Serious Attack on Hubpages !!!

1. 60

   muratosposted 13 years ago

   Hi friends,
   
   I have today noticed a very disturbing automated content attack on most of my hubs. I suspect many other hubbers may also suffer from this.
   
   It is basically working like this. For example, my original hub is here:
   
   http://hubpages.com/hub/HTC-Evo-4G-Cases
   
   The spammer opened an account by the same name (automated): HTC Evo 4G Cases
   
   http://hubpages.com/profile/HTC+Evo+4G+Cases
   
   and voila! My exactly same post word by word copied in another hub.
   
   http://hubpages.com/hub/HTC-Evo-4G-Cases-here
   
   What did they do is just adding -here keyword at the end of link.
   
   I am almost certain that it is automated because many other my hubs have the same situation with -here keyword. Especially, on Amazon product reviews ones.
   
   I will update the thread if I find other hubbers on the same situation.
   
   My suggestion is to bring a strong Captcha solution to prevent automated hub openings. It would reduce such attacks.
   
   Murat

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   1. 0

      shazwellynposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      You need to contact hubpages with this as soon as possible.  They have specialist software that can deal with it and trace the violation.  The perpertrator will not get away with it!

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   2. 60

      muratosposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I now see that all of my hubs were re-created under different user names. I suspect that the spammer has got the RSS feeds, scraped the content without links and re-posted under different user names, automatically. This is very serious.

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   3. STAFF

      pauldeedsposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      This threat has been neutralized.  Thanks for letting us know.

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      1. 81

         Whitney05posted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Like I said... Contact the HP team and they'll get it straightened out.
         
         
         No need to create chaos over nothing. This isn't the first time it's happened, and it won't be the last.
         
         There wasn't any need for rudeness. Next time just contact the team and flag on your own...

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         1. 0

            ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            I didn't really see any rudeness? It's just that the problem was perhaps a lot wider than you seem to have first anticipated, a bit unrealistic for people to flag hundreds of hubs?
            
            Anyway glad that it is all sorted. Cheers Paul.

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         2. 60

            muratosposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Sorry, I didn't want any rudeness and I think I didn't write anything personal except pure information.
            
            I have seen the potential global harm and wanted to inform people. Plus, I didn't know about the email of HP. (Now, I know
            
            As you can notice, I am not also a very active member but appreciate HP, it helps me making money and wanted to help.

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               rebekahELLEposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               your thread wasn't rude. you reported in the correct thread and alerted the HP staff. I will watch for those one hub title screen name profiles more often when hub hopping. thanks.

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            2. 67

               alternate poetposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               You were NOT rude in any way that I can see - also it is perfectly right to bring this up in the forums so that other hubbers are alerted to this kind of thing.  Maybe someone else was just having a bad day, but you have done all the RIGHT things  - thanks for bringing it to our attention

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            3. 81

               Whitney05posted 13 years agoin reply to this

               I didn't mean you by any means. It was the sarcastic comment that I felt coming my direction with "does this look familiar"
               
               Anyway, I understand that concern, but it's so much easier to just report to hubpages rather than post here. I don't expect every hubber that has copied a hub to be flagged, as that can consist of very many, but flag a few that you see, and they'll get the picture. Also, send an email to them about the concern. They'll take appropriate actions. This isn't the first, and won't be the last time this happens.

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            PaulaHenry1posted 13 years agoin reply to this

            where is the rudeness? Just seemed to me that they were very "concerned"

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2. 59

   Anesidoraposted 13 years ago

   Wow. Oh my goodness, I don't even want to look.
   
   You've alerted HubPages staff directly?

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   1. 60

      muratosposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I have alerted on some of the individual posts as a flag on both username and posts. But, I see that almost all my posts were copied in multiple accounts. So, it would be hard to find and flag all of them.

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      1. STAFF

         pauldeedsposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Flag an individual hub or two (and include some brief additional details in the message portion).  That will alert us fairly quickly, and we can use the tools at our disposal to take care of other instances.   But, as others have mentioned  it's also a good idea to email us.  An email *may* result in swifter action.

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3. 72

   thranaxposted 13 years ago

   Thanks for alerting us about the situation. Gotta check our Hubs now to see if there are any duplicates and will need to hope the Team gets around to dealing with his IP and not just going after the spam accounts.
   
   ~thranax~

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   1. 60

      muratosposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks thranax,
      
      I will be flagging such accounts and posts related to my hubs. No other way for me now I have searched some hubs from top hubbers. Interestingly, they don't have such issue.
      
      I suspect that the spammers don't want to be very apparent on this eventhough they could fill up hubpages easily with duplicates of any content. As a programmer myself, I can even write such an application using Yahoo Pipes for example Scraping content, creating accounts and posting automatically.
      
      I still support that a very strong Captcha application is needed before publishing a new hub.
      
      I just don't remember... Is there an email token approval system for new accounts?

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4. 81

   Whitney05posted 13 years ago

   The guy doesn't have any hubtivity besides the one hub he has published.
   
   
   
   Just let hubpages know it's your hub. No reason to bring it here.  Email them directly for problems like this.

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   1. 84

      rebekahELLEposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      the only thing is he could be doing this to many other hubbers, just opening different accounts.

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      1. 60

         muratosposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I am looking for other hubs in the same situation but couldn't find yet.
         So, I look like a victim
         I think it is possible to apply this method to all.

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         1. 60

            muratosposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Ok I am not the only hubber. Look another popular hubber's post. Same method
            
            The original from "iantoPF"
            
            http://hubpages.com/hub/English-Swear-Words
            
            Copy
            
            http://hubpages.com/hub/English-Swear-Words-here
            
            ----
            
            The original from "glassvisage"
            
            http://hubpages.com/hub/How_to_ask_a_gi … her_number
            
            Copy
            
            http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-ask-a-gi … umber-here
            
            This is a systematic spam apparently. Just hiding itself maybe by evaluating the frequency of the posts of the hubber.

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         2. 0

            cosetteposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            doesn't the Copied Hubs link in the Your Hubs section under 'my account' let you know you have copied hubs? i'm confused...

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               Whitney05posted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Not everyone has this ability. I don't think it ever went site-wide.
               
               
               Flag the hubber profiles and contact HP. There's no reason to keep bringing it up here.

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                  sunforgedposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  lol

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                     Whitney05posted 13 years agoin reply to this

                     ??

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                        sunforgedposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                        I guess, lol, was an exaggeration, perhaps "small giggle" but I dont have a short code for that
                        
                        Thanks for answering the "question" question.

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               2. 0

                  cosetteposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  really? i didn't know that. wow, everyone should have that. then you're right, they should be flagged, definitely.

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                  1. 81

                     Whitney05posted 13 years agoin reply to this

                     I agree, it should be universal, but there are bugs with the section if you ask me. The bugs should be worked out before it be site-wide.  Once the stolen material is removed, it remains on the page; you can delete the link, but the section title where it was never goes away and the warning on the hub remains.
                     
                     Oh, and as for mine that was stolen. There's not warning in the HubPages system about it.

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      IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Does this hub look familiar, Whitney?
      http://hubpages.com/hub/Caring-for-and- … toise-here

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      1. 81

         Whitney05posted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Yep. Flagged profile and hub. Why can't it be that simple for everyone? There was no need for rudeness. Relax. It happens all the time. It's not a public matter. That's where the email for hubpages team comes in handy. They have to do the moderation anyway, so no need to flip out on other hubbers.

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      2. 0

         ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         No need to bring that on here IzzyM

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   3. 0

      ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Except it isn't just one hub Whitney, its ALL of his hubs.

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5. 60

   muratosposted 13 years ago

   This is even more scary !! I just inform about the possibilities.
   
   Original
   
   http://hubpages.com/hub/LG-Vu-Plus-Cases-Accessories
   
   Copy
   
   http://hubpages.com/hub/LG-Vu-Plus-Case … ories-here
   
   Copy of the copy
   
   http://hubpages.com/hub/LG-Vu-Plus-Case … -here-here

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6. 87

   IzzyMposted 13 years ago

   OMG this is very serious. How do you find copied hubs apart from individually submitting the title into hub search?

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   1. 60

      muratosposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      By the help of Google. The following query finds all indexed pages with "here" keyword in URL text. You can see the copied ones after search pages starting from page 6, 7. Most of them are from my hubs for now.
      
      allinurl: here site:hubpages.com
      
      The problem is that these keywords can be changed. I have accidentally noticed the situation for my hubs. Plus, innocent hubs are also included in the Google search, so it is hard to determine the exact copies by hand.
      
      Two things should be implemented immediately.
      
      1) Strong Captcha on publishing hubs.
      2) New Registration approval only by email (I am not sure if it already exists or not)

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7. 84

   rebekahELLEposted 13 years ago

   I've often wondered about these one hub, title-named grey hubbers. how sneaky. but shouldn't the duplicate flag appear in the copied hubbers account?

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      muratosposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I think duplicate content flag appears only on spammer's account since the original one is already indexed by search engines. But, spammers surely just don't care about it.
      
      If I will have time, I can make a search on how it affects the search engine rankings for main competitive keywords in these hubs.

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         rebekahELLEposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         this is what HP says about duplicate content.
         http://hubpages.com/faq/#duplicate_content

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            muratosposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Duplicate content is allowed by HP (with score penalty) unless someone flags it. I have 2, 3 hubs in this situation and getting traffic

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               thisisoliposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Duplicate content is allowed by Hubpages, but Copyright violations are not.

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8. 87

   IzzyMposted 13 years ago

   Guess Hubpages are working on it. I was searching with the search query you suggested when this error message suddenly came up!
   
   We're sorry...
   
   ... but your computer or network may be sending automated queries. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now.
   
   See Google Help for more information.

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      muratosposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      This error actually comes from Google, not Hubpages They think that our query is automated because of clicks on individual search results on many pages. Anyway, it is not related to HP  )

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      sunforgedposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Izzy did you recently install a SEO Toolbar like SEO for firefox or SEO quake?
      
      If so - go to tools - select teh preferences of your seo toolbar and change the options to "by request"
      
      If you have I can explain better.

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         IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I'm using google chrome just now - its so much faster than Firefox, but then that is probably because I've got a cache full of crap. Only reason I haven't emptied it yet is because of all the passwords stored on it - but I've got a program that saved my passwords so it isn't really an issue.

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9. 81

   Whitney05posted 13 years ago

   Gotcha. I didn't care to notice that in the link. I just clicked to see, 'yep those are the same.'

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10. 87

    IzzyMposted 13 years ago

    Thanks Muratos, for bringing this matter to our attention

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11. 80

    skyfireposted 13 years ago

    Looks like someone wrote bot to bypass captcha of HP registration then made copies of hubs.

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12. 60

    SiddSinghposted 13 years ago

    @Muratos,
    
    Thank you for bringing this to the notice of everyone.

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13. 80

    iantoPFposted 13 years ago

    Thank you for bringing this to our attention Muratos. I'm on vacation and was scanning through the forum when i chanced to read your post. I personally want to thank you, I had no idea my Hub was being plagiarized. You have a new fan.
    Thank you Paul. It's good to know that we have your support when things like this happen.

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