Google Hijacker of Macromedia Blogs Replies
This post is in reply to being contacted by the owner of edelina.com from the post Macromedia and/or FullAsAGoog RSS Feeds Being Used By Spammers. Eduard's reply to me can be found in the comments section of that post.
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Eduard, Thanks for posting the comment (and sending me the email). Good to see you are also reading the blogs you are hijacking! To answer your questions: 1) edelina.com's whois contains fake domain registration info, usually a sign someone is trying to hide something, and a good indicator that something shady is going on. 2) Hijacked URLs made to be SES URLS - While the edelina.com homepage does currently appear to replicate much of the functionality as fullasagoog.com - I notice that a few things have been changed, including the removal of several self referencing links and a link through URL format that was clearly re-writing the titles of blog postings into URLs that appeared to be legitimate pages. This modification of URLs is often called "search engine safe URLS" and is used to make the links/pages appear to be a real HTML page on the site and not a generated page. For most sites this is a legitimate thing to do. The problem is that you were making search engine safe URLs for MY content (and other bloggers). Effectively attempting to make the search engines index it as if it were on your content on your site. This is the very definition of Google Hijacking. If all you were doing was tracking clickthroughs as you say, why go to the trouble to attempt fooling the search engines into thinking the content was a page on your site? Also, oddly, fullasagoog.com seems to be counting clickthroughs without hijacking - so it's not so hard to accomplish. 3) Searching "Abadon Studio" in Google reveals a ton of sites which are google bomb factories with tons of sometimes unrelated keywords including "Abadon Studio". This is typically the calling card of a less then legitimate SEO operation, and not that of a design shop (which abadonstudio.com claims to be) 4) Spam on edelina.com - Taking a look at edelina.com's history, it's easy to see that it's previously been used for a page called "Receive A FREE Personalized Quote By A Local Licensed Agent!". That's pretty spammy and shows a willingness to transform this site into a huge junk magnet in the past, and a willingness to do it again in the future. 5) As to why I didn't email you at all, well... I don't normally negotiate with spammers, I just block them out. Given the overwhelming quantity of evidence above, I didn't really see any reason to have contacted you. In the end though, I am glad that you did contact me. It shows a willingness (perhaps) to change, and recognize the fault of what you did whether it be intentional or unintentional (which I hope it was). I also applaud the changes you made to the links on your site, thought I note that you've left the Google hijacking links active so that they won't fall out of the search engines. That's not so honest.
Eduard, Thanks for posting the comment (and sending me the email). Good to see you are also reading the blogs you are hijacking! To answer your questions: 1) edelina.com's whois contains fake domain registration info, usually a sign someone is trying to hide something, and a good indicator that something shady is going on. 2) Hijacked URLs made to be SES URLS - While the edelina.com homepage does currently appear to replicate much of the functionality as fullasagoog.com - I notice that a few things have been changed, including the removal of several self referencing links and a link through URL format that was clearly re-writing the titles of blog postings into URLs that appeared to be legitimate pages. This modification of URLs is often called "search engine safe URLS" and is used to make the links/pages appear to be a real HTML page on the site and not a generated page. For most sites this is a legitimate thing to do. The problem is that you were making search engine safe URLs for MY content (and other bloggers). Effectively attempting to make the search engines index it as if it were on your content on your site. This is the very definition of Google Hijacking. If all you were doing was tracking clickthroughs as you say, why go to the trouble to attempt fooling the search engines into thinking the content was a page on your site? Also, oddly, fullasagoog.com seems to be counting clickthroughs without hijacking - so it's not so hard to accomplish. 3) Searching "Abadon Studio" in Google reveals a ton of sites which are google bomb factories with tons of sometimes unrelated keywords including "Abadon Studio". This is typically the calling card of a less then legitimate SEO operation, and not that of a design shop (which abadonstudio.com claims to be) 4) Spam on edelina.com - Taking a look at edelina.com's history, it's easy to see that it's previously been used for a page called "Receive A FREE Personalized Quote By A Local Licensed Agent!". That's pretty spammy and shows a willingness to transform this site into a huge junk magnet in the past, and a willingness to do it again in the future. 5) As to why I didn't email you at all, well... I don't normally negotiate with spammers, I just block them out. Given the overwhelming quantity of evidence above, I didn't really see any reason to have contacted you. In the end though, I am glad that you did contact me. It shows a willingness (perhaps) to change, and recognize the fault of what you did whether it be intentional or unintentional (which I hope it was). I also applaud the changes you made to the links on your site, thought I note that you've left the Google hijacking links active so that they won't fall out of the search engines. That's not so honest.
1) about what "fake domain registration info" are you talking? take a look here http://whois.net/whois.cgi2?d=edelina.com and tell me which is the fake part? maybe you don't like my address? oh well... can't help on that.. that's where i DO live. and THAT's from wher i am sritting right now this comment
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2) the only things that changed last hmmm 6 months or so (don't have much time working on changes there, so using the agreagator mostly just to read interesting posts from different blogs) was the changes i started to work on today on making a different way of tracking the clicks. right now there all links are exactly as they was b4, so i suppose you just got into the site in a moment when i was trying some things, so it appeared to you differently. What about the SES URLs.. the trueth is that edelina.com not only work as an agregator, but it let me add my own posts same time.. and they all go together. So, that SES links being applied automatically are created as for my posts, so for all other posts as well. yeah i know that is a bit of messi and i should do there an additional verification and use the auto SES creation only to my posts, but.. oh well.. that is how things was made when i created the code and i never then had time to return to it.. So, there is/was NO intended spamming or hijacking. most probably i will use now the AJAX to track the clicks.. anyway, that's how things are at real now.<br><br>
3) AbadonStudio is looong time not just a design shop already.. and i bet all of the links you talk about (or at least almost all of them) are our OWN sites. and there is NO google bombing. we just periodicaly automatically and dynamicaly add few links to some of our sites just to be sure the bots visiting one of our sites will visit as well the other sites. So, again - NO SPAMMING<br><br>
4) edelina.com NEVER had other site on it from when i am using it. (this include the 2004 that is indicated in the link you are providing). Most probably in some moment the DNS points got messed or something like that and a bot as visiting in that time the site. To show you that this is truth i will tell that the listed site is one of the sites we are doing business on and i think it exist even longer than edelina.com does. and that site is alive and working even now at same findaquote.net domain as always. so AGAIN - NO SPAMMING<br><br>
5) yeah.. i can understand your thoughts about spammers.. and i do the same in most of the cases, BUT not when i am not sure about things and ESPECIALLY not when it is published in magazines as MXDJ is.<br><br>
and now about "the end". yeah yeah.. i suppose i should be flattered all that words, BUT i still say that i have nothing to recognize about spamming, hijacking, bombing and things like that. What about the "google hijacking links" still active - as i told there are no permanent changes there right now. and if i am right, at the current moment (when i write this), edelina.com appears exactly as it was few hours ago. because i am in process of doing the changes. And doing them not because i made something wrong b4, but because some things seems to make trobles for others and i am not the person intending to do things like that. In most of the cases you can't even know about a possible problem till someone show it to you. This is the case now too. So in a good community when there is a problem, the person have to be pointed to that problem and if needed helped and not left all the dogs on him, am i right?<br><br>
so, as a summary - if there is something that generate problems to anyone, it's enough to point me to the problem and it will be fixed.<br><br>
Ed
# Posted By Eduard Tabara | April 19, 2005 1:51 PM
# Posted By Eduard Tabara | April 19, 2005 1:52 PM
# Posted By MAtt McWilliams | April 19, 2005 3:20 PM
Looks like it's at least legit enough to be in Google Maps, which is good enough for me to say it's probably legit even thougn it looks fake at first glance.
Ed, I'm glad you are making changes and I think you have to admit that what you were doing with the links - intentionally or not - does look very shady when you combine all the factors involved.
I am also confused by your affection for Peanut Butter, but that's neither here nor there.
# Posted By Cameron Childress | April 19, 2005 10:00 PM
He has done a lot of work on our site (http://www.hometownquotes.com) and has been great to work with. In my experience it is hard to find good prices from such great script writers, especially who are easy to work with.
anyway, I felt compelled to defend him because I consider him to be so good at what he does in addition to being a great guy.
# Posted By Matt McWilliams | April 19, 2005 10:04 PM
i think i demonstrated that with a bit of thinking the only unclear moment could be the links to the original blogs. (but there still was/are no 302 redirects but simple cflocation ;) ).
So, what about the links and comparison with fullasagoog, the ONLY difference in processes was that they use a link with the ID of the article, and i was using a SES link. What DEFINITLY is not a crime no matter if that links are used for personal links or links to other sites. Read more SEO articles!!! And who knew they will consider the cflocation a redirect to a personal page and will put on the index the local title? huh?
And, btw, if you will do some searches in same Google you will find a lot of similar links but with the foolasagoog link!!! no! i don't have something agains foolasagoog. NOT AT ALL! it's a great place to get news. What i am against of is the selective thinking! or maybe i should say "not enough thinking"?
All you write here seem just like a way to find a problem where it doesn't exist and not even to admit that you WAS wrong and as result to recognize that. So, i bet there will be no excuses from you as well.
And for the future... first THINK, VERIFY and only after that use hard statements no matter where they are published - your blog, or ESPECIALLY in journals like MXDJ is.
I thought you are good enough developer to not run after fake publicity.. And if even to admit that you got confused by many "factors" (?) and was not able to put them right head to head, it still doesn't explain your arrogance with the next post title - "Google Hijacker of Macromedia Blogs Replies"
Best regards,
Ed
# Posted By Eduard Tabara | April 20, 2005 4:16 AM
The overwhelming evidence remains that Abadon uses some questionable SEO practices and you are connected to them. I do read SEO articles, and I know about many of the underhanded tricks used by SEO "professionals" to trick search engines into ranking things in ways they shouldn't be. Just because a technique is published in an article doesn't make it The Right Thing To Do.
The fact also remains that your site has been used in the past for a "Free Insurance Quote" site. Perhaps this was an error on your host's part, but it's still true.
Goog certainly does not have the same Google hijacking problem (that I can find). It also doesn't attempt to masquerade blog posts as if they were content on their own site by modifying the URL into a SES link.
Any rational person would come to the same conclusion. I was not the first nor the last to come to this conclusion.
# Posted By Cameron Childress | April 20, 2005 8:11 AM
"questionable SEO practices" in your opinion doesn't necessary mean they really are questionable. What about the so called "professionals", the ideas for the "tricks" how you call them, was taken not from black jacking sites, but from sites like: webpronews.com, seochat.com and so on. I suppose they are "white" enough. And there never is only one vision of "The Right Thing To Do". So, as kind of definition can be taken the statement that something can be done and used if it is not interdicted and generate troubles to others. the "troubles to others" here is quete subjective because there always are parts that will like what is done and other parts that will say it generate troubles.
about edelina.com being used for the findaquote.net - once again, it NEVER was used with intention and even if/when without intention (like host problems) it for sure happened for only few minutes at at most hours. So, this statement as well can't be used as being true applied to any disputes.
about the "masquerade" - one more time - there NEVER was a try to masquerade blog posts as if they were content of my site. If i had such an intention, i am smart enough to do a simple CFHTTP with some VERY basic parsing and to show the requested content DIRECTLY on my site without any redirect (and one more time: WITHOUT ANY 302 REDIRECT - just a simple CFLOCATION). It is matter of few minutes of coding, i suppose you should understand that. the SES links you like to talk here so much about was just for better keywords relevancy. It is something good and not bad as you try to say. Just because google bot considered them as belonging to my site doesn't mean they were or it was done it to look like that.
not sure about the "any rational person" also. yes, i must accept that often at first look things may appear different as they are. that why is need the rational thinking. for example take a look at Sean Corfield's post. it sound something like "yeah.. it may seem a bit weird, but still can't say is bad.. bad if you say it is maybe is so.. i don't know.. not sure.." What about the left hand links that refer back to edelina.com (that Sean is talking about), yes there was a mistake in the HREF and the # wasn't there. so, at a click, when opening the new window with the original site, instead of staying where it was, it was loading the main page again. This was a programmatic error (thx for pointing me to that) and it still wasn't creating ANY problems or doing hijacking and so on. it was just reloading edelina.com again meaning a bit of discomfort for my visitors - that's all.
# Posted By Eduard Tabara | April 20, 2005 9:15 AM
# Posted By Cameron Childress | April 20, 2005 9:47 AM
"They are all equally underhanded in my view and only exist to subvert valid the process of Google's pagerank system." <--- yes, there are many sites talking about "black SEO" with tricks and so on, but if to return to our subject and case - what else is SEO for if not to optimize your pages so that it to get a BETTER ranking than they have? :-? Based on your definition any try to optimize the content in the idea to get a better ranking that the current one can be considered a hijacking because it will be indeed a trick (no matter if you just will add better META's) and it indeed will left unpleased some people that will not go that well in rankings.
# Posted By Eduard Tabara | April 20, 2005 10:03 AM
# Posted By Eduard Tabara | April 20, 2005 10:07 AM
# Posted By Cameron Childress | April 20, 2005 10:09 AM
I'm done with this - please don't make me turn off comments.
# Posted By Cameron Childress | April 20, 2005 10:12 AM