Things that happen because of neglect.

[Bert Vierstra]

Being a webmaster can be a time consuming job, even if you just manage a few websites.

I have been rebuilding the front of this site, and hoped for better times regarding the number of visitors, they have been going down about 20%, in the last half year, but no

I didn't care much about the site, it was going very well, and I stopped reading the webmaster forums a long time ago.

But because of the drop in visitors, I started to read the webmaster forums again, to find the root of the evil.

Well, after a while I found the main cause, I guess.

What is (at least in my eyes) rather new is the fact that search engines can recognize duplicated content, but sometimes fail to recognize who wrote it in the first place, and they "sack" the originals in the rankings, in favor of the copies. This can have a negative spiraling effect. If it happens once that a site is marked (not rightfully) to be copying content, the next time its easier to assume its a copying site.

When I finally found out about this, I started to search for copies of my texts, on other websites.

I have found plenty. So many, its scaring, and still new ones appear, often set in place by rivaling websites, in order to bury me in the search engine results.

Fortunately there are means to get rid of the offenders, sometimes an email is enough, but most of the time, you get no reply, and then DMCA complaints can be filed.

See here:

http://www.google.com/dmca.html

And fortunately it can be proved that the content has been written by me, because this site has been "recorded" in the Internet archive for quite a number of years, see http://www.archive.org

My score until now is:

One website closed.
3 websites each removed a page.

And a few sites, didn't reply to my friendly request.

They will receive DMCA notices from Google, will be delisted and nailed to the wall of shame here (I hope):

http://www.chillingeffects.org/search.cgi?search=bali

Today 6 faxes have been send, and more will follow.

Its WAR

I have automated email notifications setup (thanks Google) whenever a copied text pops up in the Google Results.

For those interested:

http://groups.google.com/group/Google_W ... 682322abaf

http://groups.google.com/group/Google_W ... 8a49cf9ef7

Or:

http://www.google.com/search?q=google+proxy+hijack

 

[drbruce]

With all due respect Burt (because I think that forum has been excellent over the years),


There's just not a lot here for expats anymore. when hot topics are what's the best bar in Sanur, I'd just as soon look for information elsewhere.

I know that you can't control the level of discourse, but how many people on here actually live in Bali or in Indonesia?

I'm finding that this forum is a lot less helpful and interetsting than some others these days.

Regards,

Bruce

 

[Bert Vierstra]

Dr Bruce,

while I agree with your post, my post was has nothing to with what you wrote as an answer to it. (Although a few of the faxes were send regarding expatriates in or doing business in Bali)

Maybe your post was not intended like that...

Less helpful, and less interesting, so be it. I can unfortunately not find the time and energy to be an entertaining host, I have piles of work...

I "dream" many times about another concept. where there is no moderation, or a "boss", and where the members govern themselves. I have the concept ready, but just no time to program it, maybe I find a ready made program somewhere, sometime.

 

[Bert Vierstra]

Oh talking about Roy,

From what I understand he sold his "villa" in Ubud, as listed here:

http://www.baliadvertising.net/detail.php?id=6

Many thanks for taking care of this house keeping detail, but I thought you
might like to add "SOLD" to a listing on your generously offered Bali
Advertising site.

Cheers to you and Dewi....Roy and Eri

 

[tintin]

What was it all about? I did not understand one single word of what you were writing about in your first post. :roll: :roll:

 

[Bert Vierstra]

Daniel...

It is a rant about other people copying content of my site (and some trying to "tank" my search engine rankings.)

 

[Sanurian]

Hi Bert

For the average person, I think you've exceeded the boundaries. Most people will have no idea what you're talking about.

And drbruce:

There's just not a lot here for expats anymore. when hot topics are what's the best bar in Sanur, I'd just as soon look for information elsewhere.

I know that you can't control the level of discourse, but how many people on here actually live in Bali or in Indonesia?

I'm finding that this forum is a lot less helpful and interesting than some others these days.

You may well be right. There are very few active expats on this forum. Only a small handful. Including me. I can't speak for the others but I get very bored reading posts about bars, accommodation, drivers, visa stuff, and so on. God help us all if we get the "25 sleeps to go" crap.

 

[tintin]

Hi Bert,

Thanks for your concise explanation of the problem. But why would someone want to COPY some of the content from your site? What is so earth-shattering about some of the ramblings (including mine) which appear on this site, or any other site of this kind? :roll: As far as I know, it is not copyrighted anyway. It seems to me that it is just more E&M pollution!

As for

some trying to "tank" my search engine rankings

Excuse my ignorance: What search engine? What ranking? "tank"?

...I plead "non-guilty." :?

 

[Bert Vierstra]

Some folks "out there", on the wild wild web, are looking to sell something. It can be very hard to accompany this selling thing with some useful and original information, but the more you publish "around" your stuff you want to sell, the higher the chance is that someone finds you on the web.

So you see, on many many websites originating from our beloved island that once a subject is comprehensively written and published on a website somewhere, a lot of other webmasters find an easy copy and paste way of adding content to their website.

This a sample text form the wiki pages to demonstrate, how this text has found its way around other websites:

Type this text in Google : "Bali has been inhabited since early prehistoric times" including the quotes, and click "Repeat with omitted results included" you get an idea.

But this is just the top of the iceberg, and you find sites that made little variations on the text.

Our beloved friends at Google have found some algorithm to determine if sites display original or copied content, and base their rankings on that. Unfortunately its not perfect.

So it can happen, that an original piece of text is ranked below a copycat. The writers of the original don't like that.

Now are property laws and visa regulations something where its hard to be original about. But still you can, a bit.

A few years ago, I wrote texts about these subjects. I also got my information from the web, and other sources, but made original pages about the subjects.

Other people also thought so, and copied these texts in full on their website. Now this very website, has come in a situation where those copies, in some cases, are considered more relevant for certain search queries than the originals I once wrote.

This has a negative spiral effect (long story), where rankings go down and down, and I am afraid I found out a bit too late.

So I am forced to break the negative spiral, by filing those DMCA reports.

I also could consider rewriting those texts every month or 3, but hee, I am human too.

There are naive people, who just copy and paste, and some of them are genuinely surprised that this is something you are not supposed to do. But here are also some mean bastards who know exactly what they are doing, and which effects this may have.

And there are other ways where your texts, or even whole websites get copied, either by naive people, or by mean bastards, but proxy stories are another subject.

I am not talking about the texts on this website written by the members, but they ARE copyrighted as well, see the bottom of this page, but about texts appearing on the front side of this page, the real estate section.

I have some means of automated detecting if there is copied content indexed by Google, this is the last sample:

ht tp : // mybestproperties . blogspot . com (remove the spaces)

This site will soon be deleted, by Google.

Now what his this to do with Bali?

Well, I live here and some of the DMCA complaints I have send will affect other expatriates living here. I have been nice, I send emails and asked friendly first, but if they don't give a shit, they will be told in another way that copying is not a nice thing to do, especially if it can hurt my number of visitors. They will be "blacklisted" until they clean up their act, and possibly listed for life on http://www.chillingeffects.org/

It feels kinda shitty, but thats how it is.

 

[tintin]

Thanks for this elaboration. Now it is starting to make sense. Also, I stand corrected: I had no idea that my b.s. is copyrighted, as I never had looked at the fine print. :lol:

 

[Jimbo]

When it comes to content of the site this dependends on the users. Like most I have looked at the other sites in Bali and still consider this to be far better and more original than them.

The nature of the beast is that people search for information and once obtained they do not stay. However to answer Dr. Bruce. This site is not for people who live in Bali or Lombok but for those who have an interest in doing so.

To make it more interesting as a site (not just about Bali) is to let some of the subjects run free (although still moderated IMO) and let the subjects come and flow as they may.

What do others think.

 

[FreoGirl]

Re: RE: Things that happen because of neglect.

This site is not for people who live in Bali or Lombok but for those who have an interest in doing so.

I think a good deal of the audience are those who have an interest in living in Bali - but so far I haven't found a particularly active, helpful forum of expats outside of Jakara (which is a whole other type of expat) either. Maybe I'm missing something?

My own experience is that when you are living in Indonesia, you often have limited access to the internet, and certainly don't get the sort of time on-line that you get outside of Indonesia.

My life in Indonesia was quite removed from the internet world - and while it was nice to visit it every so often, it was not too frequently (ala my posting activity in 2005).

I think that is why most of the more active members don't live in Bali. The lucky buggers living the life don't need to talk about it. :wink: They participate in the Bali community in more traditional ways.

 

[Ni Luh Ann]

I second that FreoGirl. I have always had very limited access to the internet while living in/visiting Bali. We don't have a phone in our village (land line), let alone the internet! I always look forward to reading posts that are made by people actually living over there, however appreciate that logging onto the forum may not be the first thing they do when they wake up in the morning!

 

[BaliLife]

i think a good forum is a forum that makes you feel connected to the subject matter when you're reading / posting in it.. i.e. when i'm reading this forum (perhaps it's some kind of escapeism), i kinda feel as though i'm already in bali.. so for me, this forum rocks, regardless of the subject at a given time (sure some seem obsolete); generally, i have a daily bug - i check it a few times a day... check it driving home.. check it from... let's just say - thank god for the blackberry...

ct

 

[Sergio]

Bert, that blog link you posted... blatant and brutal! Those who wish to check it out, please do so by opening a new window and not coming from this great site here.

Good luck Bert!

 

[BLI GEDE]

Re; ht tp : // mybestproperties . blogspot . com

H O L Y C R A P ! ! !

Bli Gede