Propeller Marketing: We’re ethical, respectful and honest (see our other pages for the content we’ve lifted from the web)
Dr Mumbo was very impressed by the high ethical standards of the Port Melbourne promotional firm Propeller Marketing.
He knows Propeller is ethical because it says so on its website, which he won’t be linking to for reasons that will become clear in a moment.
Propeller has even got a sustainable business policy (or “sustainable bus policy” as they call it on their website – which does make Dr Mumbo think of the 333 from Bondi).
Propeller Marketing promises: “We will respect everyone we deal with, and work to earn the respect of our clients and peers.”
Nasty. Are you sending out the lawyers’ letter tomorrow? That kind of behaviour needs a good old fashioned smackdown
Not yet… but I’m also annoyed with ourselves – the reason I discovered it is that they’re ranking above us on Google for a particular keyword relating to that post.
Still, hopefully this post should rank pretty well on “Propeller Marketing”.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
ouch – not nice, and I agree with Tip that behaviour needs a smackdown!
good on you mumbrella!
If you wanted to link to them (so we know where to send our spam bots! :P), you can use the rel=”nofollow” attribute on the anchor so Google won’t follow the link or steal your SEO juice..
Hi Mumbrella,
A friend in the industry alerted us to your post, which we’d agree you’re right to call Propeller (with an e) Marketing to task for swiping your stuff.
Could I request that you further clarify that the agency in question is Propeller (with an e) Marketing, and NOT Propellor (with an O) Advertising, in Melbourne CBD, a boutique but still full service agency creating great work on behalf of a select group of blue-chip clients, and who strives to provide standout client service, unexpectedly fresh and hard-working creative, at affordable rates well below what clients would expect to pay for the high level of experience and talent they’ll get at Propellor (with an O) Advertising? And, while you’re at it, go ahead and let everyone know that they can learn more by going to http://www.propellor.com.au?
Thanks. Good luck going after those guys at Propeller (with an E).
John
Content theft/pilfering is a massive bloody problem in the industry.
As a professional web manager in the government, I’m forever having to keep an eye on those content lifters who fail to acknowledge where they sourced the content from, remove crown copyright information from official publications, or blatantly steal logos, images and similar for whatever nefarious purposes they have in mind.
@mumbrella: Please tell me the link in John Fuhr’s comment has had a rel=nofollow element added to it. Does he seriously expect me to believe he’s not trying to use this post to steal, as Craig called it, SEO juice.
@john: Seriously, does the screengrab of the offending website at the head of this post not give clarification to his question already. I’d like to say what I think of your post, but I can’t bring myself to use a six letter word beginning with ‘w’.
Hi Michael,
My post was not meant to steal “seo juice” or any other kind of juice.
I had two intentions with my post: first, a request for a legitimate clarification on which “Propeller” is out there allegedly stealing content. I’d suggest that the screen grab at top is *not* sufficient for most people to distinguish between a subtle spelling difference, and we occasionally get comments from clients asking us “are you the Propelle/or who did XYZ campaign?”, so we know that many people don’t investigate subtle spelling differences between homynyms, they go straight to “Propellor did that”…
My second intention was a mildly tongue in cheek attempt to point out the humour in having 3 (and counting?) Propelle/or’s company names spring up in the course of an article. I’m sure they’ll be more.
Mumbrella is welcome to redact my comments altogether if they deem them out of line.
WOW Michael Harris all that ‘in government’ work makes Mike a dull boy or are you just trying to show off?
John from PropellEr was clearly have a bit of early morning jocularity. Some blokes do that instead of having a wank like you.
At the risk of bucking the blog comment trend by being practical rather than inflammatory, I use Copyscape an awful lot to audit / protect Geekdom from content theft and plagiarism, since duplication of content is certainly something Google et al take a dim view of – and unfortunately don’t always attribute originality to the source.
http://copyscape.com/prosearch.php
Most blog comments are no-followed anyway (a quick squiz of the source code tells me Mumbrella is no exception), so leaking magical SEO juice / pixie dust / juju is not a concern.
You could opt to enable this WP plug-in which rewards frequent commenters by passing on link love: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nofollow-free/
Seems to be quite common among a certain type of small marketing agency site/blog, especially, to lift content wholesale without attribution or link love. You know, the ones who read in some 10 Ways To Boost Your Search Engine Rankings blog post how relevant content boosts your search rankings, and they figure since they lack the talent to write their own, it’s a more efficient use of their time to steal someone else’s.
What’s the bet they then pimp themselves out as SEO experts?
We’ve had run-ins with a few, including one guy who took down the article and replaced it with an angry post, whinging because we didn’t ask him nicely enough not to steal our content.
I mean, is it just an education issue? There’s the right way and the wrong way to link to an article. The right way is headline, first paragraph, link… When you do this, the Google Gods smile on you and you still get some SEO benefit. It’s not rocket surgery.
@Josh > rocket surgery? Did you mean it’s not brain surgery – or maybe it’s not rocket science?
Thanks for the chuckle… :o)
See Summer Heights High’s Mr G, Tracy….
@Michael: yes, it’s a major bloody issue in the industry.
It no longer surprises me that media and marketing ‘professionals’ are at it more and more. The net makes it too easy…
But it still sh*ts me (& you) no end!
I’ve had aspiring and experienced writers alike hand in copy that has been pilfered from a handful of sources and in just about all cases they’re GENUINELY SHOCKED when I pull them up.
“But I changed bits” they say, in their pissweak defence.
@Cathy — thanks for Copyscape link, will look into it!
p.s. [shameless plug] Plagiarism rant here: http://www.hesaidshesaid.com.au/blog/?p=171
@Michael: yes, it’s a major bloody issue in the industry.
It no longer surprises me that media and marketing ‘professionals’ are at it more and more. The net makes it too easy…
But it still sh*ts me (& you) no end!
I’ve had aspiring and experienced writers alike hand in copy that has been pilfered from a handful of sources and in just about all cases they’re GENUINELY SHOCKED when I pull them up.
“But I changed bits” they say, in their pissweak defence.
@Cathy — thanks for Copyscape link, will look into it!
The line “rocket surgery” is also used in a book by Steve Krug called ‘Don’t make me think : a common sense approach to web usability.’
Im amazed that Propeller (with an E) marketing havent commented on this. What kind of marketing agency work its salt doesnt keep a wary eye online for negative publicity and comments?
Obviously one without a finger on the pulse..
If anyone wants an SEO 101, then feel free to drop us a line.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N.....ch_engines
Nofollow isn’t quite as no follow as you might have previously been led to believe. If you don’t want to help them? Don’t post a link at all.
Oh, and Tim – you’re getting up there! http://ow.ly/lDNj 4th position!
Oh, and Copyscape is pretty good – I can recommend it.
Go get ’em Tim. Take it all the way to the top. That of course would be the Propeller Head. Boom tish !
Maybe Propeller should learn from some of the 13 year olds at my daughter’s school. They flagrantly cut and paste … then change the big words.
Content in a flash, with no embarrassingly plagiarism consequences.
God bless ’em.