Blog Aggregation Taken Too Far

This post by Mike Laverick is, as I believe they say, spot on (did I get my British English right?). Blog aggregation is one thing; many bloggers do it, including myself in my Virtualization Short Takes. VMware does it with Planet V12n. It’s not that uncommon. In my opinion, as long as the original blogger and the original blogger’s website are properly and clearly attributed, it’s not really a big deal.

The site that Mike pointed out, however, is—in my opinion—taking blog aggregation too far. There’s no clear attribution of the original author nor a clear link back to the author’s original site. I recognize content there from RTFM Education and Yellow Bricks for sure, and I suspect that some of the other sites in the Blogroll are also being rolled in. At no point anywhere in any of the aggregated articles do I see a link back the original author, the original author’s site, not even so much as mention of the original author’s name. There is only a small byline that says “By: Other Website”, but that’s it.

If you want to aggregate content, feel free. Just be sure to give credit where credit is due, and don’t rip off other people’s content.