I should do a Samurai on Hidey-Hole Market. Maybe there is incredible demand for it :lol: Thanks for the comment! Rick
  20. Fran Aslam From Onlinewriter says:
    Hi Rick: Nice to see your post here. But I see the real life example you have given me here is awesome. This is exactly what I see so many times on my site and could not pin point it. I did not read my posts to know the change on keywords. Sorry that it happened to you but smart of you to recognize it. There has been times when people have stolen my blog post in full and published on a word press page, and sent me a track back. This is okay if it is article from article directory, that happens to often but it is legal. To copy a blog post in full with pictures is not legal. There has to be a way to handle it? Is there any? Fran A
    • Rick LaPoint says:
      Hi Fran, You said, "There has been times when people have stolen my blog post in full and published on a word press page, and sent me a track back." They may be stealing your stuff, but at least you are getting credit from them for writing it. Some don't even give you that. I don't waste my time chasing all these and trying to get them deleted. Virtually nobody sees them anyway, so I have better things to do with my time. Don't lose any sleep over it ;-) Thanks for your comment, Fran! Rick
  21. Robert Dempsey says:
    Hi Rick, I've been noticing a number of total crap sites pulling in my posts, taking a few paragraphs of the content, and then "linking to the original" so I can find out about it. I immediately delete these trackbacks on my site, but it's still annoying that some crap site is grabbing my content.
    • Rick LaPoint says:
      Hi Robert, The way I see it, any link has the potential to bring me traffic, so I usually don't mind a crap site linking with a short description. Lots of sites do that, whether good or bad. But that doesn't mean I should roll over and allow a Trackback. What really gets me though, is stealing all of the content, without my name or a link back to my site. I believe it was Jim Connelly who said that within every page he publishes he places an internal link to another one of his posts. Then when he gets scraped, at least the content itself includes a link back to his site. Internal linking is a good idea anyway, but this makes the idea even more compelling. Thanks for the comment :-) Rick
  22. Mani Viswanathan says:
    I face this issue daily. The good this is I always delete the trackbacks which points to such sites.
    • Rick LaPoint says:
      Hi Mani, Yes, as your site grows this becomes more of a problem. Ah, the Price of Fame! :lol: Rick
  23. andreas kramers says:
    Wow, talking 'bout blogging evil! I'll have to go and investigate some trackbacks then. This is totally new for me. Thanks Rick, great post.Cheers, Andi
    • Rick LaPoint says:
      Hi Andreas, A new blog usually doesn't have to worry about this sort of thing. But when they begin getting known, good and bad Trackbacks can start flowing in. Some Linking sites you recognize right away, so it's easy to get a bit lazy in verifying each one. Thanks for your comment :-)
  24. Natalie says:
    This happened to me on one of my travel blog. The bloke is scraping content from my site as soon as I publish it but the link is no follow. I am not approving the trackbacks and have asked him to remove the content. Must be the latest trick in the book.
    • Rick LaPoint says:
      Hi Natalie, I have seen a number of sites that have Trackbacks turned off permanently. At the end of the day, having them is no big deal. It's nice to link and get a Trackback, but not having them will not usually prevent someone from linking to you. I think it probably true that more people come up with ways to cheat than those who come up with that great Idea. Thanks for stopping by!
  25. Patricia says:
    Hi Rick Thanks for the warning. I tend to check everything that lands on my blog for the first time. I know not everyone does as I have seen commentson other blogs approved by people who I have deleted on my blog, after considering their sites in a bad neighbourhood! Sorry to hear about your experience but glad you sussed it and have been able to share with others so we stay diligent with our own sites and trackbacks. Patricia Perth Australia
    • Rick LaPoint says:
      Hi Patricia, I had written most of this post for my own site as something sort of fun, when I realized maybe it would be appreciated by a wider audience. It's not always easy to decide whether to delete a comment. Some people leave legitimate comments, but have their name & ComLuv linking back to a simple, one-product site. Those, I will often accept. But if that same comment comes from a site filled with Adsense, and little else, I delete as soon as I see it. As far as Trackbacks, the way I see it, if you get a lot of them, it simply means your Content is good enough that others will legitimately link to it. That can't be a bad thing :-) Thanks for stopping by!
  26. Sheila Atwood says:
    Rick, I have seen some weird track backs too. But not as weird as this one. I am with you on this one I do not want any connection with the slime. Thanks for the tips for catching them.
    • Rick LaPoint says:
      Hi Sheila, Yes, this one was odd enough that I thought it might be worth sharing :-) I don't think that Google penalizes us for being scraped, but yes, it's a very different story if we allow that link back to them. It will be interesting to see if this type of behavior goes away now that Google seems to be enforcing against them. It's weird though, because these sites never had much chance of Ranking in the first place, so why bother to begin with? Thanks for stopping by, and for commenting :-)
  27. Denise Gabbard says:
    Thanks for this article, Rick. I was leary of trackbacks for one of the reasons you mentioned, but now I realize it's okay, probably even advantageous to turn that on as long as I monitor it. About article theft--hoping for a bit of advice. Is there any simple way of getting them removed? I did a search for a particular article I wrote one day, and was disgusted to find it had been stolen and republished in many, many wacky (broken English, spinner-type junk) with my byline intact....would have preferred they zapped me off in this case. Aside from sending DMCA notices to every site, is there a way to handle it? I do not want people to think I wrote that garbage...
    • Rick LaPoint says:
      Hi Denise, It's a bit of a double-edged sword whenever you allow people to post on your blog. On the one hand you want to provide a nice user experience, so I use the GASP plugin so people can see that their Comment is posted right away, But now I'm getting a lot more Spam that appears to be coming from live people, rather than the Bots. The odd thing is that the Spam looks very Bot-like. I personally don't believe it's really worth the time to pursue these sites. I know some that are new to blogging that freaked out when they were first scraped for their content, but when I was selling my own software, I concluded that about 10 people were using it for each 1 person who paid for it. Theft on the Internet is just part of the game. There is way too much of it to be able to fight effectively. You'll drive yourself mad if you try. However, if something really important happens, that case might be an exception. Since virtually nobody ever sees your content on these sites, due to the fact they have almost zero traffic, I wouldn't worry about anyone thinking you wrote garbage ;-) Thanks for your comment! Rick
  28. Ryan Biddulph says:
    Hi Rick, Great post ;) I've received more than my fair share of nefarious trackbacks. They almost always get caught in Aksimet and I send them to the trash. Before I knew this - when a green blogging newbie - I approved any trackback coming my way, lol. Funny how a little bit of experience and knowledge changes your perspective. Thanks for sharing! RB
    • Rick LaPoint says:
      Hi Ryan, I never have used Aksimet, and is about the first thing I delete when setting up a new site. I do like the GASP plugin a lot, but that doesn't stop the Trackbacks. I always check who is linking to me. Years ago if I discovered someone linking to me, I would check them out. This was way before WordPress. And then I would often write them to see if I could get the link moved to the front page. I even had a graphic for the purpose. Sometimes I would be successful :-) Thanks for the Thumbs Up :-) Rick
  29. IntelInside says:
    He is [or was] using your name to draw commerce to his site. He put your name right in his title. this is your common law mark and YOUR right to publicity. read up on the DMA because you could have his page taken down. Have you check his keywords? He cannot use your name in his keywords either, when it is to draw people for commerce. He does not want you link juice as much as he wants to be you!
    • Rick LaPoint says:
      Hi IntelInside, I know the idea of going after these sites is discussed all the time, but I have never bothered to do so. Very few people I know do, either. All that I have seen aren't getting any traffic, so I'm not worried about my name being sullied in the minds of people who don't know me, or the site they are reading. As far as wanted to BE me, good luck on that one. He's in for a rough ride ;-)