Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Three days ago I saw a visit from IP address 65.57.245.11 coming from http://cart.corp.google.com/?cmd=review&product=sesame&lang=-&cat=general_abuse
*gulp*!
The site in question is for my <widgets> business and ranks well (1st) for 'my-town' <widgets> etc.
As far as I know I'm whiter-than-white and don't use any iffy 'black hat' type stuff.
Searching for the IP address shows some people have had their sites penalised after seeing a visit from this address. I had 3 visits over 6 hours, all to my home page.
Does anyone know what this could be? Should I be worried?
Has someone (disgruntled client? - another <widgets> business?) tried to get me in trouble?
FWIW Back in March I posted this thread [webmasterworld.com...]
where I had/have problems with someone duplicating one of my sites - I submitted an abuse report but haven't received a response or seen any correction/removal of the problem site.
All feedback welcomed...
[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 5:51 pm (utc) on Oct. 19, 2008]
[edit reason] delinked Google example & removed specifics [/edit]
It's hard to say whether or not the category is one that you should be worried about. If there's truly nothing iffy on your site, then it would obviously be unlikely that your site would be affected by human evaluation, and if that were to happen, then a "reconsideration" request would likely get you out of any trouble.
The thread you quote has 'cat=other' in the Google URL while mine has 'general abuse' which doesn't sound so good!
My ranking doesn't appear to have changed so far...
I didn't have this site added to Google's webmaster tools - but after seeing this referral I added it.
The site is over 6 years old and has never had any issues which is why it wasn't already in my 'WTs'.
No problems or messages are showing up there.
The site is for my business so perhaps a competitor is trying to cause me problems?
I'll keep an eye on things and report back if anything should come up.
[edited by: Badger37 at 10:54 am (utc) on Oct. 20, 2008]
They've visited 13 times in the last few days and only looked at the home page except for one visit to the contact page.
Again this is for a whiter-than-white site for a local community.
No messages on Webmaster Tools.
I wish they would have a link like they do for Googlebot explaining what they are after!
I can't believe I'm the only one seeing this activity...
Neither cart.corp.google.com nor corp.google.com appears to have an rDNS entry and putting those sub-domains into robtex.com comes up with nothing.
Lots of people seem to think it's Adwords/Adsense related and some Google employees are using this IP range (nb. neither of the sites in question run Adsense).
If it is a scam then I'm can't see how it would work. the referral address (if spoofed) would only take me back to cart.corp.google.com which doesn't exist and if I took out the subdomain I would only end up back at google.com ?
All very strange...
In one result it claims it's a google adwords or adsense anti-click-fraud test by google employees using level3 as a proxy (have you checked if there is a proxy header for the access?).
On wikipedia the IP is blocked for abuse of editing priviledges, and they are really upset about the IP! They suggest this is indeed a google employee and ask them to refrain from editing the microsoft page! :) If this is a google employee I think it may be a rogue. And if that is the case then anything can happen!
botsvsbrowsers.com lists several dozen UAs for this IP. Either there is a scraper on it or they are trying some really weird tests. It could be a public proxy used by scrapers. Possibly including google testers?
At linux.com there is a rebuke: "Upthread poster, operating from a Level3.com IP address 65.57.245.11 with a rather extensive reputation for Internet abuse..."
Most of the above is conjecture but it looks more and more like an anon proxy. I've put it into a trap to log its environment. I'd be interested in anyone else's input, purely out of curiosity.
