Pillow Winner and Truncating
Happy Wednesday Friends! I hope you’re having a wonderful week.
Let’s start this post with the exciting news… who won that GORGEOUS ZGallerie pillow that was selected by Kim Myles.
And the winner is… michelle w who said she follows me with GFC (Google Friend Connect). Congrats Michelle! I sent you an email.
Truncating! Have you heard this word around bloggyland this week? It’s definitely the buzz word of the week.
Truncating is something that after today will be the new norm for my blog and many others.
Unfortunately there are people (scrapers) who’s job is to steal the hard working content of mine and many other people’s blogs. I work hard to create, write and make my blog what it is. It’s a business for me. I LOVE what I do and having someone steal my content and then make money off of it is just not cool!
Just to clarify. I’m not talking about someone who is inspired by my projects and tries it themselves and uses 1 image from my site and kindly links back to my post. I LOVE that. That’s not content theft that’s blog inspiration. The reason we all LOVE blogging so much.
I’m talking about people who take your entire post, words and photos, and put it on their site as if they were the creators of it.
So… unfortunately the only way to protect myself from this is to truncate my blog posts. So what does that mean for you my readers. If you follow my blog in a reader, my blog posts after today are going to appear shortened. I know… stinks!
To read the full content you will have click on over… I’m so sorry… but I hope you’ll still love me and press the magic button to come read all my content.
The easiest way for scrapers to steal my content – your content – is just a simple copy and paste from your reader feeds… so making this change will help protect my content.
Beth over at Home Stories A to Z has an awesome post up today that explains in greater detail why this is such a big deal and how you can safe guard yourself too. Click here for the great read.
I highly recommend you read all her great tips and then you can decide for yourself if this is a move you need to make on your blog too.
And I hope you’ll stick around too. (SMILE)
Hi Maryann! Just wanted to say that I am in need of your totally apt image as I too have been a victim of content theft. Thank you for posting this. My whole blog including watermarked images or my cards has been stolen and displayed as theirs in another blogger blog. What terrible people! So I hope it’s alright that I have used your image. If it isn’t cool. do let me know and down it will come. Thanks again, your strength is inspiring.
I appreciate that you have opened up this subject. I never knew wwhy some blogs made me click over to their site to read a post. I too found it quite annoying and often delete the post due to time constraints and topic. Now that I understand the reasoning behind it I am not as bothered. What I would like to know…if you feel comfortable sharing…what are these sites that are stealing content? I do not want to follow them!!!! Thanks.
I fully support any blog that wants to truncate their feed.
I myself, after much research, have decided NOT to truncate my feed. You can read why here:
https://decortoadore.blogspot.com/2012/08/why-i-wont-be-truncating-my-feed-and.html
Thank you for the link Laura. I am going to read it today along with a few other ones I’ve come across. Still hoping for a great solution (or at least an easy enough solution) to make it all work.
I’m 100% with Kelly amd Brandi. I mostly read on my phone, so any blog that trunicates, I don’t bother subscribing to, and I think a lot of people are like that.
I understand the problems that you and other bloggers are having with scrapes, but I ask you to reconsider the new format with the RSS feeds. I very much enjoy your blog, but will be unable to read it if I must click over to your site every time that I want to read it. Please consider using some of the strategies mentioned here https://blog.kissmetrics.com/content-scrapers/ so I, and fellow readers, can continue enjoying your blog.
I couldn’t agree more with Kelly. 9 out of 10 times, I don’t click to go outside of reader and I typically end up unsubscribing to the blogs that try and force me. As a professional web developer, I can tell you that truncating your posts is NOT the only solution. It’s just the easiest solution for you and the most incontinent solution for your readers. The link Kelly gives is a great place to start if you wish to consider truncation.
Agree with Kelly and Brandi. I’ve been wondering why some of the blogs I follow have been doing this. Now I guess I know. 🙁 I just skip over them in my feed and usually end up unfollowing. Just some feedback. Love your blog and hope to keep reading.
Thank you Stacey! I sure hope I can find a way to protect myself and make it convenient for my readers too.
Thank you Kelly for the link. I’ll be reading that and others I’ve been given today. I’d be terribly sad to lose readers. Still hoping for a great solution.
Thank you for clarifying this! I was confused about people stealing posts and worried I may have done it just by posting on Pinterest. But I don’t even have a blog, let alone try to make anyone’s work look like mine. Thanks for letting ppl like me know what’s up out there!
Maryann, I have shortened my posts too! I have seen my posts… THE WHOLE thing… on a couple of blogs. And I have seen other’s too!!! I did shut down one blog because of this, but it took such an emotional tole on me!!! Thank you for shedding a light on to this theft! I agree with everything you are saying!!!
I will be one of your lucky readers who will press the button and read on!
Thanks Yvonne! I’m sorry you’ve had to go through it too… it’s definitely a draining process to deal with.
Just a question about truncating. Can’t they just as easily copy and paste from your website?
They could Andrea – but it’s much easier for them to do it through a feed. I’ve had only my newest 2 posts as full posts on my blog and the rest have been shortened. Of course if someone really wants to copy and paste they will take the time, but hopefully this will cut down severally the number of attempts at it.