What are the dangers of doing so?
If my sites are doing well in the search engines why let the search know who you are, that way you can speak your mind without the fear
DaveN
Is there any commercial reason, for instance from affiliate marketers to be wary of them
I have noticed on several sites that people are unwilling to give out there url.
What are the dangers of doing so?
I know it's not polite to answer a question with a question, but Would you give your url to someone without knowing if they were the competition?
Keep in mind that every type of Webmaster comes here, those you might like to associate with and those you would not want to associate with.
Since this is probably the "Premier" Webmastery forum in the World, you have to assume that some of those who post (or lurk) could very well be quite dastardly, just as you'd have to assume that anyone you pass on any street is capable of doing you harm.
Like I've seen posted many times, this is a cut-throat business.
Ergo, it's best to err on the side of caution.
Pendanticist.
What I am trying to find out is what are the risks,
So the decent folk are aware of what can happen.
The ones I can visualise are-
someone registering a similar domain or the .com version of a country specific for instance.
bandwith theft a potential.
I am just trying to make myself aware of the risks, so I can try and pre-empt them.
The FEAR
Hehe, misspent childhood Dave?
Nick
Suffice it to say that your interests can be damaged, and you can end up in a lengthy interactions with search engines, anti-spam services, and so on.
So the decent folk are aware of what can happen.
Almost anything. Queries for malconfigured formmail is a biggie. (I think I said that correctly) :)
That's about all I can think of off the top of my head.
At any rate, once your post has been up long enough to span all the International Time Zones, you'll have other answers.
Pendanticist.
Someone is made aware of your niche or target, moves in using weapons-grade SEM, and beats you senseless in the serps.
A competitor sees you, finds a few "thou shalt nots" on your site and turns you in.
Good point tedster,
Just leave it at that.
Try tracking somebody down - anybody - it's amazing the amount of info you can gather. This, with nothing but a tid bit of info.
A name. A url. A geographic location. Sometimes, only a writing style just think about that for a second, with the search engines that we have - and how good most of us are at using them.
I have doubts about my fellow webmaster's here too - but the long and short of it is that, if what they say makes sense, :) it's good enough for me. As well, if they are wrong, usually we'll have 10 counter opinions in the span of a few minutes.
