Warning about SheToldMe

1. 60

   sannyasinmanposted 14 years ago

   I have emailed their webmaster and he has deleted my content from his site.
   However he has NOT deleted the URL, so that he still gets the link from Google to his site using my old URL.
   
   I consider this to be dishonest. If I search google for my keywords, every time, the shetoldme.com URL comes up in front of my real hubpages.com URL. But the shetoldme.com URL no longer contains any content, just ads and pointers.
   What do you think?

   replyreport
2. 60

   deartfuldodgerposted 14 years ago

   Here is what I think,
   
   You would never of had any legitimate reason to delete your content from that page.
   
   You had a backlink and a perhaps a small traffic flow - there was no reason to stop that.
   
   Why did you request such an unusual thing?
   
   As far as dishonest goes, social bookmarking usually isnt  intended to be done by the content owner.
   
   an example, I can go bookmark your content on that page, digg, reddit and dozens of other sites - my intent would be show off your quality writing, thinking that other people should read it.
   
   SheToldme is unique in that they offer an adsense sharing program, but that it pretty much a novelty. So no dishonesty, just looks like your misunderstanding the purpose of bookmarking
   
   If he did delete your content than it still takes google a couple of weeks to deindex the page from search results - when the shetoldme link comes up, where does it lead when you click it?

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   1. 60

      sannyasinmanposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Perhaps I did not explain it well  . . .click here to see what I mean . .
      http://shetoldme.com/Lifestyle/Medical- … Costa-Rica
      It even says in their summary text "click here to visit the authors web site", but there is no longer any link on the target page.
      This page used to contain the summary and link to my hub at hubpages but no longer contains anything to do with it.
      BUT in Google, this page still comes up BEFORE any of my real hubs, so that shetoldme.com is always before my, real, hub, but their pàge no longer contains any valid information related to the search of my hub. They are piggy.backing off my articles URL to keep their place in the Google ranking, and above my real hub which does contain the real article.
      Am I explaining this properly?

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3. 60

   deartfuldodgerposted 14 years ago

   I think you missed everything that I bothered to write last time.
   
   The reason why the urls dont lead to any of your content, is because they are deleted
   
   Google will take weeks to DEindex those links, it doesnt disappear immediately
   
   I dont think james reads this thread anyway
   
   and anyone can bookmark any url they please, it was nice of james to comply with your request

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   1. 60

      sannyasinmanposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I still don't agree . . .?
      If the URL's have indeed been deleted from shetoldme.com, then why does Google not return "URL not found" when I click on it?
      And . . surely the fact that the URL is found by Google means that it will not be de-indexed, yes?

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4. 60

   deartfuldodgerposted 14 years ago

   "And . . surely the fact that the URL is found by Google means that it will not be de-indexed, yes?"
   
   no..it will be found until it is de-indexed
   
   You have a point about a "url not found" message not coming up
   
   On a properly managed page you dont get that message, instead the link leads to a 404 page -sometimes this is obvious like here at hubpages
   
   http://hubpages.com/hub/furburgers
   
   (Sorry that page does not exist)
   
   It looks like on shetoldme, the link redirects to the front page instead of an obvious 404 - it just looks different/unique because the chitika ads and adsense are changing  based on search terms/Url keywords
   
   I dont know that your specific URL's are or are not deleted, but I do know that there is no way for you to tell for a couple of weeks...certainly your content is gone from the page
   
   Why did you do that?

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   1. 60

      sannyasinmanposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Sorry, but I still can't agree . . .
      Click this to see what happens when a URL truly does not exist on shetoldme.com
      http://shetoldme.com/fgfgfgfgfgfg.html
      
      Now click this to see what happens for the URLs for my pages
      http://shetoldme.com/World/Too-much-tim … hing-to-do
      
      It is not at all the same thing, so it appears that my page's defunct URLs do indeed still exist on the server, ie they have not been deleted.
      
      As far as I know, Google de-indexes URLs when they cease to exist. As my defunct URLs do exist, Google will find them, and so they will stay indexed, and they will continue to take precedence over the real URLs on all Google searches.   
      
      Or am I missing something?
      
      PS. I appreciate your help on this.

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5. 60

   deartfuldodgerposted 14 years ago

   You did indeed prove that its not as simple as a 404 page redirect, but I cant wrap my head around  the problem any farther.
   
   
   
   google will deindex the link when the page it leads to no longer exists - when the crawler follows the link and no such page exists, if teh site is designed so that links with no destination automatically redirect, im not sure how google will react as far as keeping the link - but Im 90% sure taht even if the link never disappeared, the hubpage leading to it whould quickly outrank it
   
   
   I dont see any benefit to the shetoldme site to keep track of a URL w/o having it lead directly to content with advertising on it
   
   
   james is quick to email back, give him a business day, im sure he will explain fully (well i hope so, he always has in the past)
   
   im still very curious why you deleted your backlinks that were ranking well?

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   1. 60

      sannyasinmanposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I think he is keeping the defunct URL's precisely because they lead to pages full of advertising on his site. Isn't that the point of his business?
      
      He is getting free links to his site and is loathe to part with them. It took him 10 minutes to remove all of my content, but five hours later, and many emails from me about the rogue URLs, there is no reply and the rogue URL's are still there.
      
      Also, this is not a page redirect as the URL stays the same. He is simply not pulling my content up from his database. Otherwise the page is the same as before, he still ranks above my pages in Google (and is using my content to do so), and he still gets the advertising revenue. Nice little earner - but not entirely honest.
      
      I have repeatedly asked him to remove all references to my old URLs which contain the titles of my articles, and to remove my name from his site and my name from his URL summaries in Google.
      These requests have met with a stony silence.
      
      Do you know him? Can you get him to take action?
      
      I started this whole mess this morning after reading this thread (Warning about shetoldme), and also realising that as long as shetoldme.com has my articles referenced, I will never get a direct hit from Google, as shetoldme are always ranked way above my actual hub in Google - and also, it hasn't earned me a penny so far.

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6. 76

   Eaglekiwiposted 14 years ago

   I havent written for shetoldme for a while( just busy) but I can
   vouch James is communicative and answers emails promptly.
   I liked that.

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   1. 60

      sannyasinmanposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I have sent half a dozen emails - no response.

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7. 68

   lrohnerposted 14 years ago

   Sanny, if Shetoldme was ranking above your articles and you thought that was hurting your own traffic, then you have every right to pull your content as you did. But while you may own the copyright to the content, I'm not quite so sure you own the copyright to the URL. You'd really have to research that, particularly since it's not exactly the same URL. The STM URL has "shetoldme" in it.
   
   There is something called "click friction" which basically means that the more times someone has to click to get to something, the more chance you have to lose them, I'm not so sure that the concept is totally bad here. Shetoldme.com me only pays a portion of the Adsense revenue, but the same is true for HubPages.
   
   Anyhoo, best of luck getting this resolved!

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   1. 60

      sannyasinmanposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for your support.
      If I search the shetoldme.com web site, I find references to and content from, my copyrighted articles. So the next step is to report him via Adsense DMCA. He has essentially highjacked my URLs, keywords and summary text to gain Google page ranking, thus sending traffic which should go to my hubs, to his page stuffed full of advertising, and links to other articles on his site.

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      1. 0

         ryankettposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         This is spiteful. James is a good guy, has taken his time to come and answer everybodie's queries.... and you are threatening to file a DMCA to google because he errr...... stole your URLs? Sorry to break it to you, but I could steal your URLs right now, and there is nothing that you could do about it. This is a mans income, life, and job.... and you have the audacity to threaten and insult him like this in the name of hubpages and in front of a public audience? You do not own the words in the dictionary and you are genuine willing to destroy somebodies livelyhood like this? Does the Google Keyword Tool own the copyright to every keyword in existance then?

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8. 57

   SheToldMe.composted 14 years ago

   Hello,
   I've come to this forum again because sannyasinman mentionned hubpages forums today in an email (along with different threats) so I'm going to repeat what I told him:
   " Google is not my property "
   
   When he first wrote to me asking me to delete his account and content, I did it immediatly, notified him and then went to bed. The next morning I had half a dozen emails asking me to remove the urls from google and that I was dishonest, etc.
   I took the time to explains points by points where it was obvious he was mistaken in his understanding of the internet's working.
   
   And after 7 days I now have the threats email. I can't do anything about it, GOOGLE CACHE IS NOT MY PROPERTY, ASK THEM DIRECTLY !
   
   To explain the 404 page, it's simple: If you look a page such as http://shetoldme.com/anythinggoes it returns a 404 error page, but if you look a page such as http://shetoldme.com/EXISTING_CATEGORY/anythinggoes then the script I use will redirect you to http://shetoldme.com/EXISTING_CATEGORY if the "anythinggoes" doesn't correspond to a known scoop.
   This is the way my script is coded, because it uses such a system in order to have any kind of urls without having the urls in a database.
   But when the scoop doesn't exist, no meta description or title is used, so the page is a clear duplicate for google and next time google visits the page it will desindex in order to keep its index clean. That's how google works.
   
   sannyasinman you need to be more patient, and honestly the reason why you chose to delete your account and content from shetoldme in the first place was wrong, because you've been afraid of this thread and didn't take the time to read all pages (which I understand) but I also explained to you by email the "freshness boost" that explains why shetoldme is listed before your own page for a few days/weeks, but will go lower afterwards when the freshness boost of the new page has expired.
   
   Anyway, I can't do anything more about your threats, do as you wish, but perhaps in a few years you'll remember how mistaken you were at this time. In any cases you're welcome back to register again at shetoldme at anytime, no hard feelings! :-)
   
   Cheers,
   James

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   1. 0

      cosetteposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      hi James! thanks for taking the time to come over here and clarify. and thanks for your site. it has been helping me a lot, and i really appreciate being a part of it.
      
      best regards.

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9. 0

   ryankettposted 14 years ago

   To think that you are telling people to lighten up Sannayisman? So are you going to update us? Are you going to report stolen URLs? Or have you realised how pathetically stupid and illogical this is yet?

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10. 60

    Natural Medicineposted 14 years ago

    Well, I for one am very glad I took the time to read all 6 pages of this thread. I've made up my mind now, and will join shetoldme.
    Thanks Ryankett, for calling out exactly what I thought about sannayisman.

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    1. 71

       Ultimate Hubberposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       I didn't real all 6 pages but quite a few posts to get an idea what this thread is about...
       I won't suggest joining something that does not comply with its TOS. I haven't had a single ad impression at shetoldme.com since last month.... before that I had 22 ad impressions. Quite a few of my scoops submitted last month made the first page but still no ad impressions. Just wanted to inform you so you don't feel bad about this amateur behaviour once you join the site.

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       1. 0

          ryankettposted 14 years agoin reply to this

          I have never recieved impressions either, but i DO recieve CLICKS..... adsense doesn't record it's impressions for some reason, but I had 10 clicks worth $4 last week on 120 scoops.

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          1. 71

             Ultimate Hubberposted 14 years agoin reply to this

             Rite, point cleared, thanx!

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          2. 58

             Mrvoodooposted 14 years agoin reply to this

             That's why I've decided not to use it, $4 might be very nice now, but if there's even the slightest chance that it poses any long term risk by not working with Adsense in the way it should, I'm going to avoid it.
             
             That and the fact that if you view scoops whilst logged out there are loads of Adsense ads bundled together in a mess at the top of the page and I'm almost certain that your supposed '100%' share is only from the one single ad unit embedded within your scoop.

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             1. 60

                Natural Medicineposted 14 years agoin reply to this

                Got to agree with you on that point. I got the impression also that you'll get commission only on the single ad within your scoop.
                
                I did sign up, but only 'scooped' 2 of my links.

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11. 57

    SheToldMe.composted 14 years ago

    Hello all,
    
    It's not an impression, that's the way it works as explained in the pages on the site:
    1 ad for you (the one embedded in your scoop's description text), 2 for me if you have no referrer.
    1 ad for you, 1 for me and 1 for your referrer if you signed up under a referrer.
    
    That way a member doesn't lose anything if he has a referrer or not.
    
    ----
    Now about AdSense not recording ad impressions from SheToldMe.com, well that's not what I witness from a local friend who is also on shetoldme, he simply created a URL Channel in his adsense account and from then shetoldme appeared in his reports. There's nothing special about shetoldme that would prevent it from showing up in adsense reports if you make sure you know how to create a url channel correctly.
    
    ----
    I don't remember now what other points I wanted to explain, but just let's say that you're welcome to register, or not, but I'm certainly as much or even more preoccupied by the well being of my adsense account as you are! So if you trust yourself in complying with adsense tos, then you could trust me the same. I don't know since when you have an adsense account but me it's from december 2003, and I already have another adsense sharing site since 2006 and my account is still in good standing up to now, because I'm stricter than adsense's own guidelines, I don't want to be on the borderline but well inside! :-)
    
    As for the traffic on shetoldme.com it is increasing slowly, if you don't have ad impressions don't blame the site, it receives about 6k unique visitors per day. Each time someone comes to a scoop page, perhaps 25% will go to the target site, another percentage will click an ad or go to another page of the site and 50% will bounce back to wherever they came from. But your scoops need to attract visitors on their own merits, by the choice of topic and keywords.
    There's a public third party stats recording shetoldme's traffic available at this address if you're interested in watching the progress and to see which scoops attract lots of visitors: http://extremetracking.com/open;unique?login=shetoldm
    
    Cheers,
    James

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12. 57

    SheToldMe.composted 14 years ago

    I'd like to make it clear that from now on if you have any question regarding shetoldme, you should contact me on my contact form, or simply answer between yourselves, but don't expect me to come back to this forum to answer them.
    
    As I posted my last message, I got caught in HubPages's spam filters and my account has been suspended and all messages in this thread removed. I was afraid all time I've spent here answering questions had been lost, including my latest post. It is only after talking to the HubPages team that I was able to have my post posted back up and I was informed to take care in the future about not spamming.
    
    So, my decision is to never write anymore post here, so that I won't be seen as spamming forums. And to be honest I only registered here to answer this thread, this is not a support forum for my site. So if you doubt shetoldme is any good to your sites or articles or adsense account, then fine don't register or if you have registered already simply ask me by email to delete your account and scoops, I'll do it immediatly upon reading your email, no problem :-)
    
    Have a nice day all and sorry for the double post, but I wanted to explain why I won't reply any further to any question here.
    
    Cheers,
    James

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13. 0

    BookFlameposted 14 years ago

    Jees, I just joined a month ago, but it seems every time I turn around, someone thinks you're cheating or up to no good! Ignorance on HP is not bliss, but dangerous!

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14. 69

    Jeffrey Nealposted 14 years ago

    I finally got around to joining.  Reading James' posts here has, I think, cleared up any uncertainty.  And, the traffic link was nice of him.

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15. 40

    Chapterposted 13 years ago

    i delete my adsense too. I hope i will not make mistake again

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    1. 40

       Chapterposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       I am sorry not delete my adsense. i am out from shetoldme

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       1. 70

          thisisoliposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          There is nothing wrong with SheToldMe, why did you delete your account?

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16. 76

    Richieb799posted 13 years ago

    Oli is it safe to include your AdSense Id in Shetoldme?

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