All my sites copied, yours too ?

[inspiration]

I have found out that all my sites have copied by the hacker siteswaps.com

(don't think ok mine are fine as these pass copyscape test : he copies 10-15 words from paragraphs you must do a google search to find your content copied on 100s of hacked sites)

Affiliate managers from Buffalopartners allow him to hack mainstreem sites and put copied content from fellow affiliate sites on them with a redirect landing page for his ads.

I am shutting down as new sites will be copied anyways.

 

[falseadoom]

Looks like same guys, new template.

(don't think ok mine are fine as these pass copyscape test : he copies 10-15 words from paragraphs you must do a google search to find your content copied on 100s of hacked sites)
Affiliate managers from Buffalopartners allow him to hack mainstreem sites and put copied content from fellow affiliate sites on them with a redirect landing page for his ads

Looks like same guys, new template.

That is what all the hacked sites have been doing. Sure they pass copyscape, but that doesn't mean has no neg effects on sites. Everyone should be checking. Pick paragraphs out of your sites, (first sentence, second sentence, middle of site, last sentence) you will see just how much they scrap. I have had every word on a site scraped 1 sentence at a time and putting only a sentence on each hacked site. They repeat this hundreds of times and your site no longer has unique contents, so it goes down in serps.

Obviously these casino groups do not care about their partners and only care to protect the hackers.

Repeat complaints to google (feedbacks, spam reports, and sending messages in webmaster tools), may be the only way to stop it. I personally like doing feebacks and messages in webmaster tools so I can submit hundreds of sites at a time.
I do know google is notifying site owners that have been hacked but that only getting a % that use webmaster tools.

 

[casinonewbie]

There is zip, zero, sweet FA support from AGD on this issue. If they can't be bothered why should we care?

 

[casinonewbie]

There is zip, zero, sweet FA support from AGD on this issue. If they can't be bothered why should we care?

To be a little more specific, that's the "issue" of all the hacking & the casino programs involved.

 

[AussieDave]

There is zip, zero, sweet FA support from AGD on this issue. If they can't be bothered why should we care?

To be a little more specific, that's the "issue" of all the hacking & the casino programs involved.

I try not to point fingers BUT casinonewbie has a genuine issue here. The AGD catch cry is, "Protecting Affiliates Interests". All these program who btw are listed on AGD are allowing these scum bags to scrap member sites. And, instead of these programs taking action, they do nothing. AGD does nothing either.

It's time these programs were told, either put a stop to this or you will be Blacklisted and thrown into the Doghouse.

There are multiple threads all trying to work this problem out diplomatically BUT that doesn't work, the programs involved don't give a rats. Time a hard line was taken!

 

[inspiration]

I have also seen them doing negative SEO (they post your content on garbage sites that rank high)

They also scrape content from "google cache" so no site is safe.

I have seen big sites scraped like LCB, onlinecasinos.co.uk, online-casino.de etc etc

 

[sasa]

Casinosexplorer.com is also scraped and this time full site. Even my logo is still there: casinoanalytics|dot|info
I writed DMCA complaint some 10 days ago, but nothing for now. Still pending. I also contacted this russian hosting provider, but no reply either.

 

[AussieDave]

Contacting hosts in Russia, Ukraine et al, will likely have no effect and, a DMCA is only relevant for the USA.
You could submit a DMCA to Google for the listings but that's a lot of separate complaints, if this site and others have scraped all of your pages.

That's the BIG issue here. We used to be able to rely on the affiliate programs to take action. Now most don't give a rats. And going via the hosting provider, well that's usually a hit/miss option. These scum know that, hence they just do what they please, knowing, the likelihood of have a site yanked is, little to none.

 

[Guard Dog]

I guess I will talk from an 'AGD Perspective' since Bet4You is attempting to make us look bad above for not doing anything.

1st - I have been considering putting programs that work with hackers into the Rogue category. But the problem is this - a LOT of affiliates take a look at our listings and status when working with programs. As a result, it would be quite easy for Program X to ask Hacker Y to scrape and put banners for Program Z on the hacked site. That would help them cause an uproar - Program Z would lose affiliates and Program X would likely gain affiliates or gain over the casino competition.

2nd - I have contacted the programs who are not responding to push them to respond. I forgot FA (Casinonewbie mentioned this and I assume this means Fortune), but will contact them as well. But I've contacted.

3rd - Even when I get the program's involved, the affiliates here lash out at them to the point that they no longer want to respond. Professionalism seems to be going out the window. If I were them, I would not respond after awhile of this either.


We are doing our best here... we even implemented an auto-notification system for affiliate programs. But we are not their parents and can't FORCE them to do anything

With that said - all non-communicative programs will go into a category soon. still deciding on that.

 

[slotplayer]

Casinosexplorer.com is also scraped and this time full site. Even my logo is still there: casinoanalytics|dot|info
I writed DMCA complaint some 10 days ago, but nothing for now. Still pending. I also contacted this russian hosting provider, but no reply either.

looks like they use teleport pro to scrape the site.

 

[falseadoom]

Guarddog btw your site is scraped to and on a hacked site.

The problem with this is that we work hard building sites, writing unique contents and these guys can scrape it within minutes. So you go back re-write the site and they scrape it again in less than a week.
Affiliates are asking for help to stop these guys from programs (with a lot of emotion) that advertise on them.

At the very least the programs advertising on these hacked sites should not allow them to scrape their affiliate partner sites. Hacking is not directly effecting us, scraping is.
Where is the loyalty to the affiliates that have worked with these programs for years?

 

[bonustreak]

If anyone sees any of my sites scraped I would appreciate the heads up and I will do the same for yours...

 

[LandofOz]

Many scraping robots can be blocked through the .htaccess file.

 

[sasa]

All this stories about duplicate content from google, but they can't recognize when site is copied in full.

 

[AussieDave]

since Bet4You is attempting to make us look bad above for not doing anything.

I'm not trying to do anything mate, I'm merely stating the facts.
Which, there is more than enough evidence to show some affiliate programs here at AGD, don't give a rats about these hackers.

These "hackers" are not only scraping (err stealing) copyrighted text from a large number of AGD members (including the AGD forum) but also hacking 1000's of sites. No one can accuse, myself or other AGD members of not trying to resolve these matters diplomatically with the 'named' affiliate programs. Yet nothing changes and these programs, continue to given these hackers carte blanche.

There is a point where anyone would ask... why is AGD not kicking these affiliate programs to the DogHouse?

 

[AussieDave]

All this stories about duplicate content from google, but they can't recognize when site is copied in full.

And worse, my sites are connected to my G+ Author page and G+ Publisher page. G has verified these sites and the associations. I mean seriously this is supposed to tell Google I own that content. Yet with all this and the sites also be verified in GWMT and Google analytic, G is still not recognizing my stolen textual content... Really!!!

I've got new fresh (paid for) content to add to a site BUT I'm not adding it until I can at least feel I have a chance of protecting it. Otherwise I'll be flushing $700 down the drain.

 

[JackpotGenius]

Reading these comments is a bit concerning, but I guess we all know the internet is not always a friendly place

anyway...I'm no pro at server administration but I'm pretty sure that if you are being scraped regularly by the same people/person then you should be able to identify them through your logs, either an IP address that you are being called from or their actual domain, alternatively the bot they are using should be passing some kind of header that would help identify them.

If you can establish that above then you should be able to blacklist their IP and/or domain and/or create a .htaccess rule - probably wont be unbeatable protection but making it more difficult for them will cost them time, maybe they will decide to just write their own content instead of stealing it...

 

[AussieDave]

I'm pretty sure that if you are being scraped regularly by the same people/person then you should be able to identify them through your logs, either an IP address that you are being called from or their actual domain, alternatively the bot they are using should be passing some kind of header that would help identify them.

If you can establish that above then you should be able to blacklist their IP and/or domain and/or create a .htaccess rule - probably wont be unbeatable protection but making it more difficult for them will cost them time, maybe they will decide to just write their own content instead of stealing it...

Under normal circumstances the above would work. However these scrapers are using botnets (which makes blocking IP's useless). As far as blocking the referrer useragent, that's not possible because these scraper software programs/scrips allow the user to spoof the referring useragent. Hence they can make them look like a regular site visitor.

That's the BIG problem here...

maybe they will decide to just write their own content instead of stealing it...

Not in this lifetime they wont. These scum are criminals - when do criminals do anything honestly!

This could be stopped IF all affiliate programs treated these scum as criminals and locked/deleted their aff accounts. However they don't.

Instead some are giving them carte blanche to continue to scrap content and hack sites.

Why? Because these programs don't care as long as they make money!

It's why it's time for AGD, GPWA, APCW, CasinoMeister, eCogra et al to say enough is enough and blacklist ALL affiliate programs who turn a blind eye to these rogue affiliates.

If this action plan commenced, the scraping/hackings would stop in no time flat! Because at this point it would HURT the affiliate programs/casinos supporting these criminals.

 

[inspiration]

Do your homework AGD on GPWA there are threads about Affeurope that find it acceptable to buy PPC traffic from hackers that damage our and innocent sites.

This is some serious S !

Allowing them and giving them good ratings / banners on your forum is really the last thing affiliates want.

I know you need to pay the bills but this situation sure is not living up to AGD guidelines and what it intended to be : protecting OUR interests.

 

[AussieDave]

Do your homework AGD on GPWA there are threads about Affeurope that find it acceptable to buy PPC traffic from hackers that damage our and innocent sites.

You of all people should know the lengths I've gone to, over the years, to TRY and make our industry a fair playing field for all.

Clearly not too many give a rats until it hurts their wallet, then it's a major issue.

And unless people actually jump on board this fight now, it will end up being like it always is, a lot of talk and nothing else.