What on earth is it for?!

1. 63

   CYong74posted 3 years ago

   Nearly all of my copied articles this year involve significant bits of my text jumbled with text from other sources, and compiled into one long, nonsensical paragraph.
   
   They also, almost, always appear on sites that look decent at first glance. For eg, wine sellers, travel agents, etc.
   
   What is the aim here? That those nonsensical paragraphs would somehow rank in Google and bring SEO benefit to the rest of the site? Or is it pure trolling?

   replyreport
   1. 76

      Misbah786posted 3 years agoin reply to this

      I believe it is for SEO purposes. However, there are occasions when no explanation is adequate to satisfy. I don't believe it's a case of trolling but I also believe that some folks are simply too free that they don't have any other work to do except annoying others for no apparent reason. Relax and let them do whatever they are doing. I believe, we ( the writers)  will get tired, but they will not stop anyway.
      Blessings to you!!

      replyreport
   2. 65

      OldRosesposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      I've had a few of these.  They are impossible to get taken down because the copied sentences are mixed in with other presumably copied sentences from other sources.  The hosting company does not see it as a copyright infringement because my entire articles wasn't copied in a single block.

      replyreport
      1. 63

         CYong74posted 3 years agoin reply to this

         Run your article (the URL) through Copyscape and if there's a hit, you can use that as "evidence." Otherwise, you'd have to find some way to highlight the original and copied text. And generate a PDF or something.
         
         It's horrendously tedious. But it usually works. WIth Google strikes. I no longer bother with hosts.

         replyreport
   3. 83

      Kenna McHughposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      I've had this happen. The site was a hodgepodge of sentences from many sites on the same topic. At first glance, the article looked decent until you read it.
      I don't think these sites will last. I don't think writers are doomed. It will get remedied because stuff like this ruins Google's legitimacy. We just need to be patient. The downfall is more Google updates.

      replyreport
2. 69

   Shesabutterflyposted 3 years ago

   I find it annoying on so many levels. I can't imagine this would work for SEO purposes. I don't see Google ranking all this mumbo jumbo nonsense. Most of mine have been what looks to be a mash up of article/comments/Q&A all intermixed in random order. I don't get why anyone would think that would work.
   
   Any idea why these are the only types of content HP finds? I have 11 new ones just this morning! There is no way to file DMCA's for most of these sites. I wish we had a box so we could check we know about these. I'd love to get notified when sites I can actually do something about steal my work. I found 5 different articles or social media posts stealing my articles this past weekend that didn't pop up on HP's scrawl. Does it have to be a certain percentage of the content? Two of the five posts/articles stole the whole thing though, which makes me wonder if they don't look through social media content?

   replyreport
   1. 63

      CYong74posted 3 years agoin reply to this

      You're spot on. HP finds a lot of such copies. Interestingly, Copyscape usually doesn't detect these.

      replyreport
3. 99

   DrMark1961posted 3 years ago

   As I understand it, if your text contains a long tail keyword and that person is searching for it, for example, you wrote ¨this is one of the best restaurants in Singapore" and someone searches for ¨best restaurant in Singapore" they will show up on the Google search, even if it is just nonsense. Google cannot tell that it is nonsense.
   If they do this often enough, and copy pages that have a lot of phrases, both yours and others, they will get hits throughout the day Some searchers will end up clicking on that address The searcher may not stay but they may end up looking elsewhere and reading an advertisement for that web site (the travel agent, for example)
   I think it is a numbers game The more they do it the better chance they have of getting some income
   We writers are doomed

   replyreport
   1. 69

      Shesabutterflyposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      Interesting. I rarely see these types of websites when I run my own searches for my article content. Maybe I'm not narrowing down the keywords enough.
      
      None of the 11 that I opened this morning had ads and only one had a contact button that actually worked. Whether or not that email address is actually being monitored and they take the content down is another story.

      replyreport
   2. 63

      CYong74posted 3 years agoin reply to this

      I suspected it's something along these lines.
      
      These sites usually aren't ad enabled, though, so I suspect the owners/site designers think there'd be some sort of SEO benefit for the whole site. Anyhow, I typically do not have difficulties striking them, as far as Google is concerned. So these rascals are just wasting time.

      replyreport
4. 82

   Rupert Taylorposted 3 years ago

   I've been wondering the same thing for a while. Why would a French language food website post a garbled version of my article on charlatan faith healers? There are many similar occasions of articles being stolen, turned into gibberish, and posted.
   
   It must have something to do with the darks arts of attracting traffic that is quite beyond the imagination of this old geezer.

   replyreport
5. 68

   PaulGoodman67posted 3 years ago

   As others have said, it's likely an attempt at fooling Google.
   
   Besides what Dr Mark said about longtails, I wonder whether it's about "watering down" keyword density in artificially created content.
   
   As well as keywords they're chasing and do want Google to see, they insert lots of text "filler" (keywords they aren't interested in), so they don't get dinged for keyword stuffing.

   replyreport