ok, all, it seems to me that after doing a lot of research that a scrapper CAN AND HAVE THE ABILITY to hurt your site by doing 2 things:
1. copy a whole page
or/and
2. link to your page with the intention to hurt you (there are several ways to do that, not every link can hurt you, it needs some specific properties)
from my research copying a unique phrase (like MyMadeUpTerm) and using it in regards to the LSI algo, it can just help you, but if you are REALLY intrested in ranking for this term and a scrapper ranks above you (which can happen if he is linking to you in trying to hurt you from his site or other sites of his or he is using a much better infrastructure), so if you really want him out then you should file a TRADEMARK on that phrase, once you are approved, then you may (and it is not always based on what my lawyers told me) have a case to notify him not to use this term and if he does not comply then you can file a DCMA to google to remove the offending page.
my lawyers tell me that even if you do not plan on filing a DCMA but do want to “own” your made up term then you should try and file a trademark, this will protect your domain name and reources more.
now, if he links to your site (you can check this with the link: in google , but better check it in yahoo and msn as well) and trying to hurt you by doing so , then complain to google about the domain.
it may well be as, members here said that it is a “personal” thing against sites which made complaints about these .pl sites, i don’t know, but i am running against these guys (i think it is the same group, also .pl stuff) in other industries I am playing as well and the things there are much worse, i will not specify the methods that they are using there (last time I was too specific – I got many IM and PM from moderators and members here, telling me I am giving bad ideas to people and this is why you have seen so many edits in the 1st few pages of this thread … ) but i sure hope it will stop.
now regarding the PPC rev. vs. vendors etc. , i really do not know, pick what ever you feel right, since i think they always have the ppc alternative, i do not know if it will help, but if you want to try, go for it.
regarding the 1200 casino vendors , this is from the industry d.b. , sure not all of them have affiliate programs many of them just buy media on PPC or directly using media buy agencies , but the number is not importent here, what is importent is that these guys have alternatives to where they are getting the money from .
and i will repeat my sentence BUT IN THE OPOSITE DIRECTION,
In regard the scrappers attetide to get “revenge” or “wanted dead or alive” scenario towards your sites, there is an old saying that states: “every time you seek revenge, bring two shovels.” Not only will you dig a grave for the one you seek, but you will dig one for yourself as well. Revenge does not work!
if someone is in contact with them, or if they are reading this forum, i sure hope this will be communicated to them as well.
one last thing, if your site is being listed in DMOZ or any of the big directories, these directories are scapped to hell , all the time, google knows it and he has filters for that, so for almost any site listed in DMOZ if you do a backlink check you will usually find mor ethen 10,000 backlinks just becouse dmoz pages are duplicated and scraped all the time.