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AC/DC interviewed in London (video and audio)
The boys took time out on their recent visit to London for the premiere of “Live at River Plate” to talk to the media and here are some highlights.The first is a video interview.. Read more
AC/DC confirm new tour being planned
AC/DC have confirmed, via Angus Young, that a new tour is being planned. In an interview with the UK's Sun Newspaper, Young was asked about the new 'AC/DC - Live at River Plate' DVD.. Read more
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May 18th 2010
Scraper sites take aim at AC/DC
Visit your favorite AC/DC site regularly? You probably have it bookmarked right? Imagine what would happen if suddenly people were unable to locate that site in the future because that site was buried several pages deep in the search results. A new phenomenon known as "scraper" sites have been sweeping the internet in recent times. Many will remember doing a Google search and actually finding what you were looking for: Useful content.
Up until now, doing a search on anything related to AC/DC would return a reasonable amount of accurate results. This could be about to change.
There are now several scraper sites which have been set up to target the "AC/DC" keyword. They exist for the sole purpose to earn revenue from advertising, linking to each other (known as link farming) to form a blanket which is about to descend upon the search results of engines like Google, MSN/Bing, Yahoo and Ask.
They use automated software to systematically steal the content of legitimate AC/DC sites, or target sites like Blabbermouth and Metal Hammer - scraping anything with AC/DC in the content. Normally, these sites are based in the far east, however the recent new-comers to the fold are European based.
How do you determine whether a site is a scraper site or not?
This is easier than you think and here are the tell-tale signs that you have landed on a scraper site:
- The site uses software that cannot differentiate meaning
- The sites are generally ugly (maybe a reflection of the souls of people who don't have the ability to create their own content?)
- Wall to wall advertising
- Little or no original content whatsoever - just link to the originating source
- Plain vanilla site, no add-ons like a forum or biography or discography section
For example, take #1 on this list. You come across what you think is a new AC/DC site and wonder why the content also has articles about batteries or electrical transformers! It's true - these automated scraping tools cannot tell the difference between AC/DC [the band] and AC/DC [the electrical version - alternating current/direct current].
So why is this so bad anyway? - even established websites need new fans - sites eventually fizzle out when people leave and new people are unable to find them. New sites that start up with genuine original content are unable to "make-it" since it is impossible to be found. Word of mouth is a great way to help genuine sites, however, it is not enough on its own to get new sites the coverage they need to grow, therefore they are normally the first casualty of the scraper sites.
There is no genuine interest in AC/DC by these sites. They contain no original material of their own - they exist to earn clicks from their ads - how can this be good for fans?
So there you have it - we are witnessing change as it happens, whether or not these disputably illegal sites will succeed is largely up to the likes of Google and if they are making money from such sites, after all Google adwords and adsense is the main advertising program used by scraper sites, so turning a blind eye to sites like this is in Google's financial interest... and it is no wonder that so many search results are no longer what we are looking for and have become less useful to us over time. Already one scraper site has reached page 3 of Google's search results for a prime AC/DC keyword which is perhaps a good indication of where Google stands on this issue.
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