Scraper sites

[Georgia Poker]

I've got a scraper site that's hitting my site daily, his URL is

xxxx texasholdem(DOT)pokerandblog(DOT)com

Can I write to Hostgator and ask them to shut this down?

[Michael Martinez]

You CAN but they may give you a hard time.

If you're embedding your internal links with absolute URLs AND if your site outranks the scraper dude's site, you could just leave him alone.

Some of the scrapers will provide explicit attribution to the source with a good link.

The SEO community is divided over how to handle these sites. I have spent many hours issuing takedown notices but I'm more likely to leave a scraper alone IF:

• It scrapes more than my own site
• It sends traffic to my site
• My site outranks it in the SERPs
• The links are allowed to pass value without any tricks
• The site is not doing anything malicious (hosting malware, advocating illegal activity, etc.)

I'm not saying I want people to scrape my content -- I DON'T WANT THAT. But the Web is too big and there are millions of naive people who don't know any better -- I'd rather get some value if I can than have to be my own private intellectual property rights police force.

[Georgia Poker]

You CAN but they may give you a hard time.

If you're embedding your internal links with absolute URLs AND if your site outranks the scraper dude's site, you could just leave him alone.

Some of the scrapers will provide explicit attribution to the source with a good link.

The SEO community is divided over how to handle these sites. I have spent many hours issuing takedown notices but I'm more likely to leave a scraper alone IF:

• It scrapes more than my own site
• It sends traffic to my site
• My site outranks it in the SERPs
• The links are allowed to pass value without any tricks
• The site is not doing anything malicious (hosting malware, advocating illegal activity, etc.)

I'm not saying I want people to scrape my content -- I DON'T WANT THAT. But the Web is too big and there are millions of naive people who don't know any better -- I'd rather get some value if I can than have to be my own private intellectual property rights police force.

GREAT summary and reply!

Thanks, that really puts my mind at ease over any negative effects from this activity.