Recently, Google announced a serious overhaul to their algorithm primarily meant to banish low-quality sites like content farms from the top of their search engine results.

While overall that’s a good thing (Kontera has even more stringent rules about original content), there has been some collateral damage. Legitimate sites have unfairly been grouped with these content-factories and plagiarists because Google often has no way to identify an article’s original source. Since the changes in Google’s algorithm went into effect late last month, reputable sites that do their own reporting like Cult of Mac, or the prestigious British Medical Journal saw their traffic shrink 30%-50%, just because so many websites reposted their stories without permission.

Google is constantly tinkering with their algorithm and many of the quality sites affected have already begun reappearing at the top of their search results pages, however organic traffic is too important to leave anything to chance.  Now more than ever, it’s important that you protect yourself from content theft.

Here’s how you can do it:  

• Disable Right Clicking – Usually to copy from a given webpage, theft is just a right click away. By disabling that ability, you can prevent the most common method used for stealing, without affecting readers or search engines’ ability to see your content.
  For WordPress users, the WP-CopyProtect plugin will disable highlighting or copying text. On the Joomla platform, the JoomSimple Content Protection plugin fills a similar function disabling right click, text selection, and copy/paste.

• Disabling Through Java Script – For websites using other platforms you can use the combination of a No Copy and Paste script and a No Right Click Code in your HTML. Just pay extra close attention to the directions on how to extract the No Copy script, as ironically it’s implemented on the site.

• Alter Your RSS Feed – Another common way people steal is by cherry picking stories out of their RSS reader. By changing the settings of your RSS feed to partial text, they’ll  only get a sample of your work, and have to visit your now ‘right click’ protected website for the rest.

Methods on how to limit your RSS feed may vary, but for Blogger go to Dashboard > Settings > Site Feed and save ‘short’ as your RSS preference.

In instances where original content has already been copied from your site, there are still a few ways to get the unauthorized version removed without having to use a lawyer:

• Try contacting the person who posted your content and request they to take it down.

• Report your stolen article to the thief’s hosting site. Most web hosts will suspend the user’s account if they don’t remove the disputed content within 48 hours.

• File a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) Notice with Google. Since the entire point of article theft is to generate ad revenue, nothing is a more effective deterrent than getting the offending party banned from Google.

Remember, plagiarists are lazy, so even if there’s no way to 100% prevent article theft; they’re unlikely to go the extra mile. Following these simple steps should sufficiently protect your work, and allow you to focus on what’s really important – writing more quality, original content!

Are you up to speed with the latest count: Facebook recently announced that over 350,000 websites  worldwide are now using Facebook’s social plugins introduced last April – the most familiar of which is the ‘Like‘ button.

This piece of information ties in to another “fun fact”: Nearly 65 million users ‘Like’ something through Facebook every single day.

Clearly, people like to ‘Like’, and thousands of publishers already reap the benefits – sharing their news and content via the popular social network site.

The reason the ‘Like’ button has been so effective for so many website owners isn’t exactly a secret. With one mouse click, a link to your latest post or article will instantly appear in the News Feed of your friends’ Facebook accounts. It’s a great way to grow traffic and create a buzz around your website: For every additional person that hits the ‘Like’ button on one of your website pages (including yourself ); an exponential amount of their friends will see what you’ve been raving about.

With over 500 million active users each month (and counting!), and with each user having, on average, 130 friends – there’s a vast audience for the right content to go viral.

As a publisher, you’re naturally interested in increasing your website traffic. If you haven’t already done so, you might want to consider adding the ‘Like’ functionality to your website or blog. If you’d like to get the Facebook ‘Like’ plugin for WordPress, you can do so here, or for Blogger here. And if you’d like to learn more about implementation in general, here’s the Facebook Like Button Page.

Also, don’t forget to ‘Like’ this post. As you can see below, Kontera most definitely practices what it preaches

We are happy to announce the release of our new WordPress plugin!
The plugin enables instant integration of Kontera ads to WordPress blogs as well as some great customization features to help change the Kontera settings to match your preferences.

The plugin allows you to:

• Add the Kontera tag to all your pages in one click.
• Determine when ads will begin appearing on new posts- you can choose to block ads for a particular number of days. Feature ads only on posts.
• Feature ads only on comments.
• Easily change your links color.
• Choose to enable or disable Kontera ads from within your post editor.

Download Kontera-WordPress Plugin for WP 2.8

The plugin integration is a snap – here’s how to set it up:

1. Unzip the plugin file to your local hard drive.
2. Copy the Kontera folder to your blog’s WordPress content/plugins directory.
3. On your WordPress administrator, select “Plugins”.
   
4. Scroll down to “Inactive Plugins” and Click Activate next to the “Kontera ContentLink” plugin entry.
   
5. Now that your plugin is active, navigate to the sidebar and under the “Settings” menu, click to go to the “Kontera Settings”.
   
6. In the top field, enter your publisher ID number. This is your personal ID which appears on your Kontera tag:
   
7. That’s it! It’s time to experiment with the different options offered by the Kontera WordPress Plugin.
   
8. Remember, with this plugin, you also have the option to enable or disable Kontera ads from within the post editor.

Download Kontera-WordPress Plugin for WP 2.8

We hope you’ll find this new tool helpful and look forward to hearing about your experience with it.

* If you are using an earlier WordPress version, please visit the Publisher Resources page on our website for the appropriate plugin.

*Since WordPress is open source and offers a wide variety of themes, we cannot guarantee that the plugin will support them all. Please contact support@kontera.com if you encounter any implementation issues.

It is the dawn of 2009, and just before we make the final step and shift into a brand new year, we thought it important to recount the many great things that happened in 2008. The final conclusion: 2008 has been an incredibly productive year at Kontera and we believe for our publishers, advertisers and users as well. We’re confident that 2009 will be even better stronger for all parties involved.

In order to keep this post concise, we had to narrow it down to 8 top products and services launched by Kontera that were focused on existing and prospective publisher base, so without further ado , here are the chronologically ordered top Kontera launches of 2008:

1. KnowledgeBase- Launched January 21- The KnowledgeBase surrounds a wide range of information about Kontera optimization, publisher payments, and technical issues. The KnowledgeBase was another move in our push to give Kontera publishers greater independence through accessibility to information. The knowledgebase proves very helpful and accommodates an impressive amount of publishers daily.
2. Publisher Center- Launched January 31- the Publisher Center offers Kontera partners a range of high end capabilities and control over ContentLink ads on their sites and their accounts. What’s even more exciting is the fact that the Publisher Center is continuously undergoing upgrades and updates since its initial launch. It will continue to improve in order to give Kontera publishers a greater control and more possibilities over their In-Text ads.
3. The Kontera Hybrid- Launched March 25- Kontera’s newest advertising solution, a completely customizable, In-Text media layer that simultaneously displays relevant content alongside advertisements. The Hybrid layer enhances a webpage by presenting links to related content, videos, and images alongside advertisements in one cohesive unit. The Kontera Hybrid is currently only available to select publishers.
4. Invite a Friend Program – Launched March 31- Through this program, publishers can send their friends an invite to join Kontera. For each friend who becomes an active member, you receive a $25 bonus award. The Invite a Friend program has been very successful in expanding the Kontera family and it will continue with us well into 2009.
5. New Plugins for WordPress, Joomla and Drupal – Launched throughout May – These plugins are an important milestone in our efforts to simplify ContentLink implementation for use on various platforms. The plugins allow the setup of ContentLink ads, without the complications of modifying your site’s code. Have a look at our WordPress plugin video tutorial.
6. Blogger Widget- Launched June 10- Much like the plugins mentioned above but even simpler, the Blogger widget allows you to implement ContentLink on Blogger blogs with just one click. Login to your Kontera account, click on the “Kontera It” button and the Kontera tag will be automatically added to your pages. Monetizing your blog has never been easier.
7. Kontera on Pluck-On-Demand partnership- Launched November 20- Through the partnership with Pluck, Kontera ContentLink ads are automatically generated within the Pluck-on- Demand content widget creating an additional revenue stream for publishers. Publishers get the whole package: free and relevant content populated with targeted ads.
8. Holiday ’09 Cash Bonus – Launched December 18- Our latest promotion, recently advertised and still going strong. If you are not yet a publisher, there’s no better time to join. Sign up with Kontera by Jan 15, 2009 and as soon as you reach $75 in earnings, we’ll round your balance up to $100. That’s an extra $25 on us!

Happy 2009!

We all know that images add much value to our websites and blogs; images enhance visual appearance and promote readership. Still, quite honestly, looking for the right image can be time consuming… and then there is the cost and the issue of copyrights—all of which often translates to “forget it- too much headache.”

This is why we like PicApp.

PicApp is an application that enables online publishers to add the best stock photos to their content for free without the copyright or licensing worries.

Here are a few great things PicApp enables you to do:

• Access an inventory of over 20 million images, in every imaginable content category, with 10K images being updated by the minute.

• Get free and legal use of the most recent editorial images from top content providers.

• Get images already tagged with keywords and to promote indexing and SEO.

• Register your search term on PicApp RSS feeder (for example- Brad Pitt, red roses, babies, NFL, etc..) and receive notifications on your RSS tool reader whenever PicApp gets new images that match the search term.

And last but definitely not least:

• You can now download the PicApp WordPress plug-in and use it to search and easily add premium, free and legal images straight from your editor into your post!

With the plug-in, PicApp will be fully integrated into your editing flow, so you will no longer be required to open new browser and look for images.

The PicApp plugin is a quick and easy way to add images to posts, Just take a look at the demo.

PicApp is available to answer any questions and welcomes any feedback at discover@picapp.com