22

When I searched Google for a recent question I posed here, this came up:

spam site?

When you click it, it redirects you through something called "hidereferrer" to some ad (sometimes pornographic). So it seems that they're taking text from questions here, and then generating BS Google results with that text that link to sites and generate revenue for them. I'm pointing this out both as a warning to others not to click on these links and as a question: Is there anything we can do about it?

I recommend you don't click on it, but here's the link...

  • 3
    When I searched for the phrase, "Visualizing region unions", I also found "www.underwise.com/questions/226798/visualizing-region-unions", which looks to be of the same ilk. – bbgodfrey Jul 25 '17 at 0:44
  • 4
    I seem to recall this being discussed on the main Stack Exchange Meta site; I shall look for that Q&A now. I believe Stack Exchange Inc tries to quash these. – Mr.Wizard♦ Jul 25 '17 at 7:09
  • Yesterday, before reporting the "underwise" site to StackExchange, I again searched for such knock-offs and found "underwise" but not "holdanswer". Today, the situation is reversed, with "holdanswer" back but "underwise" gone. – bbgodfrey Jul 27 '17 at 0:43
24

A site (or scraper) is copying content from Stack Exchange. What do I do?

How do I go about reporting these sites?

Please contact us directly using the on-site form. Select the "Stack Exchange content is being reproduced without attribution" option from the drop-down, and provide as much information as possible. Even if you are reporting an entire site that is scraping many questions, please provide an example of a question on their site and the corresponding question on our site, as well as any Google search terms you used that led you to finding this site. Any other information you might have can be included in the free-form text box.

Also: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport

  • Shall I go ahead and fill out their form or have you already done so? – Shane Jul 25 '17 at 17:58
  • 3
    @Shane Please fill it out; I did not. – Mr.Wizard♦ Jul 26 '17 at 1:51

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