Years before I joined Steemit in 2017, I decided to start a test blog. This was a place where, since I had no real audience to begin with, I could make all of my mistakes and try new things out under the radar. I wrote about technology and Apple products, while working on improving my writing and working out the kinks. One day, I wrote a Photoshop review, that for a few days, ended up ranking higher than Adobe's version before somebody at the company got a clue. It seemed that no one could see my blogging mistakes, but it turned out that someone was watching...

Online tools were available that allowed me to do keyword searches, for long-tail ranking on Google. In the comment section, a blogger wrote that he had quoted p[art of a paragraph of mine and posted a link back. I was surprised that anybody would bother and flattered by it, saying it was cool as long as he'd linked back and credited me, which he did. One such service allowed you to check for backlinks, which were a feature in growing your blog. Back then, the more backlinks you had, the higher your possible ranking in the search engines.

So, one day, I'm checking my links, and the service reported dozens of instances of my site being mentioned. Turns out a "tech blogger" from South Asia was scraping my blog and started republishing many of my articles. He would replace my byline with his, as if he crafted the post and left no link back whatsoever. Contacting him, I reminded him of the hours I put in to create each post and asked him to credit me and provide a link back to my website. No response. I'm watching his readers praising his English and writing skills as if he was the creator. He was monitizing them via an ad network and donations for his "hard work." Even going so far as to request in comments under my own posts on my blog, that I hurry up and write articles faster!

So I contacted the host we both used.

Once they got involved, they checked and saw what he was doing, sent him a warning email and deleted his latest copy of my post. I asked them to delete them all, but they told me I would have to fill out a form *for each and every blog post, separately.* This meant hundreds of forms would have to be completed in order to catch up with the theft of my work. Considering the time and effort that would entail, another plan formed in my mind.

My guess is that he wasn't doing this by hand, but was using some kind of software or a script that did the site scraping for him. First, I tried working mentions of myself and my blog, in the body of the post. These would all be stripped out, by whatever he was using by the time they showed up on his blog. Having been unable to get him to correct the theft of my IP or get the hosting company to help me out, I decided on a way to get his attention....

Seeing where he was from, and knowing a bit about his country, I decided to weave in some mild criticism of his government. I mean, if this jackass was going to pretend to author my work, I would happily give him something to say that might make him think twice. And here's what happened...

Upon automatically posting my copied article, he was being assailed by readers in his own country as to why he was questioning the government! I wish I could have seen his face when he woke up to the digital uproar. Finally, I heard back from this guy and he had the gall to ask in my comment section, that I not post such things! He was told that if he'd stop stealing my work, there'd be nothing to worry about. So now, thinking my point was made and he'd gotten the message, normal posting resumed.

Now, you'd think that would be enough for him, right? WRONG! This idiot continued scraping my site without attribution. With no further assistance coming from the host, I took my efforts to the next level. With the next few blog posts, I folded in, not only criticism of his government, but also questions about the army and the intelligence services.

Boy, did THAT do the trick!

Hit with an avalanche of complaints from his own readers as to why he was blogging against his own nation and no doubt attracting exactly the wrong kind of attention from certain quarters, he confessed all. He admitted that he didn't write any of the posts and that it was from some crazy American that he was doing the copying. He stopped stealing my work and never copied my posts again.

Turns out he just didn't want to put in the time and effort required to do the research and found it easier to sell the work of another as his own. What's that old saying? "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." But all I could think of was the hours spent birthing each post, only to see someone else taking the credit. I was so spent by the whole thing, that a few months later, I ceased work on my blog. A few years later‌ in 2016, I'd see a message on Facebook inviting me to join this new site called Steemit. Some guy made $100 on one post? Riiight! Clicking away, it would be another year before the company would be in the news and my journey as a blogger would begin again. Steemit led to Hive, Hive led to Leofinance and Leo led to everything else.