Why do people copy entire forums?

[Red Squirrel]

I see this a lot in the Linux world, and it drives me nuts because it makes searching 10 time sharder.

Someone makes a post on a forum asking a question or whatever, then some people come and copy this whole post/thread on their own site, usually in a format that is very hard to read. So you google 1 problem, only to find like 20 copies of the exact same thread! Looks like what they're trying to do is get people to go to their site.

I was searching more on google for an issue I have with rsnyc not deleting folders when they're deleted from the source, only to find my very own post about this, on a site I never posted at. Kinda amusing really.

 

[CrazyLazy]

I would imagine that forums about Linux, and other free/open source software don't copyright the material posted on the forum, or if they do they don't enforce it. This gives people a risk free way to obtain quality content that gets lots of search traffic. They copy the content to their own site, likely more search engine optimized than it's original. Then they wait for the traffic, and ad revenue to roll in.

This is better then copying from forums that enforce their intellectual property. If you copy from those you will get a DMCA shutdown notice at the least, and a civil lawsuit at the most.

 

[Saga]

Unfortunately, this is very common in all worlds. I get the same problem when trying to find solutions from Windows servers to Unix servers.

It's extremely irritating and makes finding actual solutions 10x harder.

 

[amdhunter]

I see this a lot in the Linux world, and it drives me nuts because it makes searching 10 time sharder.

Someone makes a post on a forum asking a question or whatever, then some people come and copy this whole post/thread on their own site, usually in a format that is very hard to read. So you google 1 problem, only to find like 20 copies of the exact same thread! Looks like what they're trying to do is get people to go to their site.

I was searching more on google for an issue I have with rsnyc not deleting folders when they're deleted from the source, only to find my very own post about this, on a site I never posted at. Kinda amusing really.

 

[amdhunter]

I see this a lot in the Linux world, and it drives me nuts because it makes searching 10 time sharder.

Someone makes a post on a forum asking a question or whatever, then some people come and copy this whole post/thread on their own site, usually in a format that is very hard to read. So you google 1 problem, only to find like 20 copies of the exact same thread! Looks like what they're trying to do is get people to go to their site.

I was searching more on google for an issue I have with rsnyc not deleting folders when they're deleted from the source, only to find my very own post about this, on a site I never posted at. Kinda amusing really.

 

[OCGuy]

The best place to find your answer to this question is probably here.

 

[mundane]

I think sometimes they're mirror mailing list archives, and not forums specifically.

 

[dighn]

yeah it annoys me too. it seems like some web sites do nothing but mirror (but slightly changed) other forums or even usenet. sometimes I get so many search results only to find the samething over and and ove rand over wtf. seems more prevalent for tehnical discussons (e.g. coding related)/.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Originally posted by: amdhunter
I see this a lot in the Linux world, and it drives me nuts because it makes searching 10 time sharder.

Someone makes a post on a forum asking a question or whatever, then some people come and copy this whole post/thread on their own site, usually in a format that is very hard to read. So you google 1 problem, only to find like 20 copies of the exact same thread! Looks like what they're trying to do is get people to go to their site.

I was searching more on google for an issue I have with rsnyc not deleting folders when they're deleted from the source, only to find my very own post about this, on a site I never posted at. Kinda amusing really.

I see what you did there. 😉

 

[Aluvus]

Originally posted by: mundane
I think sometimes they're mirror mailing list archives, and not forums specifically.

Very often, yes.

@OP: Your answer is simple, and it is Google Adsense. People toss up these mirrors (which have lots of pages with apparently not-spam content) with some ads and try to make money. Yes, it is irritating.