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Secrets to Success
Deborah Cole Micek
and John-Paul Micek
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Stop thief! That’s my podcast!
Your business blog and Web-site content is valuable. You've worked hard or paid good money to get it online, but there are thieves waiting to steal your property. Whether written, audio or images -- you must protect your material from theft and hijacking.
Here's what can happen when your good content gets hijacked by bad people:
» Your articles can be blatantly copied into another blog or Web site with no reference or link back to you as the source.
» Your RSS feed can be picked up by automated search bots and used to help populate Web pages created by software programs for marketers looking to make money with Google Adsense. While this may not seem like a major threat, to people who land on these "garbage" sites, it looks like you are a willing participant.
» Competitors can copy your sales letters and Web site copy for their own sites. With a little tweak in the wording, they think they are not stealing -- but they are.
You want to leverage word-of-mouth marketing and have your articles spread virally across the Web. But, without the right copyright protections, your content could be spread around with no credit given to you.
Here are a few simple steps you can take to protect yourself:
» Include a formal copyright statement at the bottom of your layout template so it appears on every page of your business blog or Web site. For added teeth, provide a link to your site-use policy. This gives you the legal basis to take action against perpetrators.
» Include a customized copyright attribution line at the bottom of every post. Sign up at www.Creative-Commons.org to create your own customized copyright protection tag. This is free.
» Insert a hidden copyright tag in your articles or Web pages. Embed a line in white-colored font in the article, post, or Web page. This is an easy way to prove to an offender that they've hijacked your material. As an added bonus, enter that exact tag into a search engine and find out whenever someone posts that content -- with or without your permission.
» Set your blog to publish only introductory excerpts instead of entire blog posts. Readers will be forced to visit your blog to read the content instead of getting it on some automated bot site.
» Use Copyscape.com to quickly see if any Web page tracked by Google is copying content from a particular page of your site. They also have a "for fee" service that you can use to protect your content.
With these five simple no-cost action steps you can help protect your intellectual property on the 'Net and give yourself plenty of legal ground to stand on when going after violators.
John-Paul Micek is the lead business coach at RPM Success Group Inc. Reach him at
JPM@RPMsuccess.com or toll-free at (888) 334-8151.
Deborah Cole Micek, chief executive officer of RPM Success Group, is a business success coach and life strategist. Reach her at
DCM@RPMsuccess.com or toll-free at (888) 334-8151.