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Spam: the biggest danger to the freedom of the internet. This blog also includes SEO, viruses, trojans and Internet Explorer - things that degrade the web experience.

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Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Comparing SEO to Spam

Danny Sullivan calls that people who, like Robert Scoble and Jason Calacanis, think SEO is about spam to fuck off. Calling SEO spam is like saying email is spam, he suggests. In exasperation, he rattles off a list of previous posts that are to explain why SEO is not spam.

Is email spam?

Without automated filtering, email today would be unusable - because of the high volume of spam. If you turned off all automated filtering and manually deal with spam, you'd be very likely to abandon email and write it off as spam. But we are lucky - we have automated tools that make email a little more bearable for the time being.

That filtering is how email remains usable when 94% of all email is spam. To say email is spam today, is probably more than 95% correct. I grant the fact that less than 5% is spam, but clearly spam is the dominant characteristic of email.

Clearly the most dominant type of email in circulation is spam. Only a fraction is actually legitimate email. Out of the 400 pieces of email in my main email account today, only 6 were legitimate. On my catch-all my main domain I'm regularly receiving 1000 pieces of spam per legitimate email. Spam on email is totally dominant.

Without automated filtering email is unusable. Spam has destroyed email.

Is SEO spam?

With search engine results, visitors have no automated way of filtering out the spam that pushes out relevant pages from the front page. Spam gets in the way of relevant results largely because of the gaming of search engines. Who games search engines?

Sure, the levels of SEO spam in search engines don't come close to the levels of spam in email. But its harder, more of a manual process for visitors to weed out spam in search results. It certainly would be nice to weed out these junk results so I can focus on the ones more relevant to my task.

SEO Rocket Science

Danny's first post defends that SEO is rocket science, giving examples such as: Have you blocked off all your print only pages to avoid possible content issues, like Google recommends.. Why do SEOers have print-only pages - CSS print stylesheets are a far better option than duplicating content. That's not rocket science, that's the plain and simple benefits of web standards.

Another of Danny's examples is Hey, are you delivering all your page content through AJAX now? Are you aware this means search engines might not see any of your content?. I get the feeling that SEOers who know rocket science don't actually know the basics of web development. A healthy dose of universalism might help avoid these barriers in the first place.

These two examples don't demonstrate that SEO isn't spam (and neither does the obtuse Google postcard reference offer any clarity), it just demonstrates that SEOers are unaware of web standards, particularly the universality benefits offered by the separation of structure and content from presentation and behaviour. These quoted examples are more about polishing turds than rocket science. From the examples Danny gives, I'm sure I don't want to know about SEO, because it sounds horribly like the out-dated practices of web development of the previous century.

Danny calls on SEOers not to diss themselves, by accepting what they have learnt as valuable and good. But these practices are outdated, and are solving the wrong problem. The correct ways to solve the above problems is to use print stylesheets instead of a separate printable document, and to cleanly separate content from behaviour and presentation, using techniques like unobtrusive JavaScript.

In short this piece about SEO being rocket science highlights how far behind SEOers are in terms of web standards and web development best practice. Maybe its a symptom of people hiring SEOers rather than a failure of SEO itself? Are there any SEOers that specialise in working with web standards adhering websites?

Its not obvious reading this post that SEO is not spam. What's missing for me is an objective appraisal of the quality of the content - a simple question of whether this page or site you are SEOing deserves to be well ranked? I don't see much quality conversation from SEO on this point.

Framed and locked out

In Defending SEO, yet again Danny wheels out the example of an SEOer whose built a site around frames. The advice she is given to optimise her rankings fail to solve the real problem - breaking the fundamental basis of the web by using frames. Why were the frames there in the first place? Again, this is a good example of SEO being used to polish turds - taking a fundamentally broken site and instead of fixing it, layer enough polish to cover over the odour.

Where was the advice to ditch the frames and do the site properly? Where was the accessibility guidance that would have benefited screen reader users? Need a good book about web development, try Molly Holzschlag's Spring into HTML.

This second example shows a growing trend that SEOers are asked to assist when its too late. Surely there should be more proactive efforts for SEOers to get involved earlier in the development process so that they can head off bad mistakes (duplicate pages for printing, using frames).

Link baiting

In the furore over Jason Calacanis' remarks about SEO being bull - as a result of a marketing video that was supposed to be an example of how not to do SEO. Immediately I should point out its clear the message of This is an example of what not to do didn't come across well or at all.

Danny defends SEO by insisting that not all SEO is like that. I note the emphatic all, and note that if this video is supposed to be an example of what not to do - wouldn't this advice be pointless if no-one was doing it? Surely, the existence of this video is evidence that the demonstrated approach is used often enough to justify or warrant recording such a video to warn people against it?

Granted, not all SEOers are full of it. Jason Calacanis suggests that perhaps 90% of perceived SEO effort is spam, what percentage would Danny Sullivan suggest is more accurate? How big is the spam problem in SEO? (Danny refers to Google's Webmaster Guidelines that suggest a few unethical SEOs - how many is that?)

We may need to define this in two ways:

I'm breaking this down into two facets for a good reason. The bulk of email spam comes from a hard core group of two hundred spam gangs (a number have dropped off the list after being prosecuted, including Scott Richter), so its obvious that one person can have a massively disproportionate affect on the internet community.

I'm curious about why Danny finds it offensive for Jason to claim in a Search Engine conference that 90% of SEO is spam. That to me is the same as Jason coming along to a web standards conference like @media and stating that 90% of web developers build websites that are broken by design. The fight there would probably erupt over the quoted number being too low.

I guess the implication that Danny is conveying is that the audience at the SEO conference was strongly correlated to the distribution of spam-like and non-spam like SEOers?

Danny pleads that SEO not be tarred with the same brush. Its a fair point, and it's a great pity that the good work done by SEO is largely invisible, and the one thing that stands out strongly is when a search engine listing is filled with junk results. SEOers offer a service presumably because they offer higher quality work in their field than the average non-SEOer. And yet, we on the outside are admonished for treating one industry as precisely that, one industry.

In this post Danny describes SEO as being the part of his industry that optimises organic search engine listings (the part that isn't sponsored or paid advertising). He talks about SEO as things you can and should be doing to improve search engine listings, but curiously fails to mention things you can but shouldn't be doing.

Deflecting criticism

To be blunt, I feel Danny takes great pains at diverting criticism by SEO with the argument that not everyone is bad. And that's merely deflecting the argument instead of tackling it head on.

I guess, in respects, Jason Calacanis is tired of the deflections, and has resorted to creating what he believes is a better solution to search engine spam - Mahalo. Its a constructive step towards tackling search engine spam - certainly more than the good SEO crowd have done. It just seems that the SEO industry is largely disinterested in tackling the people who give SEO a bad name, and infest search engine rankings with spam.

Watching the reactions of the SEO blogger community, they seem to hate Mahalo with great passion. On a recent podcast with Jason Calacanis (CalacanisCast Beta) I couldn't help but note how enthusiastic Michael Gray and friends were about Squidoo about how that was so much better than Mahalo. I came away with the distinct impression that the reason these SEOers loved Squidoo is because they could game it for their own benefit, while the couldn't game (or haven't yet figured out how to game) Mahalo for their own benefit.

That's the message I get from people who consider themselves professional SEOers: I like things I can game. I'm not sure whether this attitude (which seems prevalent considering the bile and vitriol I see from SEO-related blogs about Mahalo) is better or the same as the typical attitude displayed by Black Hat SEOers. I guess Danny's post offers some doubt.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Domain Tasting and Trademark Scams

Niqui Merret, in her post, I want that domain, picks up on a topic I talked about in Barcamp London in February, about the domain name scams going around. This weekend I covered the issue of the Domain Appraisal Scam which is proving to be a frequent occurrence for domain name owners. In Barcamp, I talked about a technique called Domain Kiting, also known as Domain Tasting.

Domain tasting services offered

I was amazed this week so see one expired domains registrar, pool.com, actually offering a tasting service for 10 US cents per domain - which allows the buyer to hold the domain for 4 and a half days before either purchasing it or releasing it. The loophole is after 4 and a half days you release the domain name, ready to be picked up by another taster, and so the loop continues.

I just picked up an article on Computer World titled Domain Name System shows signs of stress from financial manoeuvrings, that looks into domain tasting/kiting, and the damaging effects its having on the DNS servers that hold the Internet together. This looks to be a much graver concern than when I talked about it back in February. Bob Parsons, CEO and founder of GoDaddy notes that:

35 million names registered in May [2006]. Only 8% of registrations were paid. 32 million were part of a scam. It's called "domain kiting."

Although the Computer World article focuses on trademark and copyright issues, and it quickly mentions the appetite for domain tasting, I feel the writer misses the core issue of domain tasting - its creating a churn of domain registry changes. That churn, when it reaches a certain level, will start to have an impact on the time taken to ripple across DNS servers. I've had times when a DNS change to a .co.uk domain name took over five days before the domain was usable on my webspace.

Trademarks and Domain names

The rights around domain names is starting to become clear, and its based on trademarks. But there's an important limitation - trademarks are limited to certain industries. and a trademarked term in one industry does not prevent the term from being used in another.

One example, from Niqui's comment discussion, is the domain name southafrica.com. The country itself has no legal right to the domain name (or a trademark for that matter). Anyone can purchase the domain name if they wanted, and if its bought in good faith. South Africa, as legal entity, has a mandate on domains ending in .za. The .com is managed by Network Solutions, on behalf of the US government.

Using trademarks to seize domains

The legal proceedings of seizing control over domain names held by others is starting to become a farce. Rogers Cadenhead, a blogger I respect, was dragged through an arbitration after MGM challenged him over the ownership of wargames.com. MGM own the movie rights to the 1980s movie Wargames starring Matthew Broderick, and also hold a trademark on the term Wargames, but only within the movie industry.

Thankfully, Rogers' defence held. It was on the basis that he bought the domain name in good faith, for the purposes of running an online computer game shop specialising in wargame themed games (like Command & Conquer and Age of Empires). MGM don't own the WarGames trademark in computer games, so the arbitration panel found MGM's request lacking of substance, and ruled in Rogers' favour. (It seems that one of the reasons for MGM's sudden interest in the wargames.com domain name is that there is a sequel to the original WarGames movie in the works)

Its a nasty business domain names, the more I dig around Black Hat SEO, the more interesting the stories I hear. There's a big Internet Marketing niche around building passive income streams around buying expired domain names that had pagerank/backlinks, and making money sticking typically Google Adsense adverts on the domain. Its nickels and dimes for some people, but there are people getting seriously rich over expired domains.

Disclaimer: I own about 40 domains which are parked at sedo.co.uk, and are generating a tiny passive income stream. So far in just over a week, I've accumulated a staggering 19 cents of Adsense earnings.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Domain name appraisal scam

I was entertained this week by a domain name appraisal scammer. The weekend before I opened up a sedo.co.uk account to manage my domain name parking pages. Since Sedo manage the adverts on the parking page, its an easy way for setting up a passive income stream on domains that are currently without websites. Over the course of eight years I've built up a healthy collection of domain names, most of them are ideas I've yet to develop. I think only one of them I bought purely for speculation.

Within days of setting up the sedo account and mapping all my currently undeveloped domains to their DNS, I get my first offer.

The first email

Date:    Wed, 11 Apr 2007 10:59:01
From:    DMS Software 
         <norton@damemagnet.com>
Subject: notetabs.com (sent 04/11/07)

Hello,

What is the price in US dollars or euros you can accept for your domain name?

Our company develops software in Visual C++ and Delphi. We work as contractors.

If you offer more domains for sale with good reselling potential please email us your list.

Looking forward to do business with you.

Regards,

Anthony Norton, Ph. D.
CEO
DMS Software

I was a little surprised that he asked for the price in US dollars or euros. I'd stuck a price on the domain in pounds sterling. Nevertheless, I went back with a price of $5000 - just an arbitrary figure, since I wasn't intending on selling the domain, but if there was a serious offer, then I'd consider it.

The second email

The next day, I get a response

Date:    Thu, 12 Apr 2007 00:15:08 +0400
From:    Norton 
         <norton@damemagnet.com>
Subject: Re: notetabs.com (sent 04/11/07)

5,000 USD. Ok.

Do you sell the name only without web site? I'm interested in the name so web site is not so important.

Do you have an appraisal certificate for your domain name?

Domain name is an investment for me. In other words I'm going to sell your name later and make a profit. If I overpay I won't be able to make a profit in the future. It's very important for you and me to know the current market value of your domain.

Of course, we must be sure that you are engaging a reputable appraisal company. I heard many appraisal companies often made inaccurate appraisals. I will only accept appraisals from independent sources I trust. To avoid mistakes I asked domain experts about reputable appraisal companies in a forum http://domaintalk.ourplace.com/Archive/296814.htm

Just check this posting.

If the appraisal comes higher you can adjust your asking price accordingly. I also hope you can give me 10% - 15% discount of the appraised value.

After I get an appraisal from you we'll continue our negotiations.

How do you prefer to get paid: www.escrow.com, www.PayPal.com check or wire?

Hope we can come to an agreement fast.

Looking forward to your reply.

The first paragraph is quite obscure - is he accepting the offer, or is it a surprised disbelieving elongated okay?

The second paragraph, enquiring whether I'm selling the name without the website is very enlightening. There's only a Sedo branded parking page there - and that's the only way he would have been able to get into contact with me. Nevertheless, he's asking me whether there's a website attached, when there clearly isn't.

Then comes the patter of domain name appraisals - something I'd briefly looked at a few days earlier (out of curiosity). Organisations charge about $20 for a domain name appraisals, which supposedly comes back with a report which outlines the value of the domain name based on factors like keywords, competition, misspellings, hyphens, cross-market factors.

That sounds all fine, but I really don't care about the perceived value of my domain name. That's not what matters anyway. What matters is the value the buyer and seller agree to exchange the domain name. If the seller wants a market price, the onus is on him to determine what is the expected market price. Not my problem.

He compounds the error by going into a lengthy description of his business, about making money by buying cheap domains and reselling them for a profit. Making it particularly clear that he has to get my domain name at what the market considers to be a discount price so that he can resell and make his 10% - 15% profit. I found this extremely odd, and yet another silent alarm bell went off, since its certainly not my problem to ensure his business is viable.

And then the link to the discussion forum he'd recently posted. I ignored this link before replying, but this is an important part of exposing the scam.

I pushed back saying that since he knew what the domain name was, he was in a position to get an appraisal by himself, and didn't require me to get one:

If you feel a domain name appraisal is warranted, then that's an avenue you can progress yourself. You know the domain name is notetabs.com - as far as I understand, that's the only piece of information needed for a domain name appraisal.

Not surprisingly, I've not received a reply back from Anthony Norton, Ph. D., CEO, DMS Software .

Cursory investigation

So curiosity got the better of me, and I had a look at the discussion forum link, and noticed a number of odd points:

Very, very strange.

Uncovering the scam

The Google search for Domain appraisals scam returns a known scam using the identical approach as described above. For instance DomainNameWire, back in June 2005, describe the Anatomy of a domain name appraisal scam, as can be seen, the emails described are identical to the ones I've received. What's the clincher for me is the supposed discussion forum link (or how about this one, or yet another one, or this one again?), where "Don Williams", "Platzer" and "NameSeller" offer the exact same platitudes and compliments to each other, while pimping a different domain name appraisal service.

This is nothing more than a twist on the Nigerian 419 scam, or the advanced fee fraud. By trying to convince you they are ready and prepared to pay thousands of dollars for your domain name, what's the harm in you investing forty dollars or so on a domain name appraisal first? It plays on the greed of the recipient, in that I'm willing to splash out an appraisal fee in the "guarantee" that I'll receive the actual purchase price on my domain.

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