Gibberish blog using our company name

July 20, 2007 9:12 AM

What is this gibberish blog using our company name?

Our company librarian found this gibberish "blog" while searching for mention of our company name online. A Whois search says the registration was created today and is private. The Sponsoring Registrar is GoDaddy.com Inc., and the Registrant Organization is listed as Domains by Proxy Inc.

What is the purpose of someone doing this? Is it merely to collect money from Google Ads? How can we pursue getting this site shut down? Through GoDaddy or Domains by Proxy?

posted by Joleta to computers & internet (11 comments total)

Did you see this one on the same site? It's crazy because I almost named my own company that name.
posted by parmanparman at 9:16 AM on July 20, 2007

Its a Spam Blog. People create networks of them to inflate certain PageRanks and eventually make some evil profit.
posted by tmcw at 9:17 AM on July 20, 2007

Oh, and the content could be coming from other blogs, Wikipedia, and directories (probably where they got your name).
posted by tmcw at 9:18 AM on July 20, 2007

You can report publishers like this to the Google Adsense team, and that's the best tactic since it cuts off their lifeblood.

GoDaddy will often respond to requests like this, but they SHOULDN'T (GoDaddy are notorious for taking down sites and overstepping their jurisdiction where they shouldn't, so I don't support this route whatsoever). Besides, complaining to GoDaddy will just take this one site down.. who's to say they won't launch another? Cut their Adsense off though, and it's harder.
posted by wackybrit at 9:21 AM on July 20, 2007

That page is part of a "link farm".
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 10:42 AM on July 20, 2007

Yeah, some people create sites with gibberish sounding domain names and then lift a bunch of content, images, titles, and sometimes even logos. They not only use this for Google pageranking crap, but they do it to try get into CPM networks. Try Googling a block of text from the site and see what legit sites come up.
posted by tastybrains at 10:58 AM on July 20, 2007

Actually reading that gibberish gives a strong impression of business activity and interest, with lots of the kind of keywords and phrases one might think would attract the attention of investors and stock analysts if it made sense and were legitimate.

It made me think in terms of an attempt to manipulate your company's stock price by pumping it up or down in a ranking that depends in part on mechanical harvesting of mentions on websites (a buzz index, essentially), and which may be part of a subscription service that gives investors inside dope, or some such thing.

Or it might be part of a plan of an entity which has a position in your company's stock to enhance the value of whatever position they've taken.

When I Googled 'Nicor Gas stock price' I found this on Standard and Poor's Outlook:


Tuesday June 19, 2007 (02:30 PM EDT)
Nicor Should Heat Up

S&P, noting a recent stock price decline, likes the natural gas outfit's diversified business model and rates the shares a strong buy

From Standard&Poor's Equity Research. We believe that natural gas distribution outfit Nicor's (GAS: $45.56) current stock valuation--below its industry peers--combined with its strong balance sheet and a dividend yield that is higher than its peers, make the shares very attractive. We see the company's shipping and unregulated energy businesses driving its earnings growth while its utility business provides a solid earnings base.

After reaching an all-time closing high of $53.22 on Apr. 25, 2007, the stock has declined 15% compared with a 7% rise in the Standard&Poor's 500 Gas Utilities Index and a 1.8% increase in the S&P 500-stock index. We believe the recent sell-off has provided a compelling purchasing opportunity for investors.


This article seems to me to be saying your company's stock price is lower than its peers despite the fact that your numbers are better and you have a better business model and excellent prospects-- as well as that it is an excellent buy.

In other words, from the point of view of this answer, something odd could be going on with your stock price, and this "gibberish blog" may be part of it.
posted by jamjam at 11:24 AM on July 20, 2007

I like the auto-generated names.
Perea Kennel
Binnie Fanion
Naill Bledsoe
Mivshek Golas
Polo Bring
Lipszyc Mehaffey
Pulera Czarkowski
Tindle Oglesby
Yon Jensvold
and so on...
posted by PercussivePaul at 11:32 AM on July 20, 2007

On top of what everyone else is saying:

Please don't hyperlink to dicey looking pages. Giving the URL is fine, hyperlinking isn't, because it will boost their pagerank, which is what they want.
posted by Good Brain at 11:41 AM on July 20, 2007

Try googling Rosier Ceglinski, one of the names from the fake blog. He shows up as countless other experts in similar blogs. Really interesting stuff.
posted by daviss at 3:13 PM on July 20, 2007

Thanks, everyone. I've got a much better idea about what's going on now.

Good Brain: How is it different if I hyperlink to a "dicey looking page" or if I just give the URL and people copy that into their browser to go look at the page? I'm not being snarky; I want to do the right thing but don't understand the distinction and was only trying to make life a little easier by providing the link.
posted by Joleta at 11:15 AM on July 24, 2007