I agree. I don’t see where its asking too much for them to all make a statement so that we can decide who it is we want to support.
This copying of content is IMHO our worst enemy right now; and I don’t even compete in the SEO wars. That said however, I do get a little free traffic, or used to anyway. But copying our content ensures every obscure keyword will become targeted with sites that in my case, will certainly beat me out on links. Since its the same content, they’re going to rank better.
So I’m thinking that most here, who do rely on SEO rankings, would be the ones out in front handing out pitchforks and torches, ….
Perhaps a poll on whether this should be asked of sponsors? Personally I think its important they DO take a stand on this issue that we can count on to punish the guilty while keeping the innocent safe.
Should be easy enough to do. Most stolen content is going to appear as a page that is sending traffic much later on than when the original content page started sending traffic to that sponsor. I realize that won’t work in 100% of the cases but it should be as good a place as any to start.
What I fear is that if anything isn’t done now to get unscrupulous sponsors to do the right thing, that soon those sites that have so much content (whom btw I’ve heard from one source that some are sending over 800 players a month) … that before long we won’t have enough bargaining power to be worth comparing to those cheats that are sending so many players per month.
Even the honest programs will eventually feel the pressure to give in – simply in order to stay alive.
This situation IMHO has huge implications and I think a collective force will be needed in order to stop the bleeding.
I sincerely hope that this is given the attention by all, that it deserves.