The following is a guest post by Brandon Hopkins.

Hi, my name is Brandon and I’m addicted to link building. Now that we got that out, let me start by telling you that I see opportunities all over the place. One of my favorite methods for building links is to give a full RSS feed on established sites. I know there is still debate on whether or not full RSS feeds are a good idea, but I have good reason to put an end to the debate.

1. Source Content Vs. Duplicate Content

There is a good reason why Ezine Articles ranks #1 over other article directories and Ezilon Web Directory does great with Central and South America search results. The reason is they have the source content. They are the first to publish something so Google knows they created the content. Every other directory has duplicate content. Since you’re the first to post, Google knows you have the source content, so don’t worry about someone else duplicating your content.

2. Free Links!

Like I said, I’m addicted to link building and one of the easiest ways is through creating great blog content. Once you get a great piece of content up (pics, video, or content) make sure and link to your site somewhere in the body. When someone steals your content, it’s usually not personal – it’s automated. Since these content thieves aren’t reviewing each stolen post, it’s fair game for you to link to whatever you want. Of course you will find some that strip all HTML out before it gets posted, and there isn’t much you can do about that.

Want the Stolen Content Removed?

If someone is stripping your HTML and not providing you with value, and you want to remove that stolen content, you can start with some time consuming steps that often get expensive with legal fees or come to nothing because the content thief is in another country. If you’re still insistent on trying to remove your stolen content you should start by sending a letter to the website owner. Find the name and address through a Whois search. If that doesn’t work, contact their web host. Still no luck? You can file a DMCA.

Here are two links for help with filing a DMCA.

How to File a DMCA Complaint
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (Google)

Good luck with DMCA. I’ve been down this road twice, both of which just wasted my time.

Brandon Hopkins does Madera website design. Contact him for a web design quote.

Note from Donna: I’ve actually had good luck with the DMCA process, but it’s time consuming, and only worth the effort if the thieve’s content has a chance of outranking your own. This rarely happens, but once in a while, the dirty scoundrels actually have a powerful site that is capable of out-ranking source content. For those rare instances, do try the DMCA route. But 99% of the time, Brandon’s method of letting the content thieves provide backlinks to your site is very good advice. I also totally believe in using full RSS feeds. Full feeds are what users want, and if full feeds also enable us to acquire a few backlinks from content thieves, that’s good for us as well.