Have you ever received a backhanded compliment and wondered how to respond?  You're not sure whether to say thank you or bug off.  Well, in the Blogosphere, Hijacking a Blog Post is rapidly becoming an issue that every Blogger must be aware of.  When search engine results for Grand Rapids, Michigan Real Estate Agents  began to consistently rank my Blog on the first page, some of my Blog Posts were hijacked!  In it's most benign form, hijacking can be construed to be the on-line version of a back handed compliment.  In it's malignant form, it is just plain THEFT. 

As a very new Blogger,  I was not anticipating this type of problem.  But as more of my posts became indexed on search engines, I began to notice links to sites that I did not recognize. Initially these links re-directed the search to my original post but more recently, I have noticed a more deceptive, malicious form of redirection.  Taking my title and even the initial first few phrases of my Blog Post, these thieves would then create a link which would re-direct my Blog Post to their own website or whatever they were trying to sell.  In my case...flip-this-house-.com and  oogleclick.com are using my on-line resume and teaching course schedule to re-direct searches to their websites.

I find this very disturbing.  There is no means of contacting a live person by telephone and the e-mail path is so convoluted  that I wonder if anyone would ever respond to my "cease & desist" order.  Fortunately, I am a member of Active Rain.  It occurred to me that this may have happened to someone else, so I did a search and literally put in the words: "hijacked blog".  To my utter amazement , an excellent post by the Harper Team popped up entitled "Help, Stop Your Posts From Being Hijacked". 

As a result of reading the Harper Team post, I now understand that there are at least 2 types of re-directs that can happen to a blog post on-line.  Both are SPAM by nature; one is a form of a back handed compliment and the other is outright THEFT of your idea, name, article, copyright, and legitimate search engine postion.  The former may or may not be worth the time to pursue, as the re-direct is still coming back to you as the original author. But when someone actually steals your content and puports it to be their own, it must be reported. 

To View an Example of  On-Line Out-right Theft vs a Simple Redirect on a Spam Blog, you can Click on this link to a Google Search for Blogs with my name Lola Audu.  The 4th entry with the Sticky About Lola is actually a Stolen Blog Post by flip-this-house-.com and also the 5th entry by oogle.com.  According to Oogle, my on-line resume will help you to figure out "What your real Value is" ....perhaps they can take a bit of their own advice by starting with the word  REAL and removing FALSE links.   It is important to check from time to time to see if this is being done with material you are posting.  It has been said that "evil thrives when good men do nothing".

Google does take this seriously. The Harper Team post has a link to the Google Spam Report to report offenders.  This type of activity pollutes the integrity of search engine results for everyone.

According to Google: " We work hard to return the most relevant results for every search we conduct. To that end, we encourage site managers to make their content straightforward and easily understood by users and search engines alike. Unfortunately, not all websites have users' best interests at heart. Trying to deceive (spam) our web crawler by means of hidden text, deceptive cloaking or doorway pages compromises the quality of our results and degrades the search experience for everyone." 

When you experience this scenario, take heart...it probably means you're good enough to warrant some attention.  After, you've calmed down, take the appropriate measures to correct the situation. This is an area in which we must all take personal responsibility. If you can find a number or e-mail, inform the Spammer that they need to cease and desisit from the inappriate use of you name and material.  Next, contact Google or your search engine administrator to report the problem.

I was heartened to see that Laurie Manny's Post in which she draws attention to a hijacked blog and that was originally mentioned in the Harper Team Blog has been deactivated. This works!

Here are links to some Excellent Posts on Active Rain that can assist you in dealing with these issues:

• Help, Stop Your Posts From Being Hijacked...by the Harper Team
• Excellent article by David Kyle, The Skinny on Blogging in Relation to SEO which gives BACKGROUND about why some of this type of activity is occuring.
• Stopping Spam...by Jacqulyn Richey
• Grand Theft Blog...by Maureen McCabe.  Also, the post following is highlighted in one of her comments.
• Help, I've Been Hijacked...interesting blog post by Kevin Boer of 3 Oceans Real Estate...he describes a situation in which during a transfer of domain names, someone was able to hijack his blog address.
• Top Ranking in Google GUARANTEED, Jay & Francy Thompson shed light on Scammers who use deceptive and sometimes costly techniques to do a lot of damage.
• This is an UPDATE to my original list of resources:  John Occhi's blog about creating a GOOGLE ALERT is another great tool to be aware of when keeping track of what is happening to your information on-line.  Thanks for the comment notification John.

These excellent resources are worth more than their weight in gold....Education like this is hard to find.  Thank you Active Rain Community.  Membership here has truly Rained In many Benefits!