One of the reasons I have not been writing as much for the past for months was analysis paralysis. For years in corporate technology settings, I promised myself that I would make good on getting to writing at some point. I made a decision in the early 1990s to pay bills and help support parents rather than be the broke writer that had to compromise himself to earn a living. The world changed.

My plans I was in the process of making concrete were hit with the phosphoric acid of LLM training and competition even as I was laying the cornerstone.

My mother was a writer. She self-published in the 1970s through the 1990s by getting her poetry printed and, as far as I know, she never broke even. She kept writing anyway, and I think she was pretty good despite some of the opinions she expressed – she expressed them well.

There was one poem she wrote about how Poets were esteemed in Somalia and given prominence – I can’t seem to find it as she sadly didn’t publish it online – but the gist of it was that there are, or were, parts of the world where poetry was important. By extension, writing was important, and writing was respected.

Writers were seen as noble artisans of the written word, earning their keep through the sweat of ink that scrawled out of their hands and, later, keyboards. In today’s digital Wild West, writing for money online feels a bit like leaving cookies on the counter of a house full of raccoons. You’re crafting something delightful, but someone, somewhere, is plotting to grab it and run—no credit given, no crumbs left behind. Even online publishing with Amazon.com is fraught with such things, and the only way to keep from the dilution of your work is to dilute it yourself.

We find ourselves aliens in a world we created. Inadvertently, I helped build this world, as did you, either by putting pieces of code together to feign intelligence (really, just recording our own for replays) or our demand for fresh content that sparked imagination.

Welcome to the age of content scraping, where your genius headlines and painstakingly researched prose are more at risk than a picnic basket in Jellystone Park.

The Scraper Apocalypse: Who Stole My Blog?

As mentioned previously, I moved off of WordPress.com mainly because of the business practices of Automattic – particularly the aspect where they made a deal to use the content on WordPress.com as training data for LLMs with the default set for users to agree to it. Why on Earth would anyone agree to it?

Scraping is nothing new. Companies—and bots with names like “Googlebot” (friendly) or “AggressiveRandoBot42” (not so much)—are prowling the internet, vacuuming up your hard-earned words faster than you can type them to train their Large Language Models, or AIs. They aren’t even considered shady. And it’s not just shady websites in the far corners of the web. You don’t know who is doing it.

What’s left for you? Crumbs, if you’re lucky. So, how do you stay ahead of the scrapers while still getting paid?

Step 1: Write With a Purpose

Personally, I’m not too much about monetization and yet I drink coffee that costs money. It’s a reality for all of us, a system born into where I can’t pay my bills by sending people words.

Let’s start with the golden rule of online writing: never write for free unless it’s a passion project—or revenge poetry about scrapers. Every blog post, article, or eBook should have a direct or indirect income stream attached.

• Direct Revenue: Ads, sponsored posts, or affiliate marketing links.
• Indirect Revenue: Use your content to build an email list or funnel readers toward a product or service you offer.
• Be yourself: technologies are increasingly mimicking, but they can’t do what you do.

Scrapers might steal your content, but they can’t siphon your strategy directly. They can, however, adapt quickly based on the information they get, so you have to stay on your toes.

Step 2: Build the Fortress: Protecting Your Content

If you’ve ever tried to protect your lunch from a determined coworker, you’ll understand this analogy: scrapers don’t care about rules. But you can make their lives harder.

• Add Internal Links: Keep scrapers busy by linking to other parts of your site. If they scrape one post, they get a tangled web that leads readers right back to you.
• Use Watermarks in Imagery: For visual-heavy posts, watermark your images with your logo or website URL. It’s digital branding in action.
• Insert Easter Eggs: Include subtle shout-outs to your own name or brand. Scrapers might miss these, but real readers won’t. You do know you’re on RealityFragments.com, right?
• Consider Subscriptions: Some websites allow you to close your content to subscribers, but you need consistent readers to pull that off.

Step 3: Turn the Tables—Use Scrapers to Your Advantage

Here’s the plot twist: sometimes, scrapers inadvertently help you. When your content gets stolen but still links back to you, it can drive traffic to your site.

But how do you ensure that happens?

• Embed Links Thoughtfully: Include links to high-value content (like an eBook sales page or an email sign-up form). If they scrape your post, their audience might still end up on your site.
• Use Syndication Smartly: Syndicate your content to reputable platforms, as few as they are. These platforms might outrank the scrapers and help your original post shine. Also note when you post to them, you should still expect your content to be scraped
• Use LLMs to check your own work: LLMs are trained by scraping. My own writing is something I like to assure is fresh and original, so I have LLMs I installed that are disconnected from the Internet (instructions on how to do that with 0llama here) to assure the same. I’ve found it very helpful to make sure I’m original since they scrape everyone else’s content… (and probably mine).

Step 4: Embrace the Impermanence

At the end of the day, the internet is a giant soup pot, and everyone’s stirring it. You can’t stop all the scrapers, but you can focus on making your content work harder for you.

• Repurpose: Turn blogs into videos, podcasts, or infographics. It’s much harder for scrapers to steal a voiceover than it is to Ctrl+C your text. I stink at this and need to get better.
• Engage Directly: Build relationships with your audience through comments, newsletters, and social media. Scrapers can’t steal community.
• Focus on Creating: A creator creates, and the body of work is greater than the sum of its parts. I think of this as the bird that can land on a branch not because it trusts the strength of the branch but because it trusts it’s wings. Trust your wings.

Conclusion: Keep Writing Anyway

Writing for a living online in an era of content scraping is a lot like running a lemonade stand during a rainstorm. It’s messy. There are periods of disheartenment. Life is not easy. But when the sun comes out—or when the right reader finds your work—it’s worth it.

So, write boldly, monetize smartly, and remember: scrapers might steal your words, but they can’t steal your voice, though Sir David Attenborough can argue that. They cannot take away your ability to be human and create.

Stay witty, stay scrappy, and may your words always pay their rent and bring someone value.