Comments on: SEOmoz have been done by the old www URL trick http://dfinitive.com/blog/seo/seomoz-have-been-done-by-the-old-www-url-trick/ Online marketing blog about affiliate marketing, branding, SEO, web 2.0, social media and all things marketing related. Mon, 6 Oct 2008 22:28:06 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 By: fields http://dfinitive.com/blog/seo/seomoz-have-been-done-by-the-old-www-url-trick/#comment-2721 fields Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:48:42 +0000 http://dfinitive.com/blog/seo/seomoz-have-been-done-by-the-old-www-url-trick/#comment-2721 You could call this guy a loser or whatever but Google rewards this type of behavior. Misspellings, etc are a huge source of income for Google on their content network.. Do a placement report with traffic on the google content network if you are selling something with adwords and then see how much much traffic comes from domain ads . A lot of traffic comes from misspellings that google monetizes.. Futhermore you are NOT allowed to exclude domain ads in your google advertising campaigns You could call this guy a loser or whatever but Google rewards this type of behavior.

Misspellings, etc are a huge source of income for Google on their content network..

Do a placement report with traffic on the google content network if you are selling something with adwords and then see how much much traffic comes from domain ads .

A lot of traffic comes from misspellings that google monetizes..

Futhermore you are NOT allowed to exclude domain ads in your google advertising campaigns

]]> By: Alesillese http://dfinitive.com/blog/seo/seomoz-have-been-done-by-the-old-www-url-trick/#comment-2268 Alesillese Wed, 19 Dec 2007 21:43:28 +0000 http://dfinitive.com/blog/seo/seomoz-have-been-done-by-the-old-www-url-trick/#comment-2268 In general, this seems like a cheap practice. I don't know what was going on in this particular situation, but most of the time when you see this, it definitely leaves a bad taste in the mouth. In general, this seems like a cheap practice. I don’t know what was going on in this particular situation, but most of the time when you see this, it definitely leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

]]> By: Matt Houldsworth (Earning From Affiliates) http://dfinitive.com/blog/seo/seomoz-have-been-done-by-the-old-www-url-trick/#comment-986 Matt Houldsworth (Earning From Affiliates) Sat, 29 Sep 2007 21:03:25 +0000 http://dfinitive.com/blog/seo/seomoz-have-been-done-by-the-old-www-url-trick/#comment-986 I wonder if there is any legal recourse somebody could make agains this practice? Afterall the domain name in many cases is the tradename...? I dont know perhaps someone else might have a better idea. I agree, it is dissapointing, especially for those of us who put in the effort to make this inductry work Matt Houldsworth I wonder if there is any legal recourse somebody could make agains this practice? Afterall the domain name in many cases is the tradename…? I dont know perhaps someone else might have a better idea.

I agree, it is dissapointing, especially for those of us who put in the effort to make this inductry work

Matt Houldsworth

]]> By: Carsten Cumbrowski http://dfinitive.com/blog/seo/seomoz-have-been-done-by-the-old-www-url-trick/#comment-904 Carsten Cumbrowski Thu, 20 Sep 2007 18:46:54 +0000 http://dfinitive.com/blog/seo/seomoz-have-been-done-by-the-old-www-url-trick/#comment-904 Nothing personal against you Mario, but calling you a looser is actually not that bad at all. If Julian would be a veteran affiliate marketer, other words would have been used probably. Typo-squatter would have been the first and then... well lets not go there :) Okay, it worked well in the past and a lot of affiliates abused it, but things are changing. The word "looser" is actually a pretty good choice nowadays, because affiliates who get caught doing this can not only loose the domain and some of their commissions, but a lot more than that. Big brands started dragging their former affiliates and business partners to court over those things. "Hit and run" does not work in those cases, because merchants don't let affiliates run with it in this day and age. So I would be careful and check your other domains. Giving them away to the "victim" might be a good idea. I would start with removing the registrar lock on those that transfer requests will not be blocked and rejected automatically. This, in combination with a nice email that includes a step by step guide what the other business owner has to do in order to get the domain transferred to his name and account. That's my advice. Cheers! Nothing personal against you Mario, but calling you a looser is actually not that bad at all. If Julian would be a veteran affiliate marketer, other words would have been used probably. Typo-squatter would have been the first and then… well lets not go there :)

Okay, it worked well in the past and a lot of affiliates abused it, but things are changing. The word “looser” is actually a pretty good choice nowadays, because affiliates who get caught doing this can not only loose the domain and some of their commissions, but a lot more than that. Big brands started dragging their former affiliates and business partners to court over those things. “Hit and run” does not work in those cases, because merchants don’t let affiliates run with it in this day and age.

So I would be careful and check your other domains. Giving them away to the “victim” might be a good idea. I would start with removing the registrar lock on those that transfer requests will not be blocked and rejected automatically.

This, in combination with a nice email that includes a step by step guide what the other business owner has to do in order to get the domain transferred to his name and account.

That’s my advice. Cheers!

]]> By: Julian Paling http://dfinitive.com/blog/seo/seomoz-have-been-done-by-the-old-www-url-trick/#comment-903 Julian Paling Thu, 20 Sep 2007 18:06:33 +0000 http://dfinitive.com/blog/seo/seomoz-have-been-done-by-the-old-www-url-trick/#comment-903 Hi Carsten, Thanks for your comment, I never thought about this as a method to get free and potentially high quality links. Good thinking, i wonder if wwwwikipedia.com is still available. :) Julian. Hi Carsten,

Thanks for your comment, I never thought about this as a method to get free and potentially high quality links. Good thinking, i wonder if wwwwikipedia.com is still available. :)

Julian.

]]> By: Julian Paling http://dfinitive.com/blog/seo/seomoz-have-been-done-by-the-old-www-url-trick/#comment-902 Julian Paling Thu, 20 Sep 2007 18:04:37 +0000 http://dfinitive.com/blog/seo/seomoz-have-been-done-by-the-old-www-url-trick/#comment-902 Hi Mario, Thanks a lot for your detailed and honest comment, you are a brave man. I do apologise Mario for calling you sneaky etc, that was uncalled for, sorry. You sound like a pretty decent guy so how about giving the domain back to SEOmoz? I think that would be a good way to draw a line under this issue. All the best, Julian. Hi Mario,

Thanks a lot for your detailed and honest comment, you are a brave man.

I do apologise Mario for calling you sneaky etc, that was uncalled for, sorry. You sound like a pretty decent guy so how about giving the domain back to SEOmoz? I think that would be a good way to draw a line under this issue.

All the best,

Julian.

]]> By: MARIO http://dfinitive.com/blog/seo/seomoz-have-been-done-by-the-old-www-url-trick/#comment-892 MARIO Thu, 20 Sep 2007 05:10:16 +0000 http://dfinitive.com/blog/seo/seomoz-have-been-done-by-the-old-www-url-trick/#comment-892 Well… let me start by introducing myself, my name is Mario and I’m the owner of the “Sneaky git website” that you are talking about. I came across your post yesterday a few hours after you post it and I was about to send you to the hell for calling me a “looooser”. I counted to ten, took a deep breath and decide to wait until I had something good to say besides that… now I have! Here is the short story: I started learning SEO about 3 years ago when I heard about it. Like many others I bought “Miracle SEO tools” and took the said “Best SEO workshops and courses” in the hope of learning the SEO techniques. One day I came across a post in a well known SEO forum owned by a well know and very egocentric SEM talking about the “wwwsite.com” trick. (Off the record, this SEM is so egocentric that not even proving my point showing the facts I had for a discussion, which by the way most people agreed with me in the forum, this SEM banned me from his site for the only reason I demostrated that the post was completely wrong). I was absolutely chocked with that. People getting traffic from typographical errors! Wow! Then I started checking the big names to see what comes up and it was obvious to find that the big names like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc were already the owners of their “www” version domain. Just for curiosity I checked the domain of the forum where I was reading the post and found that they were not taking care of that trick and that the domain was actually available. I started laughing like crazy… “they talk about this and they don’t even mind about it”. Even though I found the way of “getting a revenge” I didn’t register the domain right away, I checked other domains that popped in my head (including seomoz) and almost everyone where not dong it either. Don’t blame me for buying those domains, I was learning at that time and wanted to try a new technique… I thought “maybe it works, who knows!” Well, what I learned is that YES, people will mistakenly type the domain, but NO, unless you offer fairly same services or have related products it will not be of any benefit for your business. To please your curiosity I bought a few other domains as I said before but most of them are not even pointing to that site. You just found one of them. To be honest I felt offended by your post because you called me names without even knowing that I sent a note to the seomoz owners with a comment about this issue but they never answered, so I decided to get it. Since the very first moment that I noticed that their domain was available and the time I bought passed about 3.5 months because I completely forgot about that. So it wasn’t a stolen fish from someone else’s net, it was the only fish in the lake that nobody wanted to catch! Similar things happened with other domains that I own but I don’t want to disclose it since this is not the purpose of this reply. I swear that I’d never heard about you before but after a quick google search it seems like you are a well know professional on the business and an active member of the seomoz community. That alone grants you my respect, but I don’t forget that what you called me. My intentions are legitimate because: 1. When I bought the domain I had to point it to somewhere, this is not a thing that you can put in a drawer and I want them to one day notice that I had bought their another most important domain… otherwise why would I point it to my site that has no domain ID protection? 2. I don’t offer similar products, you can visit my website and see that I actually don’t offer SEO as a service but as an add-on to any website I build. 3. Since I have that domain I had less than 40 hits in a year and that of course is not enough to find clients. Is that the traffic that you are telling everyone I’m stealing? 4. I don’t do business with people outside my home city because I had a few problems with customers who order development via email and communications where not exactly the best… most customers want to have someone face to face. 5. I don’t have time to fight for none important issues. 6. Web development same as SEO are not my main source of business because I own another company where we are making real money (thanx to my SEO skills by the way). 7. My intentions are so legitimate that I’m willing to turn down ownership of the domain if they ask me for that. Contrary to your attacks I want to end this reply like a gentleman with the following… Best Regards, Mario Webmaster of www.vibratingdesigns.com Well… let me start by introducing myself, my name is Mario and I’m the owner of the “Sneaky git website” that you are talking about. I came across your post yesterday a few hours after you post it and I was about to send you to the hell for calling me a “looooser”. I counted to ten, took a deep breath and decide to wait until I had something good to say besides that… now I have!
Here is the short story:
I started learning SEO about 3 years ago when I heard about it. Like many others I bought “Miracle SEO tools” and took the said “Best SEO workshops and courses” in the hope of learning the SEO techniques.
One day I came across a post in a well known SEO forum owned by a well know and very egocentric SEM talking about the “wwwsite.com” trick. (Off the record, this SEM is so egocentric that not even proving my point showing the facts I had for a discussion, which by the way most people agreed with me in the forum, this SEM banned me from his site for the only reason I demostrated that the post was completely wrong). I was absolutely chocked with that. People getting traffic from typographical errors! Wow! Then I started checking the big names to see what comes up and it was obvious to find that the big names like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc were already the owners of their “www” version domain. Just for curiosity I checked the domain of the forum where I was reading the post and found that they were not taking care of that trick and that the domain was actually available. I started laughing like crazy… “they talk about this and they don’t even mind about it”. Even though I found the way of “getting a revenge” I didn’t register the domain right away, I checked other domains that popped in my head (including seomoz) and almost everyone where not dong it either.

Don’t blame me for buying those domains, I was learning at that time and wanted to try a new technique… I thought “maybe it works, who knows!” Well, what I learned is that YES, people will mistakenly type the domain, but NO, unless you offer fairly same services or have related products it will not be of any benefit for your business. To please your curiosity I bought a few other domains as I said before but most of them are not even pointing to that site. You just found one of them.

To be honest I felt offended by your post because you called me names without even knowing that I sent a note to the seomoz owners with a comment about this issue but they never answered, so I decided to get it. Since the very first moment that I noticed that their domain was available and the time I bought passed about 3.5 months because I completely forgot about that. So it wasn’t a stolen fish from someone else’s net, it was the only fish in the lake that nobody wanted to catch! Similar things happened with other domains that I own but I don’t want to disclose it since this is not the purpose of this reply.

I swear that I’d never heard about you before but after a quick google search it seems like you are a well know professional on the business and an active member of the seomoz community. That alone grants you my respect, but I don’t forget that what you called me.

My intentions are legitimate because:

1. When I bought the domain I had to point it to somewhere, this is not a thing that you can put in a drawer and I want them to one day notice that I had bought their another most important domain… otherwise why would I point it to my site that has no domain ID protection?
2. I don’t offer similar products, you can visit my website and see that I actually don’t offer SEO as a service but as an add-on to any website I build.
3. Since I have that domain I had less than 40 hits in a year and that of course is not enough to find clients. Is that the traffic that you are telling everyone I’m stealing?
4. I don’t do business with people outside my home city because I had a few problems with customers who order development via email and communications where not exactly the best… most customers want to have someone face to face.
5. I don’t have time to fight for none important issues.
6. Web development same as SEO are not my main source of business because I own another company where we are making real money (thanx to my SEO skills by the way).
7. My intentions are so legitimate that I’m willing to turn down ownership of the domain if they ask me for that.

Contrary to your attacks I want to end this reply like a gentleman with the following…

Best Regards,

Mario
Webmaster of http://www.vibratingdesigns.com

]]> By: Carsten Cumbrowski http://dfinitive.com/blog/seo/seomoz-have-been-done-by-the-old-www-url-trick/#comment-880 Carsten Cumbrowski Wed, 19 Sep 2007 11:01:06 +0000 http://dfinitive.com/blog/seo/seomoz-have-been-done-by-the-old-www-url-trick/#comment-880 Hi Julian, My guess is that the goal is to get some free and high quality links because of typos made by webmasters who wanted to link to SEOMoz. If done right, links to the misspelled URL would not result in a 404 error message but a 200 (OK) response and not be detected by automated link checker tools. The domain was registered last year in November http://whois.domaintools.com/wwwseomoz.org Yahoo! Site Explorer shows only 3 inbound links from another site (not much, but better than 0) https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/advsearch?p=http%3A%2F%2Fwwwseomoz.org&bwm=i&bwmf=a&bwms=p Google shows nothing. if you type in wwwseomoz.org in the Google search box, you get redirected to the (wrong) site automatically, but if it is somebody who does not know SEOMoz and just heard about it, who knows, they might end up using their service anyway. Bad conversion for sure, but that is the case with any spam. It's a numbers game. If SEOMoz would launch an affiliate program during their expansion of the paid member services and vibrating designs would sign-up for that and redirect the domain to their, different story and much more profitable for the "typo-squatter". But you are right, that's affiliate marketer 101 nowadays, but nothing SEO's pay much attention to (yet). Cheers! Carsten Hi Julian,

My guess is that the goal is to get some free and high quality links because of typos made by webmasters who wanted to link to SEOMoz. If done right, links to the misspelled URL would not result in a 404 error message but a 200 (OK) response and not be detected by automated link checker tools.

The domain was registered last year in November
http://whois.domaintools.com/wwwseomoz.org

Yahoo! Site Explorer shows only 3 inbound links from another site (not much, but better than 0)

https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/advsearch?p=http%3A%2F%2Fwwwseomoz.org&bwm=i&bwmf=a&bwms=p

Google shows nothing. if you type in wwwseomoz.org in the Google search box, you get redirected to the (wrong) site automatically, but if it is somebody who does not know SEOMoz and just heard about it, who knows, they might end up using their service anyway. Bad conversion for sure, but that is the case with any spam. It’s a numbers game.

If SEOMoz would launch an affiliate program during their expansion of the paid member services and vibrating designs would sign-up for that and redirect the domain to their, different story and much more profitable for the “typo-squatter”.

But you are right, that’s affiliate marketer 101 nowadays, but nothing SEO’s pay much attention to (yet).

Cheers!
Carsten

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