:: OK, so maybe this belongs over in Marketing ::
... and why can't I find their name in any relevant search, even when I willfully* misspell it?
Until recently I never noticed them because they lurk in the amazonaws range, which I've got blocked. Or thought I had; they've taken to cropping up in whack-a-mole fashion all over the place. (204.236.128.0/17 ... 107.0.0.0/9 ... can't they stay in 174.128-135 where they belong?) They themselves say:
Why does Covario IDS need [sic] to crawl my site?
Covario IDS is a system that allows Global 2000 marketers an opportunity to identify quality, content-relevant pages that they can work with to build links organically. It is a chance to help SEO Marketers increase connections between web pages that talk about similar topics. Allowing Covario IDS to crawl your site can help identify your relevant pages to these marketers who in turn may suggest pages that you can link to that may be of interest to your readers. Adding a link on your site may help your readers find relevant information and also help the marketers with increasing their external linking presence naturally for the topic.
Are they saying that I should let them crawl my pages because
someone else is paying them money to do so?
Let's take a look. These are not random hits; they have a clear, sequential shopping list, and keep feeding it into different IPs until they hit one I haven't blocked yet.**
#1 Assorted pages in the /rats/ directory, generally dating from around 2007 and untouched since then except some spit-and-polish. Of absolutely no interest to anyone except other RMCA members.
#2 OS X ports of two games made around 1997, when computers were slower and monitors smaller than they are today.
#3 Assorted homemade MiSTings. Lots of fun, sure, but, well, come on...
#4 About half of the /hovercraft/ directory. (The others probably didn't exist on Covario's previous tour, back in April.) This is, I guess, in the interest of "a chance to help SEO Marketers increase connections between web pages that talk about similar topics".
Those of you who have read or attempted to read the contents of this directory may seriously wonder what counts as "similar topics".
Know what I think? I think someone out there is paying too much.
* I looked it up.
Wilfully, willfully: number of ells doesn't seem to matter.
** I gave up and blocked them by UA. Do not ask me to explain the difference between "No skin off my nose" and "I don't like your face". But the horse has already been stolen; they got all but the very end of the list.
