When you thought Blogspot a.k.a. Blogger was the perfect way to build your Adsense blog empire without initial expenses, along comes someone snatching your blog’s sub-domain with content and re-publishes it with a slight typo in the sub-domain suffix.

Your new blog was most likely cloned at birth, your Adsense ID replaced with that of the perpetrator’s and/or new ad code injected automatically. Copy your Blogspot URL and paste it into your web browser’s URL field, replace blogspot with blogsopt and see what you get. You have my sympathy in advance. And that’s only one of many scrapers.

Clever? Maybe. Smart? Not so much; Google will soon be all over this guy, giving him a red hot spanking for abusing their Adsense program in conjunction with cloned/stolen content. Other, less dim-witted content scrapers don’t risk awakening the G. beast. They do it ninja-style.

This kind of actions is commonly referred to as “splogging” or “blog scraping” and is not limited to Blogspot, but WordPress as well, and Squidoo, Weebly, e.t.c. According to a BHW member, the perpetrator might be using some kind of reverse HTTP Proxy script to fetch the target blog’s content, replace the URL and inject their own links. The content is then returned using a slightly different URL, and receives traffic from mistypers. Easy, huh?

I noticed in a Blogspot blog I had created the other day, which of course has been cloned as well, my other affiliate links remain untouched. So, basically my affiliate links get more publicity.

If you want to find out whether your blog has been cloned and what to do about it:

• Stolen Content – and yes, his blog has been cloned, too: Stolen Content (blogsopt)
• Has your Website been Cloned?
• How long will it take to catch the clones? – Blogger support discussion with elaborate guides
• Jamie Spencer on Splogging

There is little we can do to prevent this from happening, but on the other hand: someone scraping your blog means more publicity for your articles, which can be a good thing, especially if you put affiliate links in your articles. You can also contact the perpetrator with a Cease & Desist message, which may have a sobering effect.

Either way: until Google finds a way to deal with this phenomenon, we’ll just have to live with it.

Even though Traffic Exchange owners have their system monitor new links added by the advertisers, rejecting sites plagued with excessive pop-ups or potentially malicious code, they cannot guarantee all sites to be 100% safe. Although it’s not my intention to scare you, my security tools have alerted me upon finding Trojans in T.E. sites several times. Just be a little careful, use the right tools and you won’t have to worry about it.

“Microsoft Security Essentials” is quite efficient, and it pretty much diminishes the need for a separate Antivirus & Anti-malware solution. As far as I am aware, it requires a valid Windows license to work. Pirated versions of Windows often have huge security holes anyway, in which case I would advice the user to switch to Linux.

So, with no further ado: use when surfing Traffic Exchanges

Antivirus & Anti-spyware: Microsoft Security Essentials

Why: It’s free, daily updates, easy on the CPU, excels at finding virus and spyware. When it does, it makes cleaning your system as simple as a mouse-click, then it knows which action usually is best to take in order to remove the threat. If you must use a standalone Antivirus, I recommend Avast Home Edition.

Preemptive Security Measures: Spyware Blaster

Why: Spyware Blaster does a terrific job with protecting your system even when it’s not running. It is available as free and a paid version (the paid version has an auto-update feature, otherwise they are the same). Spyware Blaster prevents Active-X based spyware and other harmful elements to be installed on your system. It also protects it against evil websites that could otherwise cause harm. I have not noticed any conflicts between MS Security Essentials and Spyware Blaster; they seem to go along just fine.

Antispam: Mozille Thunderbird (e-mail client)

Why not: Other than sorting filters sometimes disappearing, something which has already been reported to the developer team, Mozilla Thunderbird is, in my opinion, one of the best e-mail clients today. It blows Microsoft Outlook Express out of the water with its light weight, built-in antispam protection, customization and more, it’s free and I have used it for years with many e-mail accounts. It is also prepared for adding Google Gmail accounts.

Web Browser: Opera 10 or Mozilla FireFox 3.5 and up

Why (are you still using Internet Explorer?): Opera is by far my favorite web browser. It has mouse gestures, Turbo Surf and it had web tabs long before FireFox. I use both and consider them equally good. FireFox has a unique tilt feature; watch this YouTube video to see what I mean. The tilt function requires the computer to have an accelerometer. As for how useful it is: Musicians create sound with it, which is pretty cool! More importantly, though: both browsers are pretty safe. Avoid using browser add-ons you are not sure whether pose a threat or not. Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 is relatively safe, but it remains the cyber terrorists main target because so many use it. So don’t.

Other Security Measures

Things are better today in terms of online security, despite all the scare talk in media regarding new cyber threats. Microsoft’s “Security Essentials” was a big step in the right direction, and competitors developing paid AV solutions are furious at Microsoft for giving it away for free. It is a powerful yet light-weight Antivirus and Anti-malware cannon packing a punch, obliterating any trace of malicious code, that would otherwise hide in the dark corners of your system, and strike when you least expected it.

I haven’t mentioned the importance of using a firewall, mostly because everybody with an up-to-date operating system already has one built into it, and in addition many have another firewall in their ADSL modem or WLAN router. If you want to learn how to secure your WLAN, have a look at this guide. It really isn’t that difficult, and even though it will not necessarily make your WLAN impenetrable to hackers, it will keep your nosy neighbors out.

In conclusion: computer viruses have become very advanced since the dawn of Internet. “Evil corps” like Microsoft possess enough resources to keep up with the virus developers and even get ahead, far enough to provide us with a satisfying level of protection. Spyware Blaster is also an excellent measure to prevent digital trash to enter your system. Ultimately though, common sense remains your main weapon when surfing online.

Happy (and safe) surfing!