Making text hard to copy?

[Dez]

Many thanks, the info is appreciated. Has anyone got any proof that googlebot searches through pdf’s ?

[faca5]

Hello.

Np.
Googlebot search document (doc, pdf…).

Example:
StudioFACA

[PDF] Delovni koledar 2010 - StudioFACA Portal - [ Translate this page ]
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View
27. april. 25. junij. 1. november. Novo leto. Slo. kulturni praznik …
studiofaca.com/download/Storitve/.../Delovni_koledar_2010.pdf - Similar

[Stevie_D]

@Dez

Many thanks, the info is appreciated. Has anyone got any proof that googlebot searches through pdf’s ?

The huge number of PDFs that Google has indexed for words and phrases contained within them is pretty good proof…

[Stevie_D]

@faca5

Meybe You can disable RIGHT button, example. Nepremičnine

Meybe You can use STYLES to disable TO SELECT TEXT, example Copy last text line

Meybe You can use JavaScript to decode encode text, search engine without decode encode.

None of those methods will stop people copying your content.

Anything that uses Javascript to “stop” copying can be got round very easily by disabling Javascript. Anything that uses Javascript to compile the page is inaccessible and will prevent the page appearing in search results - and won’t stop people copying it.

You can’t publish content on the web and prevent people from copying it. The more difficult you make it to copy, the more difficult you make it for people to use it at all, and the more likely it is that people will copy it.

[spVince]

Hi Dez,
Any reason why you wouldn’t consider this previous suggestion at all?

@spVince

Here’s another idea for you which may be a little ‘out-of-the-box’ but would still achieve what you need, and may in fact be a better option.

Create an eBook from your research content, and put it onto Amazon.

This way you can still have all the keyword terms for spiders within the description, and let Amazon cover the security / copy protection side of things.

Amazon predicts that it will sell more e-books than paperbacks by the end of next year, so you could gain a few pennies in the process.

Just curious that I may have misunderstood what you are trying to achive.
Best wishes,

• Vincent

[goldfidget]

Hmmm, several ideas:

1. You could discourage people from selecting your text using a mouse by putting an absolutely positioned div over all of it. Would still be spiderable, wouldn’t prevent select all though

2. You could disable right click in javascript, this would confuse a few people.

3. You could display different content to google, a plain pdf to google and an outlined version to everyone else. Bad idea for obvious reasons.

4. You could stick it behind a paywall.

IMO The only foolproof way is option 4, if your content is as valuable as you think people might just pay for it.

You could show different content to the

[nickleanderson]

do you know google lunch google docs.google doc spider grab pdf file content easily.avoid pdf content from google only one solution that is robots.txt

enter:

user-agent:* disallow:/*.pdf$

[Talita]

The only method is to cloak the content and show it to search engines, expert exchange used to do this. Its illegal to search engines so dont do it.

A better solution is to sell your data via a purchaseable PDF or something and then show sample or excerpt data for the search engines and customers to see what your offering and then opt to buy it.

[goldfidget]

Of course, the other obvious way is to put it out there as much as possible, then people will know it’s yours.

If your content is for promotion and you don’t want to monetize it directly, I would do that. If you want to monetize it, then sell it as an ebook.

[Ed_Intheclouds]

You can see if your content has been published on the web with http://www.copyscape.com/

[DaffyD]

Nothing stops someone from typing up your content manually. Like others have said – if it’s online, it’s copyable.