I started getting pingbacks from sites like Topsy a few months ago whenever I tweeted to promote a blog post I’d written on my mommy blog. I checked out Topsy and saw that it only showed a brief excerpt of my posts with a link back to my site along with all of their little bells and whistles that justify the site’s existence.

I thought that the pingbacks from Ubervu meant that they were the same sort of deal. I was wrong.

I don’t know what compelled me to click the link yesterday, but I went to see what Ubervu had to say about one of my posts yesterday…

And I found my post there in its entirety. With the entire comment feed as well.

The one thing I can say for them is that they’re taking me seriously about taking my content off their site as requested. I’d sent them an initial email yesterday about the problem, and they responded that they would remove me from their site, but I still found some of my pages there this morning, as recently as 5 minutes before starting this post. After a second email and some tweets back and forth, the posts were removed before I could go back for screenshots.

Their justification for this content theft is astounding.

So they think it’s cool to scrape your blog posts and your comments to build a conversation on their site. A conversation that started when you wrote a post, tweeted about it, and elicited comments from your own readers. A conversation which Ubervu thinks they can just swipe and continue over on their site.

I was told via email that there was some sort of glitch that made the full text of my post available on their site instead of just an excerpt. But the fact that my comments were there, too, really got me. And the comments were there intentionally.

I don’t spend my intellectual energy writing a compelling post that inspires people to comment just to let some automated content scraper come and take the conversation over onto their site.

I highly recommend you search their site for your blog listings. My search for [cutestkidever.org site:ubervu.com] returned 375 results, so their scraping was quite extensive. Then you can use Ubervu’s handy contact form to request removal of your site from their index. For good measure, you can tweet a warning about @Ubervu to your followers on Twitter so they can check it out for themselves and decide whether or not they want their scraped content to remain on the site.

Update: Scroll down to see Ubervu’s response from Dragos. I appreciate the quick response and the willingness to make things right.

Ubervu Steals Your Blog Posts AND Your Comments is a post from: Christina Gleason - Founder of Phenomenal Content LLC

Back in April, I wrote about how my mommy blog had been targeted by a comment spammer. Since then, Carla from My SEO Gal emailed me, and I need to share what she told me.

Carla apologized for spamming my site. In her defense, she didn’t realize it was spam until she followed the link to my blog post from her referrer log. I hope she doesn’t mind me quoting her email to me:

I truly never meant to spam your blog at all and I feel absolutely horrible and have definitely lost some sleep over it this past weekend… after careful consideration, I have removed the service from my site. That is not the type of reputation I want to portray to anyone nor do I want to offer a service to anyone that might be unethical or disrespectful to others.

I appreciate that she took the time to respond to me and to reconsider the service she was offering. This story has a happy ending. I only wish that the gazillion other people who are spamming blog posts would have the same revelation… but I think most of them know what they’re doing. And they just don’t care.

Thanks, Carla, for caring.

Update on Blog Comment Spam is a post from: Christina Gleason - Founder of Phenomenal Content LLC

There is an update to this story posted on June 16, 2009.

I was scanning my referrer logs over the weekend for my mommy blog, Cutest Kid Ever. I came across an interesting URL “myseogal.com” in the report. So I clicked on it.

That was when I discovered that one of my blog posts was an example of someone’s “Blog Commenting Services.” Yep, I was comment spammed. The worst  part? Because of the post it was on, I’d gone through and  manually approved the offending comments from the Akismet spam queue because I thought they might be genuine. It was a post for the Ultimate Blog Party 2009, in which people just randomly drop by and comment on other people’s blogs in hopes of winning prizes. And maybe finding a new blog to subscribe to along the way.

I immediately deleted the comments that were now confirmed as spam. I updated my blog post with a message for people considering purchasing the “services” this spammer was providing. There are a few things I take issue with about the claims this spammer is making on her Web site:

• “So you don’t have to worry about any black hat listings tactics.” (Oh really? Comment spam is white hat? I think Google would disagree.)
• “We do not post on any blogs that have a no follow tag.” (Wrong! My comments section is no-followed. And it was being used as an example!)

Let’s remember… the only reason these comments showed up is because I manually approved them to begin with. Akismet identifies this crap as the spam that it is. It was my own stupidity that allowed a spammer to post links about personalized diaper cakes… If you look at the remaining comments on the post, there are a lot of “Just dropping by” messages, which were all in the spirit of the UBP. The difference in the spam was the optimized anchor text… even though no link juice was getting passed.

Blog spam is icky. I suppose at $14.99 for 10 backlinks, you can’t really expect quality anyways. But seriously? This woman chose the wrong blog to use as an example for her spamming tactics.I did consider emailing her to insist she remove the link to my site, but then I thought that educating the people who clicked on it served my purpose better. I wonder how long it will take  her to catch on. (Maybe looking at her referrer log and finding this post?)

Just say no to blog spam. And if you’re in the market for link building services, don’t be naive and think you’re going to get quality links for $15. The Google algorithms likely can identify comment spam. If the algorithms don’t, human reviewers can. Don’t get smacked by the Google hammer for buying bargain basement link building services. Seriously. Contribute to the quality of the Web. Be smarter with your money and your reputation. Spam sucks for everyone.

Blog Comment Spam – People Pay for This? is a post from: Christina Gleason - Founder of Phenomenal Content LLC

Before my introduction to the world of Internet Marketing, I had never even heard of a no-follow link. I’ve been blogging for a few years, so it’s not like I’m a complete Web noob.  But as a blogger who just wanted a place to write about her son and her obsession with LOST, I didn’t even know the Google Webmaster Guidelines existed.

I’m not unique in this.

Which is why I’m concerned about Matt Cutts and his recent call to action about paid links. Loren Baker of Search Engine Journal has wrapped up a lot of his concerns quite nicely in a blog post.  I think that all of my fellow mommy bloggers – and bloggers in general – should read his post. Let me pull out a few takeaway messages:

• Google does not approve of paid links in any form, including sponsored conversations like product reviews and giveaways.
• If you publish a product review or giveaway and you don’t no-follow your links, Google will penalize both you and the company that sponsored your blog post.
• A Google penalization is generally understood to mean a demotion in ranking, which means it will be harder for searchers to find you on the Google SERPs.

I’d like a show of hands from bloggers who do not consider themselves a part of the SEO/Internet Marketing industry… Do you no-follow all of your links to your blog post sponsors? Do you know how to no-follow your links? Or maybe I should’ve started with a more basic question – do you know what no-follow means?

I did a preliminary poll on my personal Twitter account, and the results were split. Half of the responses indicated that they didn’t no-follow their links, and the other half didn’t even know what no-follow meant.  From those in the know, they had determined that passing link juice to their sponsors was only fair, considering they’d offered some form of compensation.  Unfortunately, that decision has the opposite effect.  By passing link juice to the sponsor’s Web site, both the blog publisher and the sponsoring company have violated Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, which can result in losing rankings and, by extension, visitors. Incurring a Google penalty doesn’t help your blog or the sponsor!

For all of the bloggers out there who are reading this and had no idea they were doing anything wrong, you’re in good company. (As a matter of fact, I would appreciate it if you would leave a comment, and maybe I can nudge Matt Cutts to come and take a look at how many experienced bloggers are completely clueless about this whole “paid link” notion.) Here’s a little help for no-following your links:

• Don’t use your visual blog editor to create no-follow links; use the HTML editor.
• Add this to your anchor tag: rel=”nofollow”

You must do this for any links in sponsored posts, whether you’re publishing a product review, running a giveaway, or have been otherwise compensated for placing a link.  You are not doing your sponsors any favors by leaving the no-follow off.

Now that you know, you can start doing right by Google. I don’t think it’s fair that Google penalizes bloggers for breaking rules they aren’t even aware of, but I don’t make the rules. I hope that I can reach out and spread the word so that my favorite blogs don’t get whacked by the Google hammer the next time they run one of their awesome giveaways. (By the way, consider this a shout out to all of the awesome bloggers who have hooked me up with some fantastic prizes. You rock! Blog giveaways FTW!)

If you’ve got the time, it would be worth it  to go back and edit old blog posts to no-follow your links retroactively. Matt Cutts has put the call out for people to report sites that buy and sell links, so you want to protect yourself! Google doesn’t allow you to plead ignorance, and they don’t even need proof that you published a paid link. If they think you’re guilty, then you will suffer the consequences. Don’t give them any reason to suspect you. No-follow links to all of your sponsors, and you’ll be fine.

Do Bloggers Even Know They’re Breaking Google’s Rules? is a post from: Christina Gleason - Founder of Phenomenal Content LLC

Wow, that didn’t take long! In addition to hundreds of unique visitors to my brand new Web site yesterday – which is quite literally brand new because I set up my nameservers on Monday night and got my hosting settled on Tuesday – I’ve already been unmasked as a superhero!

Dude, I’m a superhero? Awesome!

But seriously, I appreciate the amount of publicity you guys have given me, and the free press!

Twitter’s gone a bit crazy, too, and my inner diva is loving it.

chiropractic: @ChristinaGayle Great to see your mood is upbeat. http://christinagleason.com/ looks great and I suspect many good things will come.

lorenbaker: @ChristinaGayle I’m really happy for you and hope that this unforeseen event will be one of the best things to ever happen to you!

professor: RT @streko just contracted @christinagayle for some blog postings – don’t sleep on this one people!

vinceblackham: I just scored me a slice of @ChristinaGayle…her writing services, that is! You should too!! http://www.christinagleason.com

pmctosh: RT @ChristinaGayle: It’s official! http://christinagleason.com/ ME: like the phoenix folks, she’s risen up from the ashes. Congrats.

godhammer: If you deal in online + content + marketing & don’t know, follow, and immediately try to hire @ChristinaGayle, you’re missing out huge.

EclecticBird: @ChristinaGayle I think I’m going to have to beg you to teach me how to freelance for myself Hire yourself out as a guru.

godhammer: @ChristinaGayle You rock. @pearsonified @copyblogger You guys paying attention? She rocks. Period.

SoCaliScribes: @ChristinaGayle GIRL you didn’t waste NO time!

TheKenJones: @ChristinaGayle It’s also nice to see pictures of you without the secret agent sunglasses

ReTweetTrends: http://is.gd/j74u (expand) formerly known as quality gal, @christinagayle is now open for writing and content creation business http://christinagleason.com

TheKenJones: The Artist Formerly Known As QualityGal @ChristinaGayle is now available for freelance work at http://christinagleason.com/ Pls RT

joehall: @ChristinaGayle where can i get a quote?

yummyman: @ChristinaGayle I love the site, nice job, great photos and nice layout. I am excited for you.

…And that’s just going back 8 pages in Twitter search, after I launched the site. This doesn’t include the hundreds of supportive tweets I got in the 24 hours before that. It does wonders for my self-esteem when people I look up to and respect in the industry not only acknowledge my existence (which was a surprise in many cases – yeah, I have self-esteem issues) but rally behind me!

Have you blogged about me lately? Let me know so I can keep track and share with the rest of the class. Google blog search isn’t being very forthcoming, as it didn’t even turn up the superhero piece for me. Link me, baby!

Christina Gleason – Superhero? is a post from: Christina Gleason - Founder of Phenomenal Content LLC

Article writing and blogging are completely different animals. There are some spectacular bloggers who couldn’t write a quality SEO article if their lives depended on it. Likewise, there are many article writers who just aren’t cut out for the world of blogging. It’s a lucky find when you encounter a person who can do both. (It’s your lucky day!)

I’ll tell you why I love to blog. Blogging offers a lot more freedom than article writing. I can let my personality shine through. I can connect with readers and start conversations. And all of those grammatical rules I love so much? I get to break them occasionally for stylistic reasons. (Can you spot where I did it in this paragraph?)

Let me blog for you. If you’ve got a corporate blog that needs someone to help make your business seem less… corporate, why not let me make it more human?  If you’ve got a personal or hobby blog that you just don’t have time to update regularly, let me help you out with some fresh blog posts.

Rates are negotiated on a per-project basis, starting at $100 per blog post. Big companies may ask for $150-$300 per blog post, but they charge the same to large clients and small ones. I’m not going to ask Suzy’s Scrapbooking Blog to pay the same as Giant Monster Corporation Blog. If you need blog posts, make me an offer when you contact me. (Don’t forget to include total number of posts you want, or the frequency of posts you want on a recurring basis.)

Blogging Services is a post from: Christina Gleason - Founder of Phenomenal Content LLC