link requests as spam

more action from registrars

[Crush]

It has all been cool for the last year or so but in the last week we been inundated with godaddy complaints about our link requests as spam. I do not know if we have gone through a bad patch in August like the airline industry with planes crashing. In the last 2 weeks we had grief for nearly every domain we own.

I am going to move to a host I have heard is less vigilant when it comes to this stuff. Going to be expensive but cannot afford my domains to be deleted by some novice in the abuse department.

How easily do they delete domains ( never happened to us yet)?

[Crush]

Ok update, now they are suspending lots of domains and charging $200 to get them back. This is definately a new policy for abuse departments to pay for themselves. grrrr. I been a customer of their for years. Not anymoe

[larryhatch]

Crush: You could try my old site-host. They don't mind spam at all.
In fact I had to change hosts because legitimate emails to [e-mail]
were getting canned without notice.
That's something you face if you choose a spam friendly host. -Larry

[EVOrange]

Crush, just to clarify for my own curiosity,

You are sending (presumably automated) link requests from domains hosted by GoDaddy and abuse complaints being sent to Godaddy are resulting in their suspending your domains? Meaning, they take the domain offline or suspend your email capability?
How many link requests do you send and how many abuse complaints does it take to activate the suspension.

FWIW, I don't engage in anything related to a process like that, but I'm curious.

EVO

[rytis]

Once in awhile I change Email that is listed on my sites for link requests. Send link request to any of the removed emails and now this is SPAM. I don't see it (spam-filtered) and moreover will not bother to report to ISP, but obviously some people do.

[Crush]

"You are sending (presumably automated) link requests from domains hosted by GoDaddy and abuse complaints being sent to Godaddy are resulting in their suspending your domains? Meaning, they take the domain offline or suspend your email capability?
How many link requests do you send and how many abuse complaints does it take to activate the suspension. "

We just registered the domains with these bozo's. We take great care in not annoying people but there is always one or 2 sad people who report you just for getting an email in their inbox that actually has a reply address. Most spam I get just has a link to a bulletproof server with fake details.

We sent a link request with 10 or so domains on the same topic and some turd went straight to the registrar with all the domains which unfortunately were all on godaddy. Now they suspended them without warning and want $200 to get them back. Underhand tactics I would say.

[martinibuster]

It's bad form on the part of some knucklehead webmaster to report someone to GoDaddy for spam just for sending out a link request.

Personally, I hate listening to whiners complain about the two or three link requests they get every day. It's total BS for a webmaster to do something like this to another webmaster because their fat finger is too tired to press the delete button when they see an unwanted email. Only a whiney little twit would report a link request to someone's registrar.

I'm sorry for you Crush. It's fairly well known that GoDaddy will do that to anyone who sends a link request and is subsequently reported as a spammer- and it doesn't matter if the link request is automated or done by hand.

So people, let's not have any of this "tsk, tsk, he was sending automated email" drivel. It doesn't have to be automated. I repeat: It can happen to you, it does not have to be an automated email.

It's a stupid policy on GoDaddy's end. The reason it's a stupid policy is because link request emails are not generally spam. Many webmasters solicit reciprocal links. Having a reciprocal links page is an implicit invitation for a link request email, although most link pages have an expressly stated invitation.

Furthermore, requesting link exchanges, and the act of exchanging links, is an accepted internet activity. It is one of the oldest traditions of the internet, and to penalize it is just plain bone headed. This practice has been going on since before Godaddy existed.

This has been discussed before. But webmasters should be aware of GoDaddy's policy toward link exchange email, as it can happen to you even if you are sending emails out by hand.

[edited by: martinibuster at 8:22 am (utc) on Sep. 11, 2005]

[Crush]

Thanks for the support MB. In this case they are being particulary nasty. One mail sent with 24 domains so the webmasters could chose which ones they want to link to. All registered on godaddy. The abuse people must be on bonus. Now they are asking for $4776 so we can get our own domains back! Domains we have been working on for a year and now they been down for a few days with revenues down the drain, plus googlebot stopping by and see a 404.

At the moment I am fuming and I was thinking of registering "go daddy sucks"

but ironically look who has registered it rotfl

[edited by: martinibuster at 8:45 pm (utc) on Sep. 10, 2005]
[edit reason] URL [/edit]

[vabtz]

martinibuster whom do you recommend instead of GD?

[martinibuster]

Hi,
I don't feel comfortable recommending any particular registrar and then everyone following in my foot steps.

I would suggest hanging out over in the Domain Name forum and see what names gets thrown around. The moderator over there, webwork, has an incredible background in the domain name market, so you'll be in good hands.
;)

[cellularnews]

Actually, I am rather pleased that Godaddy is taking this approach to spam.

Whether you consider your emails to be spam is another issue - but the approach to deter spam by GoDaddy is comendable.

I am personally, rather sick of "link spam".

"Hi, I visited your site and think we have a lot in common" etc.

Then you read it, and their travel site has absolutly nothing in common with my widgets site.

I do generally just delete them - but some persistent offenders do annoy - and I am sometimes tempted to hit back.

[Crush]

cellularnews what is wrong hitting the delete button? You are a webmaster right, you have to get links. We pesonally would not bother anyone more than once unless we had done a trade in the past. The ones that bother you all the time get taken out soon enough and deserve to be.

[Marketing Guy]

It's not that a few requests are a problem - it's the autogenerate spam requests, which as cellular says, are completely unrelated.

I opened my email this morning to find a 2nd reminder, final reminder and courtesy link removal notice from a link building company. Sent on the same day.

Plus when you run multiple sites, you begin to see what is a genuine request and what is autogenerated rubbish - all the time I get emails "I think our sites have a lot in common", "I think your site is really great", etc.

OK it would take a lot more abuse from you (generic "you", not anyone in particular) before I reported you to your host, but I can understand why people get frustrated by a lot of "requests", and I'm probably on the low end of the scale with about 20-30 requests per day.

MG

[wheel]

The primary problem with the registar in question's practices is that they're making money from this. It'd be a lot more commendable if they weren't charging $200 for infringements. It calls their motivation into question.

[cellularnews]

The primary problem with the registar in question's practices is that they're making money from this.

Are they making money though?

How do we know that the fees only just about cover the cost of managing their abuse/customer care department?

[martinibuster]

Dude,
they're the only company doing that. Other registrars see there's no connection as this is a HOSTING issue. Yes, they're profiting from webmasters being nasty to others.

[idolw]

How do we know that the fees only just about cover the cost of managing their abuse/customer care department?

They call it administration fee and it is only to make their abuse department profitable. It does not go anywhere outside their corporate system.

Once you pay, they do not even tell you that you are still a suspect.
They just write you a "thank you for your business" e-mail and unsuspend your domain.
For me, it is clear business attitude. I bet many webmasters got their payment request already.

[buckworks]

A number of phrases are common in automated link requests because they're in the sample boilerplate provided by the program. I've started adding some of those strings to my spam filters.

I don't mind link requests when they're well-targeted, but the irrelevant ones are a waste of time. They're not a problem because they're automated, they're a problem because they're BRAINLESS.

When someone isn't smart enough to make sure their link requests are clearly based on relevance, it's extremely rare that their site will display much intelligence either.

[caveman]

I've had five different hosting companies either take a site of ours offline, or threaten to do so, because of one of these spam reports. We only send out manual requests.

It's getting to the point that the only alternative when doing a serious linking campaign is to find bullet proof hosts. ;-)

[Crush]

bulletproof domain registrar that would be cool.

[etrader]

Maybe this should be done as a sort of affiliate webmaster money making deal? - for every email complaint sent to GD you could receive 25% commision? (TIC)

[SlyOldDog]

We moved all our domains off Godaddy 2 weeks ago except WS domains which cannot be transfered.

Lo and behold we are only getting problems now from Godaddy and the WS domains. We have not heard a peep out of the new registrar for all the other domains.

(Caveman - why don't you host your sites yourself?)

[martinibuster]

We have not heard a peep out of the new registrar...

So what does that mean?