Content theft and redirecting site - need advice

[rainmaker]

Hi guys.

I could really need some advice here.

This is a messy story, so let me just give you the short version.

I have a rather new blog netentstalker.com.

I had to report an affiliate for content theft earlier this week as he or she is stealing content. Certain affiliate managers are in the process / or have already contacted this person. Looks to be Polish based sites.

But I have today noticed that people are being redirected to my site if they go to this address: gamblingbonuscenter.com

Never seen or heard of this domain (before today).

Not sure why anyone would re-direct traffic to my site?

My guess is that all of these incidents are connected. I did a whois for the mentioned domain:

billing-fname: Monika
billing-lname: Kostilek
billing-street: Mazurska 9m21
billing-city: Rzeszow
billing-zip: 35-620
billing-country: PL
billing-phone: +48.661354433
billing-email: dynow2@gmail.com




I did search for "dynow2@gmail.com" (the e-mail listed in the whois) and a couple of those sites I earlier this week reported for content theft showed up.

Any advice on what I should do about this?

Thanks ;D

 

[Guard Dog]

I have no clue why they would re-direct to your site, seems strange. Maybe run your site through the Securi free scanner? http://sucuri.net/

Other than that, keep contacting affiliate managers. That's about the only way I have gotten these folks to stop before.

 

[rainmaker]

I have no clue why they would re-direct to your site, seems strange. Maybe run your site through the Securi free scanner? http://sucuri.net/

Other than that, keep contacting affiliate managers. That's about the only way I have gotten these folks to stop before.

Thank you.

The free scanner showed "No threats found".

I have also looked through my affiliate links. Asked a few people to check them out etc. Everything seems to be OK.

It is such a strange case as I really can not understand their motive for redirecting traffic from gamblingbonuscenter.com to my site.


This is the site I earlier this week have reported to affiliate managers for content theft: nodepositbonus.forumotion.com/

Affiliated sites to this no-deposit site are:

netentcasino.org
freespins.info
gamblingbonuscenter.com


Quite messy yes.

 

[rainmaker]

I have another question

Is there anything I can do to prevent that the site gamblingbonuscenter.com is re-directing to my site?

I have noticed a few visitors today that have been redirected to my site via different old gamblingbonuscenter.com spam links on forums etc.

This is of course nothing I want to be connected to.

 

[baldidiot]

Some kind of negative seo attempt maybe? Redirecting a burned domain that has a bunch of spammy links could be an attempt at passing a penalty to your site - not sure how well it works though.

Pretty sure you can use htaccess to bounce the traffic somewhere else - although I'm not sure of the correct syntax off the top of my head...

 

[rainmaker]

Some kind of negative seo attempt maybe? Redirecting a burned domain that has a bunch of spammy links could be an attempt at passing a penalty to your site - not sure how well it works though.

Pretty sure you can use htaccess to bounce the traffic somewhere else - although I'm not sure of the correct syntax off the top of my head...

I had for example one visitor yesterday that had clicked on (what seems to be) a spam link in this post (from 2011):

http://forum.bettingadvice.com/showthread.php?t=63448

The spam post is written by a banned member called "truster".

Bit funny that one of the sites I reported for content theft ( http://nodepositbonus.forumotion.com/ ) earlier this week has an admin with the nickname "truster" hehe.

But yeah, maybe some kind of negative seo attempt.

 

[aajoakim]

Had the similar problem earlier, ended up deleting my new site because I could not get an end to it and did not want to be connected to their reputation.

But you should try to visit (az .pl) and contact them trough the chat, seems like the domain have been registered there. Unfortunately their site is in polish but they should at least offer some english assistance. it's a shot in the dark against all odds but it is worth a try.

 

[rainmaker]

Had the similar problem earlier, ended up deleting my new site because I could not get an end to it and did not want to be connected to their reputation.

But you should try to visit (az .pl) and contact them trough the chat, seems like the domain have been registered there. Unfortunately their site is in polish but they should at least offer some english assistance. it's a shot in the dark against all odds but it is worth a try.

Thanks. I just sent az.pl an e-mail address. It is at least worth a try.

Yes, I can imagine that many webmasters simply will give up when things like this happen. It is a real shame.

It is also a shame to see that some affiliate programs simply will ignore cases like this only because the related affiliate is "good business".

But there is no way I am giving up on this one ;D

 

[mattsgame]

Some kind of negative seo attempt maybe? Redirecting a burned domain that has a bunch of spammy links could be an attempt at passing a penalty to your site - not sure how well it works though.

Pretty sure you can use htaccess to bounce the traffic somewhere else - although I'm not sure of the correct syntax off the top of my head...

I have had this problem before, you can 301 the redirected site via htaccess.

Here is the code I used

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

If you have any trouble Rainmaker pm me or search google for "RewiteEngine htaccess"

I am guessing they are either trying to damage your SEO, or are hoping that should you not notice they eventually will show in Google with your content but there web address and once this is achieved they will scrape your content and hope they keep those same rankings and serps in Google.

You can never stop someone from redirecting to your site, you can only reduce the damage (if any)

 

[rainmaker]

Thanks for your suggestion mate. I shall look into it

 

[Leo]

One other possibility - since you only noticed this redirection AFTER you started reporting their content theft, it's possible they realized their theft had been noticed (eg. if an affiliate manager contacted them about the theft) so they made their site 'disappear' by redirecting it, to avoid any further problems. They might be worried about a DMCA takedown and having their whole hosting account affected, so this was a quick solution until they replace the stolen content.

I guess you could look at your logs to see if the redirection already existed before you started reporting them to affiliate managers, if the redirection already existed then I guess my theory is wrong, or if it's just a recent redirection then it seems likely that it's their temporary 'hiding' solution, I doubt they'd go to the trouble of dedicating their domain to negative SEO...

 

[rainmaker]

Hey Leo and thanks for your reply.

The content I reported as stolen did I find on other sites and not on the domain that now re-directs to my site. My guess is that this domain has been used to spam etc in the past (based on the referrers).

I do not know when they first connected this domain to my site, but the first sign of it came the day after I spoke to one affiliate manager who also sent this affiliate an e-mail.

One other possibility - since you only noticed this redirection AFTER you started reporting their content theft, it's possible they realized their theft had been noticed (eg. if an affiliate manager contacted them about the theft) so they made their site 'disappear' by redirecting it, to avoid any further problems. They might be worried about a DMCA takedown and having their whole hosting account affected, so this was a quick solution until they replace the stolen content.

I guess you could look at your logs to see if the redirection already existed before you started reporting them to affiliate managers, if the redirection already existed then I guess my theory is wrong, or if it's just a recent redirection then it seems likely that it's their temporary 'hiding' solution, I doubt they'd go to the trouble of dedicating their domain to negative SEO...

 

[rainmaker]

I have now managed to retrieve the IP of the guy that most likely is messing/stealing content from my site.


Looked it up in certain IP databases:

It appears to be infected with a spam sending trojan, proxy or some other form of botnet.

It was last detected at 2012-12-31 23:00 GMT (+/- 30 minutes), approximately 1 days, 7 hours, 30 minutes ago.

This IP is infected (or NATting for a computer that is infected) with a spam-sending infection. In other words, it's participating in a botnet. If you simply remove the listing without ensuring that the infection is removed (or the NAT secured), it will probably relist again.

I have sent it over to a few affiliate managers.

 

[rainmaker]

Just to give you an update.

It seems like the "problem" has been resolved.

And I did not have to remove the re-direct myself.

I need to thank a few good casino people for very good help in this case.

Andy (Redbet). Patryk Klimer (Betsson). Gemma (Mr Green) and Linn (Paf).

These guys certainly did not hesitate to help, which is much appreciated since I am a rather new and small affiliate.

Just trying to build my little NetEnt blog ;D