Content scraping happens when people create sites that are similar to yours and then unapologetically copy your content. If you are not new to the world of the internet, you might already be familiar with the term content scraping. Sometimes, people only use excerpts from the website, and link it with the original website. However, there are times when the entire page or blog post is copied and used in another website, without even giving due credits.

Content scraping is also known as data scraping and web scraping. Stealers make use of bots that download the content from the website without seeking permission of the owner. However, content scraping is not always carried out by bots. Sometimes individuals also steal data. While humans only steal readable data, bots are used to reproduce content for malicious purposes. They can duplicate the content for SEO, violate copyrights and steal organic data. Furthermore, HTTP requests from bots prevent genuine and dedicated users to access your website.

In this blog we will be covering the following:

• How do bots scrape data?
• What Type of Content Do These Scraping Bots Target?
• What’s the Purpose of Stealing Data?
• Other Types of Web Scraping
  • Contact Scraping
  • Price Scraping

• Can You Prevent Web Scraping?
  • Cloudfare Bot Management
  • Rate Limiting
  • Using Captcha 
  • Contact the Scraping Site
  • DMCA
  • You can use Put. htaccess File

• Can we catch the Content Scrapers?
  • Copy Scape
  • Trackbacks
  • Webmaster Tools
  • Google Alerts

How Do Bots Scrape Data?

a scraper bot usually sends a series of HTTP GET requests, followed by copying and saving all the information present on the website. HTTP GET is used for retrieving and requesting data from a particular resource in the server. Consequently, the bot makes its way through the hierarchy of the victim website and leaves only after it has copied all data. 

There are sophisticated versions of bots as well. They use JavaScript for filling out forms on the website and for downloading any protected data. There are also browser automation programs that allow automated bot interaction with the website. Like I said, individuals can also manually copy data, but bots crawl and download the content in a matter of seconds. Even if the size is huge, with hundreds and thousands of pages, scraper bots can do it much faster.

What Type of Content Do These Scraping Bots Target?

The bots target what the designer wants them to target. It can include almost any content present on the Internet publically, such as text, HTML code, CSS code, images, etc. 

What’s the Purpose of Stealing Data?

The stolen content can be used for various purposes. Text can be used on another website, and hence the SEO ranking can be stolen. They can also deceive users. An attacker might like the look of a certain website, and thus steal the CSS and HTML code to duplicate the user interface of a legitimate brand. 

Cyber attackers also use the data for creating phishing websites. These websites trick web surfers into providing personal data.

Other Types of Web Scraping

Broadly speaking, there are two more types of content scraping.

• Contact Scraping
• Price Scraping

Contact Scraping

Contact scraping refers to the act of acquiring access to an individual’s email account, phone number and even addresses to retrieve information for marketing purposes. The Chrome plugin known as Scraper can be used for this purpose by people without any developer skills. For advanced users software such as Xpath and jQuery are capable of extending he range of items that Scraper can grab.

Price Scraping

Price Scraping refers to the practice of downloading all price information from a website. Businesses opt for this method when they want to adjust their own pricing accordingly. Software such as Data Scraper is a famous tool for this purpose. Although it is considered an illegal competitive price monitoring means, ecommerce and travel websites use it quite often.

Can You Prevent Web Scraping?

Being a blogger, I think this is one of my biggest concerns. Can we really prevent our data from being scraped? Well, there are a few options available on the internet.

• Cloudfare Bot Management
• Rate Limiting

• Using Captcha 
• Contact the Scraping Site
• DMCA
• You can use Put. htaccess File
• Add a lot of Links in Your Content

Cloudfare Bot Management

 The Cloudfare Bot Management can block content scraping attacks. It also hampers other kind of malevolent traffic. Cloudfare recognizes bots through their behavioural patterns. It allows for seamless access to the users, and results in fewer false positives.

Rate Limiting

Another way of preventing content scraping is limiting the rate. A real individual cannot request the content for hundreds of pages in a few seconds. It is humanly impossible. So you can limit the number of pages anyone can request.  It limits network traffic and puts a cap on how many number of times a user can repeat a particular action within a specific frame of time

Using Captcha

CAPTCHA is an abbreviation for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart, quite a mouthful, isn’t it?

Anyway, CAPTCHA is a type of security measures that comprises two parts. First, a randomly generated sequence of letters or numbers appears on the screen in a distorted way and, second the text box. The user is asked to figure out the numbers or jumbled up letters and write it in the comment box. 

It also asks to match or select a similar type of elements, such as selecting images that only consist of traffic lights etc. Bots are not smart enough to identify images, or distorted letters/numbers. 

Contact the Scraping Site

This one is easy. If you ever find your content on another website, just write to them and apprise them of the problem. You can also send them a notice for removing the content instantly. 

If there is no means available for contacting them, you can use WhoisLookup to find out the domain owner. Sometimes the website is not privately registered. However, you can still find an email address to the administrator. 

DMCA

Another way of protecting your content is through DMCA. DMCA comes with take-down-services option to remove anyone who is copying your content such as video, image or audio etc. This is the legal way, and should be taken if the scraper is unwilling to compromise. You can also use Who is Tool to find out the hosting services of the website, and launch a complaint with DMCA. Digital Millennium Copyright Act demands the hosting services to take strict action against copied content.

You can use Put. htaccess File

This step is for the pro programmers. It requires you to get creative with your coding in the access log. You should hire an expert programmer for this purpose. They will check your log access to find foreign IP address; if any such address is found it will mean that your website has fallen victim to scrapers. Block them in the .htaccess files. 

Add A lot of Links in Your Content

Another way of keeping scrappers at by is using links. Linking maintains backlinks even during the duplication process. This will direct the traffic from the scrapper website to yours. It will be extra beneficial for you. 

Can we Catch the Content Scrapers?

Just like normal thieves, the content scrapers are not always easy to catch. For you to know that your content has been scrapped, you have to continuously search for your post titles in the search engines. Only then wil you be able to track down the websites who have been stealing your content.

• Copy Scape
• Trackbacks
• Webmaster Tools
• Google Alerts

Copy Scape

Another way of catching the scrapers is using Copyscape. Copyscape is a search engine like Google and Yahoo. However, when you enter your URL into the address bar, it detects and finds out if there is any duplicate present on the internet. The starting few searches are free, but afterwards you have to pay for a premium account. With the premium account you can check more than 10,000 pages in one go.

Trackbacks

Trackback is an automatic notification which is sent to the user when a link has been created to their blog post from an externa source. If you are using Akismet you will receive the notifications in the spam folder. Don’t forget to use links to other posts in your content to get trackbacks appear from the content scrapers. These links need to have strong anchor texts as well. 

In WordPress the feature is automatic. The user receives the notification whenever an external site links your content in their website. This way you keep a track of people who are accessing and using your content. You also prevent malicious use of your material.

Webmaster Tools

Webmaster is a great tool for bloggers and content creators. Simply select your website in Webmaster Tools, and select Web>>Links to Your Site. It gives you the details of any website which is linking to your site. But not everyone in the list is a scraper. It could be genuine users who are referring to your website for supporting their data. It will be smart to visit each page and find out which one of the links is scraped.

Google Alerts

This is suitable for sites that do not post often. If you want to keep up with the mentions of your blog posts on any other website Google Alert is the way to go. Google Alert works by using the exact match for your content by putting it in quotation marks.

You receive instant preview of the types of results you will get. However, you can also get the Google Alerts to an RSS feed to manage them as per your convenience.

Conclusion

Content creators work tirelessly on writing their blogs and creating articles. So when it gets stolen, it not only hurts their sentiments, but discourages the writers as well, especially if the copied content is making more than the original post. Finding duplicate content can be a bit difficult. However, wise use of Google Alert and other tools can help to keep a track of them. You can also use a lot of links in your website, use .htaccess file to protect your data. However, do not get discouraged if you find your content on another website. Asking the scrapper website to remove the content can work. If it does not, you can always go the legal way,