It seems that Google has created a new tool for you to point out the sites that are scraping your content.

Until now, Google has tried to filter scraper sites algorithmically from the search result pages. It seems that this hasn’t worked very well. Google’s Matt Cutts announced the new tool that enables webmasters to report scraper sites.

What are scraper sites?

According to Wikipedia, a scraper site “is a spam website that copies all of its content from other websites using web scraping. […] Some scraper sites are created to make money by using advertising programs. In such case, they are called Made for AdSense sites or MFA.”

This new tool and Google’s statements regarding it has prompted an article by Johannes Selbach questioning whether

“Is Google the biggest scraper site of all?”

Here is a link to his article.

http://blog.seoprofiler.com/2014/02/google-biggest-scraper-site-all/

He gives a full explanation of why scraper sites exist and how they use the content to make money. He then discusses the problem  through both visual examples and text to Google and their search results pages.

He correctly point out that “It’s good that Google tries to remove scraper sites from the search results. It’s not so good that Google doesn’t follow its own rules.”

• What do you think?
• Should Google cease their scraping activities?
• Should Google cease having any advertisements on their search results pages?
• Do you think Google is a hipocrite?

EDIT: Google scrapes even more content: Google adds restaurant menus to search results.