Stop Site Scrapers with AntiLeech

It’s always a constant challenge how to protect our original content from site scrapers. It’s even harder no that blogs are easier to scrape because of full RSS feeds.

There’s the usual prevention methods most bloggers do — going partial feeds instead of full feeds. I’ve never really got worried with it even though I’m publishing full feeds. However lately, I’ve noticed that the scraper sites (splogs) sometimes even ranked higher than mine which has caused alarm.

Search engines promises publishers their system can intelligently identify the original from the dupes but I don’t think their success success rate is any good either. So, I thought getting a back link from the splogs will solve that dupe issue.

Lately, I’m using the Feed Footer plugin which adds custom footers (copyright, notices, advertisements) to the bottom of blog posts in the RSS feed. I’m sure most of you have seen them already.

However, if that’s not enough, you can try the AntiLeech plugin:

AntiLeech produces a fake set of content especially for them that includes links back to your site and sends it only to them. When they steal this content, it appears online just like normal, except now you’ve turned the tables on them and have provided them with useless content.

AntiLeech can detect a splogger bot using its User-Agent string (an identifier that some bots send when they are collecting data), or by IP address. You can enter a User-Agent or an IP address into the Options panel of your WordPress blog. When a visitor with a qualifying (any checked option on the options page) User-Agent or IP address visits your site, they will see only the generated content. They will see it in your page layout and in your feeds. Anywhere you’re normally outputting content, that’s where the fake content will appear to them.

Regular users whose browsers do not match these strings will see your normal content. RSS aggregators should be able to display your content normally, too.

You can download the plugin here. AntiLeech does not really prevent the splogger bots or the splogger themselves from accessing your site, they can still manually do a copy and paste. Still, you have one less to worry about.