Whad'ya call it?

sites quasi directory, mostly spam (IMHO)

[arnarn]

I've been seeing more sites show up that are using our domain name as part of their url.

These sites are kinda like a directory site, but do a lot more "advertising" and use your domain name as part of their url (e.g. theirsite.com/yoursite.com). Some are positioned under the guise of providing reviews of sites.

The ones I'm referring to are not specifically scraping content, but are using other sites domain names as part of their url.

Is there a proper term/category/name for this type of site and what are the risks/benefits of them using your domain name?

If there is a risk (I have seen some searches with a key word and our domain name return results with them ahead of us), and if so, should we block them from our site so G can't find us thru them?

If they are a benefit, can someone explan how so.

[Quadrille]

Seems a weird thing to do, but this is the internet!

URLs are one small part of the ranking process, and probably only matter when people search for the URL; in the real world, few but the owner and the SEO are likely to do that.

If the site ranks for a key word higher than you, there's probably a content or linking issue. If they are not stealing your content, what are they doing on the page, compared with your site?

If the search ranks higher than you in a URL search, does it matter? Is that going to damage you?

Other than that I cannot see how it would either help or harm you.

[Marcia]

I understand what you're talking about, because I've seen it and dislike it intensely, to put it mildly. You ask whad'ya call it? I call it parasitic, unethical, opportunistic, worthless drivel. Garbage is a rather mild term for the value of what it is they're doing, probably the word "swill" is closer to the zen of that kind of valueless idiocy.

There are more and more species of pond scum out there, growing in number and variety practically daily 'til it's almost an ad nauseum onslaught.

I restrain myself out of a sense of propriety, but one of these days I'll throw off restraint and post what I really think about the type of infestation that's spreading on the internet like a pox.

[Leosghost]

nice post Marcia :)

I think you wrote what ought to be in their meta descriptions quite accurately there ..

[Marcia]

I love you too, Leosghost.:)

[night707]

Content theft and piracy is spreading like wild fire.

Couldn`t that be a lucrative business for lawyers and other experts to work against that?

[The Contractor]

Couldn`t that be a lucrative business for lawyers and other experts to work against that?

Nah, in my experience 95% of the theft comes from countries outside the USA. It used to be the Asian countries (no offence meant to those honest people) and it now seems a great deal is coming from the UK.

The math is pretty simple. If SE's didn't reward the drivel, people wouldn't do it.

[john28uk]

Nah, in my experience 95% of the theft comes from countries outside the USA. It used to be the Asian countries (no offence meant to those honest people) and it now seems a great deal is coming from the UK.

Funny that most spam and theft I see comes from the US

[WW_Watcher]

IMHO
Search Engine Spam, MFA Sites

The only way for them to be eliminated is for the organizations responsible for paying for their existence to decide that they will not support theft & worthless sites created to make money off pay per click. Ban the sites, & all sites associated with the account(s) being paid for the theft, and or pollution.

MFA, The plague of the internet.

Back To Watching
WW_Watcher

[Lorel]

These are called Scrapers. I have seen one of these that is worse than most others. It takes the title, description and keywords and then repeats them at least 3 times on the page text and again in the title, description, keyword tags on the page that appear on and they double them up, i.e., putting the title in the description tag and keywords in title tag, etc. Thus they can easily outrank the original site for their major keywords. Reporting them to google spam or Adsense violations has had no result.

[MThiessen]

these are called scrapers

Naw, a scraper "scrapes" either your content or your meta tags. I think Marica said it best:

I understand what you're talking about, because I've seen it and dislike it intensely, to put it mildly. You ask whad'ya call it? I call it parasitic, unethical, opportunistic, worthless drivel. Garbage is a rather mild term for the value of what it is they're doing, probably the word "swill" is closer to the zen of that kind of valueless idiocy.

LOL Marcia, don't bottle it in, tell us how you really feel... :)P

Nice post. :)

These folks are what I refer to as "STTGAN" which means "squirrel trying to get a nut". Just a lame attempt thinking that having your URL in theirs will somehow add wieght to their page, I think they are a ban/supplemental waiting to happen...