Interview with Denis Bernardy - Question 3 by Free Blogging Advice Guidelines project

Interview with Denis Bernardy
Question 3
(read Question 2)

Content stealing is really a big problem. Many people ask questions "What to do?" "How can I stop or prevent the steal of my content?"

Question 3.
Do you have any ideas about how Semiologic can help people about it
(if it is possible)?

I'd say it's not possible, but you can work around it. Let me explain.

The content theft is due to the presence of RSS feeds. RSS is really simple syndication and these are machine readable of your content. You know your front page has series of posts on it, and these posts appear in the RSS feed.

Now, depending on the amount of content that you put on your front page and on your blog posts your content in then subject to theft or not. Basically if your content is in your RSS feed, then potentially anyone can steal it, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about that.

Except… Except putting your content outside the RSS feed which is what I usually recommend my customers to do. I have a plugin in Semiologic Pro which is called Silo Web Design. What it breaks down to is - I tell the users, "Your real content should be on static pages anyway." You know the difference between the static page and blog post is that the static page is left outside of the blog chronology. It's a permanent piece of content.

If you are writing say Dog Training Tips - there is something intrinsic about dog training tips, it's not something new, it's not a new piece of information that is constantly moving, there is something permanent in that piece of information.

So, it's usually a better option to create a static page for that piece of information and then to create a blog post and say, "Well. I've updated the dog training section, and I've added a new tip how to teach your dog how to sit." And this post gets into your RSS feed with a link to a static page.

When you organize your site in this manner, then your content is theft proof, because the true content is not in the RSS feed, only the announcement of your new content is. And if your announcement ends up in the RSS feed and get to other blogs - all the better, because that's an extra one way link to your site. You don't need to worry about.

Read Question 4 about make money blogging and AdSense placement on blogs.