Automated success, too much too soon ??

It recently came to my attention that this blog (I operate quite a few), a demo blog I might add, was succeeding too quickly. Yes, it seems it can happen - courtesy of the search engines, a simple, virtually unattended demo blog, is ranking too well.

SEO MOney is running the Wordpress SEO/SEM bundle, based on Wordpress, with modifications designed to enhance its performance in terms of SEO, and in terms of content management. One of the features it includes is content aggregation, allowing me to put the thing on autopilot, with fine tuning to eliminate any dross that might creep into otherwise useful & informative feeds..

Being a demo blog, I didnt expect it to attract too much attention, and for a while, it was coasting along nicely - in fact, I quite enjoyed reading it.. and from time to time I stopped by to catch up on the latest in SEO.

All good right ?

Not necessarily. I stopped by one morning to find an article plastered with weird graphics saying ’stolen content’, and quickly began reading the article (knowing that was not how the article would have been circulated), and sure enough, of the dozens of sites republishing the sources content, it turned out the article was directed at this blog !

With a quick click or two, the article was deleted, along with the content archived from that feed. I thought nothing more of it, and decided it was an exception to the rule.

But then the bundle started doing its job (a *lot* faster than expected), and the site began rising through the ranks in the SEs for a variety of keyphrases.. and of course, it was noticed.

Usually a good thing - and fun to watch, but even I have to admit that its now a little too competitive for its own good..

It didnt take long for another article to turn up of simillar ilk from a different source, and although it doesn’t appear to be directed at this blog, I again took the feed down on principle.

The problem of course is it all boils down to how a site defines appropriate use of their feeds. The sites in question dont have a TOS, copyright statement or the like, so it becomes an issue of fair use. The acquisition of content is fine, so theres no scraping or theft of content involved. But as for how its digested, published, used etc, thats another matter. Of course I’m generalizing here - after all RSS pertains to a format, but what exactly is the WMs intention ?

Do they want their articles published/sydicated or not ?

Its because of this distinction that I’ve often considered so called friendly republication lists to be a useful asset when planning a site especially if you plan to supplement existing content.

But as I’m learning, trusting third parties and the information they provide can be tricky business, especially if the info they provide is incomplete or inaccurate. Unfortunately, I now wind up having to approach each and every webmaster whos feeds Im using to ensure my list is accurate. Forget the mantra behind the site ‘the 2 minute blog‘. We’re talking a key list defining feeds used across literaly hundreds of blogs ! Ouch !

So, lesson for today kids.. dont assume a trusted source is always trusting a trustworthy source ! - and of course, dont write software that works so damn well !

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Why these particular feeds ? Simple. They’re considered best of breed. Top of the class. Just a damn fine read thats consistently informative and on-topic.

Future remedy…

Write a quick plugin (for bundles) that allows a third party to automatically remove their feed from bundle blogs. All they will have to do is include a specific sentence in any post, and it will force the relevant blog to stop publishing the feed (unless the code is modified). Its not the perfect solution, but will probably save both parties a lot of time. At the very least, it’ll give WMs the opportunity to quickly and efficiently assert their preferences in the event they need to.

Feedback…

Go ahead and post comments on this article. Its an interesting topic that I believe deserves more exploration. If managed correctly, the use of feeds (especially full post feeds) can benefit everyone involved. In fact, all advertising that appears on this site is driven by third party feeds (ie in the body of full length posts). Of course theres a variety of benefits to publishing feeds, but then theres the disadvantages too.

What do you think ?