Justin Cooney

Tech and programming information about topics of interest or issues that I find noteworthy. Many of these posts are notes for myself although I am happy if they are useful to others.

Listings

Sites Affiliated with Programming Tips

This programming tips site has been linked to from a number of search engines & directories. Also, a number of off-site articles exist covering a diverse range of topics that users may find interesting. Here is a list of who and where.

Interesting and Related Web Sites:

  • Hacker News Blogroll of technical blogs
  • A searchable YCombinator Blogroll
  • Bing.com – Microsoft’s search engine, which directly competes with google.com.
  • Ask.com – Ask provides a popular Q&A search service, which is also known as Ask Jeeves
  • The Internet Archive – This site has been included in the archive, which is a great site that has archives running back to the early days of the Internet. The first entry for my site dates back to Oct 29 2011.
  • DuckDuckGo.com – A neat search engine that boasts fast results and less spam and advertising than other engines. I’m a fan!

Web Sites on which I am Providing Content:

PaperBlog– Sadly I have had to unsubscribe from this service, and they certainly didn’t make unsubscribing easy. Although in the past I liked this directory, I now find them to be more of a problem than a help. PaperBlog entirely copies each article you post, strips out most of your links and adds no-follow directives to those it doesn’t remove. The worst part is that the copied articles outrank your original article in google search results so you will no longer get traffic from your own work. When you let PaperBlog know about your blog then you are basically giving them permission to take your hard work to make the owners of PaperBlog money. If at least Paperblog would add a rel canonical link back to the article they scraped from your site, or if PaperBlog allowed the blog owner to easily remove the scraped article then I could see how they might be a legitimate service. However as things stand I suggest people stay away from PaperBlog.

25 responses to “Listings”

  1. Amory Avatar
    Amory

    I came, I read this article, I cqnoeured.

    Reply
    1. Justin Cooney Avatar
      Justin Cooney

      Glad you found this list interesting, I enjoy finding directories and sites to do link exchanges with.

      Reply
  2. Greener Pastures Avatar
    Greener Pastures

    This paperblog is notorious. They list on top for top ranking pages. I couldn’t find a delete option for my blog. Have written to them. Lets see.

    Reply
    1. Justin Cooney Avatar
      Justin Cooney

      I agree with you about paperblog. They somehow get away with taking people’s content as their own and then outranking the original site. I find it very frustrating, especially since they have no way to opt out. Please let me know if contacting them directly helps and I will do this as well.

      Reply
      1. Greener Pastures Avatar
        Greener Pastures

        Hi Justin. I did get a reply from them and fortunately they have removed my account and all my posts. I will advise you to send them a nice formal email requested them to delete your account. Send them through the contact form after logging to your account. They have also mentioned some details in the FAQ page. It is quite a relief as I could not find any benefit from partnering with them. They should at least allow follow backlinks.

        Reply
        1. Justin Cooney Avatar
          Justin Cooney

          Thanks for the heads up that this worked. That’s great that they will remove an account and all related posts.

          I will contact them to remove my site as well. I certainly see no advantage in using their service. It will be good to have the duplicate content removed from their site.

          Reply
          1. Greener Pastures Avatar
            Greener Pastures

            Sure…go ahead!

            Reply
  3. Swati Avatar
    Swati

    I also had the similar guess about the paperblog that their listing is cannibalizing our search traffic on my blog stylebees.com. Found your post quite useful. I have unlisted my blog from them. thanks!! Yes we did use their “contact us” form to send our request and it worked !!

    Reply
    1. Justin Cooney Avatar
      Justin Cooney

      I’m glad unlisting from Paperblog worked for your blog as well.

      For me, Paperblog was just taking too much traffic and wasn’t giving my blog any real benefit so I had no choice than to unsubscribe.

      Reply
  4. ChefDeHome Avatar
    ChefDeHome

    Hi Justin, thanks a lot for wonderful article.
    I have a question for you, if you can help?
    I submitted my RSS feed to paperblog and as you said, they removed my links and my contents are getting duplicate moment I publish a new post :( I requested them several times to remove my account but no response…. these sites are so eager to make you sign-up but otherwise they just shut their ears to any request.
    Help my out! How did you close your account with Paperblog??

    thanks & regards,
    Savita

    Reply
    1. Justin Cooney Avatar
      Justin Cooney

      Hi Savita,

      I’m sorry to hear that you are having so much trouble with PaperBlog. I also had a lot of difficulty with them. I lost a lot of my motivation to blog since they would do is to take my hard work and mark it as their own, and Google would penalise my site for duplicate content. I was finally able to remove my blog from their site, but it was no easy task. If they are not responding to your email, I suggest that you write them a second, more strongly worded note saying to stop taking your content. I find their practice to be unethical. I wish you best of luck in having your blog removed from their site.

      Best Regards,

      Justin

      Reply
  5. ChefDeHome Avatar
    ChefDeHome

    thanks for reply Justin. I am really stuck, I know!! Not just once, I emailed them several times in past 1 and half week. but I will not quit, will keep writing emails and this time a strong one as you suggested. The only benefit I have is my blog is my own code, so rss is generated in C#. For now I have limited it as much as i can!! I also wrote a post about unethical approach of paperblog and have given ref of your link too.

    http://www.chefdehome.com/Posts/20015/paperblog-a-big-no-bloggers-stay-away

    And you know what? this post is appearing on paperblog too! :)

    Thanks a ton for replying!
    Regards,
    Savita

    Reply
  6. The Bratlings Parents Avatar
    The Bratlings Parents

    I signed up to paperblog when I was new to blogging and have recently come across it again, and have found they have kept my blogs on their pages including one’s I thought I had deleted, they have also taken my images, I have emailed them and requested removal but am not sure about wording so thinking of sending them a second better worded email, I am just wondering what was placed in yours that helped them sit up and listen and respond to your email?
    Any help would be great thanks

    Reply
    1. Justin Cooney Avatar
      Justin Cooney

      I am very sad to hear that paperblog is still doing this to bloggers. It took me a while of contacting them to get my site removed, and I almost lost all incentive to continue blogging because of what they were doing.

      But finally I was able to have my site and all of my content removed from their site. To get my site and content removed, I ended up dealing with a Communications Manager there called Emma (emma@paperblog.com). I hope that this person can help you as well.

      Below is the email that I sent that helped me get my site removed. I wish you best of luck in getting your content removed as well.

      Subject: Account Termination for site: http:// my site name

      Message: Hello, I am contacting you to request that you remove my site – http:// my site name – from your index and terminate my paperblog account.

      Please remove my account and all articles from my site that have been republished here.

      Thank you for your help in this matter,

      Reply
  7. shilpa gandotra Avatar
    shilpa gandotra

    Hi Justin
    I just realized the hard way that paperblog is eating up all my blog traffic – can you please guide me as to how I can remove the rss feed from that website?

    Reply
  8. shilpagandotra Avatar
    shilpagandotra

    Hi Justin, just learnt the hard way – paperblog seems to be eating up all my traffic, can you please tell me how do I take down my rss feed from their site?

    Reply
    1. Justin Cooney Avatar
      Justin Cooney

      Hi, sorry for the delayed response. I also had a lot of trouble with PaperBlog and was very upset when I saw that Google was actually considering them to be the owners of the content that I spent a long time writing and publishing. In fact Google was dropping my site from the search results completely and showing the PaperBlog version as the ‘authority’ site. Traffic to my site dropped off almost completely so I was quite upset that my content was no longer my own and there was no clear way to fix this.

      I was finally able to have my blog removed from PaperBlog using their Contact Us form at: http://en.paperblog.com/contact/

      I wish you the best of luck in getting your blog removed. I know how frustrating it can be to have all of your hard work taken.

      Reply
      1. Shilpa Gandotra Avatar
        Shilpa Gandotra

        Thanks Justin, I have submitted the form and have also tweeted to them a couple of times. I hope they take it down.

        Reply
      2. shilpagandotra Avatar
        shilpagandotra

        Thanks Justin, have submitted on this page and also tweeted to them a few times. I hope they will listen

        Reply
        1. Justin Cooney Avatar
          Justin Cooney

          I wish you best of luck. It is frustrating to deal with them when they are ignoring your messages and are basically stealing your content. In the meantime you could try posting a legal notice every day to your feed saying that they are taking your content without your consent. That might make them listen.

          Reply
  9. Paperblog – not an option, on the contrary! | aLive Reports

    […] One of the best arguments against might be that they make unsubscription extremely difficult, if not impossible. You simply cannot cancel your account yourself. I’m talking from own my experience, but not only: https://jwcooney.com/listings/ […]

    Reply
  10. ask Avatar
    ask

    Awesome post.

    Reply
  11. Jamie-Lee Burns Avatar
    Jamie-Lee Burns

    Hi Justin, Can I ask how long it took you to have your content and site removed from Paperblog? I’ve been trying for the last week or so (not ideal given the holiday timings) and am yet to receive a response.

    Reply
    1. Justin Cooney Avatar
      Justin Cooney

      Hi, sorry for the delayed response. I hope you had luck getting your site removed. It is certainly a frustrating process. In my case it took a while for them to take out the pages they scraped from my site. I can’t recall exactly how long it was, but it did take some time effort, to the point where I was not sure if they would ever do it. Again, I wish you best of luck!

      Reply
  12. imraninteriors Avatar
    imraninteriors

    Hi JUSTIN, Thanks for sharing useful post for new bloggers like me. unfortunately, I did the same mistake as you and put my site on their website. I requested them many times to remove my account from Paperblog but no response. Can you please send me that email id and email that you was sent them.

    Thanks, Regard Imran

    Reply

Leave a comment