Forum Moderators: phranque
my site = example.com
I found this in the yahoo serps today when typing in my sites name,
10. example
www.[some-unrelated-site].com.ru/go.php?to=http://example.com
If you click it, it redirects to my site. What purpose this serves I don't know, but it's obviously not with good intentions.
How do I block this redirect?
I don't really see the problem? If you really feel the need to stop it you could look at the referer and block hits from a given referer if you feel like they're spamming you. But beware - referers are just about as much science as religion, and you shouldn't trust it blindly (ie, it may often be empty, people may tinker with it in their browsers aso). Worst case scenarion you'll end up blocking out sincere visitors.
So what you're saying is that you would like people to stop linking to your site?
I think your missing the point. They do not have a page on their website with a link to my website. They have created a redirect link in the serps that gives the illusion that they are my website. My website is geared towards a local area in the US, this link makes it seem that my website is .ru (Russian, I think). Why would people in the US click on a Russian website to find local information. What happens if their link replaces mine at the top of serps?
What if you type [your-site-name] into yahoo today and see this as the #1 serp result for YOUR site,
1. [your-site-name]
[my-site-name].com.ru?redirect=[your-site-name]
I am not completely sure why they are doing this, but I know it is not good and it needs to be dealt with, I just need to know how.
I don't know what they're doing, but I share your suspicions regarding their intent.
Have you considered adding a line to your .htacess file, so that all calls from this referer get a "fail" response? Your site won't get served up, you shouldn't suffer bandwidth drain, and I would think the search-engine spiders would drop the Russian listing upon finding that the target doesn't appear to exist.
Just a thought....
Eliz.
Comprehensive Guide to .htaccess: Blocking users/ sites by referrer [javascriptkit.com]
You can block most users who click on the link to your site while visiting the linking site by blocking referrals from that site, but that accomplishes nothing; These users will have no idea why they can't access your site after clicking on the link.
As you read elsewhere, search engines typically don't provide a referrer, since they are likely visiting your site after collecting many, many referrals to it. So, it really makes no sense for them to 'pick one' and use it, because it provides no useful information for your stats program to collect, and they actually might skew your stats by picking obscure referrers if the picking process was random. Since it also would consume a few more bytes of bandwidth for them to send it, and yet it's largely meaningless, they typically don't waste the bytes.
Use the WebmasterWorld server headers checker to test that link. It's possible they're trying to use the 302 hijacking trick previously discussed at length in the G forum. Google seems to be sorting that out with the latest update, but only time will tell. But since 302 redirects are often used for exit-tracking by Webmasters who don't know any better, or who don't know how to generate the proper response, it's really hard to tell an intentional 302-hijack attempt from a know-nothing exit counter setup. So, don't jump to conclusions -- look for other evidence. A 302-hijack won't work unless the hijacker has more actual (as opposed to toolbar) PageRank than the page he is trying to hijack anyway.
Again, hopefully Google will have this sorted when the current update settles completely. If you really want the link to your site removed, then you can A) Ask them nicely to remove it, or B) Hire a lawyer in .ru to do it.
Jim
Use the WebmasterWorld server headers checker to test that link.
This is what it says,
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 21:16:22 GMT
Server: Apache
X-Powered-By: PHP/4.3.11
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html
302 redirects are often used for exit-tracking by Webmasters who don't know any better, or who don't know how to generate the proper response, it's really hard to tell an intentional 302-hijack attempt from a know-nothing exit counter setup. So, don't jump to conclusions -- look for other evidence.
I did a little research, the offending website has,
30 results in MSN, no redirects
0 results in Google (banned?)
299,000 results in Yahoo, 80 are actual pages, the rest are similiar redirects
I did a backward links search on the url,
10,100 links in Yahoo
5,905 links in MSN
This guy has hundreds of websites all set up exactly the same, full of ads. Also many links from pages about url redirection and how to get traffic. I guess asking him to remove a link from one site, if even possible with no contact information, could just put me on his **** list and i'll find hundreds of sites doing the same thing instead of just one.
Oddly enough, almost all the pages that are similiar and use the .ru extension are completely gone from google. If google can get rid of all this guys websites, can Yahoo and MSN do the same if I let them know about it? If thats not feasable do you think that Yahoo would actually remove his near 300,000 redirects if I sent them an email or would I just recieve a canned response?
How to Remove Hijacker Page Using Google Removal Tool
[webmasterworld.com]
However, be very careful. One mistake could put you out of the index.
And let us know in a few days ;-).
Note: I'm using this to remove some duplicates, started last week, and I'm testing it first with 'test' pages in 'test' domain.
It sounds to me like www.[some-unrelated-site].com.ru fell victim to Google's "useless scraper directory filter." As such, I wouldn't worry about it. Hopefully Yahoo and MSN are developing similar filters or algorithms to handle these as well.
The Google removal tool isn't useful for this kind of scenario. It's useful when someone uses a redirect or a proxy throughput to make it appear that your page is on their site. It's not useful if someone just links to your page. And as Caspita says, it is highly dangerous, since one typo or procedural error could throw your page (or your entire site) out of the index for six to nine months.
Jim
The content _you_ created ends up showing someone else's adverts and listing _their_ scum-bag site in the SERPs.
I banned a class C address across all my sites last nite because of a proxy scraper pulling content from multiple IP addresses. If I had more of a clue about Mod rewrite I'd just serve up alternative content - They get "forbidden" for now...
But this thread is about how to stop someone from redirecting or linking to your site. The only two solutions to that are to nicely ask them not to, or turn your attorney loose on them. In my limited experience, sometimes one of these two solutions will work, and other times both fail -- especially in the case of off-shore scraper sites.
Jim
