Not much gets under skin of content providers more than those who rip off content. A common online scenario plays out as follows: You write (or commission) some terrific content. You post it on your website only to find various blogs have “borrowed” or flat-out stolen the content for their website. Nine times out of ten, there is no link back to your site and you get no credit for the content at all. Then, to add insult to injury, thanks to your content, these sites rank higher in the search engines than you do.

Content Issues
The stolen content problem is tremendous in the online world. Articles, sales pages and the like are quickly becoming the power behind the internet and success with websites, but to have your hard work stolen is more than frustrating – it’s infuriating.

When your content is stolen, you have limited options. You can have your lawyer send a cease and desist letter. This only works inside the United States however, which may not be enough for the many sites which copy content who happen to be located overseas. You can contact the search engines and submit a complaint or letter letting the company know of the problem, but you may not see any results. You can also contact the company directly letting them know the terms of use for your content. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind them using it if they included a link to your site or your byline.

Get Link Juice
Which brings us nicely stolen content’s possible silver lining. If two blogs are running the same articles, but one is ranked above you, the search engines must feel their blog is more substantial and worthy of higher ranks. Now, in 2008, websites will be able to “steal” link juice from theft sites by posting links back to your own website in the comments and summaries of each article. (more…)

There is little argument that Wordpress is terrific software. Arguably the best aspect of the software is its price – Wordpress is shareware, but that may also be its limiting factor.

Wordpress
Wordpress is a blogging platform designed by Askimet. It was released as shareware and upgrades, plug-ins and other utilities are offered constantly to help the design further along. Wordpress is one of the most popular shareware programs and its versatility and ease of use make it immensely popular with amateurs and professionals alike. Wordpress is arguably the most popular blogging platform, but it is also the source of many headaches and a few cross words.

Problems with Wordpress
One of the primary issues bloggers discover with Wordpress is the sheer number of spam comments and some serious security issues. This is not too surprising considering the program is free to everyone, including those who would pick it apart to find loopholes and backdoors into sites. These security issues have raised more than a few eyebrows and some have gone so far as to call Wordpress weak.

Wordpress Weak?
But before anyone gets too carried away panning Wordpress, even its critics take note of the amazing features the platform offers and the constant solutions and solvents to all the issues that arise. Even Shoemoney, who’s been known to pick on Wordpress from time to time, has come out publicly to announce that he strongly supports Wordpress and has done what he can to help fix various bugs he finds. He’s also urged the hacking experts out there to actually contribute help to the design rather than stating how simple it would be to fix this or that. (more…)