Nobody’s content is safe on the internet, content gets stolen all of the time and the truth is that when it happens to you there is probably very little you can do about it. The best you can hope for is that nobody takes your search engine rankings from you.

Unfortunately this does happen: the search engines are not perfect and sometimes they will rank stolen blog posts ahead of the originals. It can even happen to search engine optimisers.

You can get all worked up about it and file DMCA reports with the search engines to have them remove the stolen content, but this takes months and by the time anything gets done about it the hijacker has already cashed in on your content. A much better solution is to avoid having your rankings hijacked in the 1st place.

Here are 10 simple steps you can take to protect your rankings and beat the blog scrapers:

1. Have it set up so that your latest blog posts are linked to from every page of your blog.

2. Avoid having duplicate content within your blog. The easiest way to do this is by only showing a sample of your posts in your blog categories and monthly archives.

3. Get listed in blog directories that provide direct links to your blog. Here are 4 of the best:

• Best of the Web
• Yahoo! Directory
• Bloggeries
• Blogoozle

4. Get as many websites as possible to pull your RSS feed and link directly to your latest posts:

• Join social media websites which can pull your feed.
• Ask blog compilation site owners to add your feed.
• Ask relevant website owners to add your feed.
• Get your feed listed in RSS blog directories.

5. Try and get other relevant bloggers to add you to their blogroll. If you have to, exchange blogroll links with a couple of other blogs, do not do this excessively, exchange blogroll links with 1-5 relevant blogs at the most.

6. Come up with linkbait style posts on a regular basis: Breaking news, guides/tutorials, interesting stories, pictures, videos and statistics can all work well.

7. Participate in and submit your really good blog posts to social media websites; do not do this too much though, social media users do not like people who purely promote their own stuff. Sometimes it is a good idea to ask friends to submit your posts for you.

8. Write blog posts for other relevant blogs (guest blog) and make sure that you get a link back to your blog in your author bio.

9. If you use Wordpress get Joost De Valk’s plugin: Make the scrapers work for you, if you do not simply add a text link to your homepage at the bottom of your blog posts.

10. When people steel your content and don't link you, leave a comment on their blog or email them. Don’t loose your temper, be nice and say thankyou for publishing my content and then ask them for a link back to the original.

All of these steps will help you to build up authority with the search engines, take them and you will never have to worry about anyone steeling your rankings ever again!

About The Author

This article was written by David Eaves of The SEO Company, a UK-based search engine optimisation specialist. More of his articles can be found at his SEO Blog.