Many domain registrars and web hosts will turn unpaid sites, over due sites, or expired sites into landing pages that they can profit from. That being said, many of them use automated scripts to inject keywords into the search and links based on the domain name, and or its previous use. Some of the places doing this have become quite crafty and inventive. Some of the sites could fool even the original site owner for the real thing. Why do I mention this here? Because as a directory owner one of the things we see on a daily basis as we continually update and examine our directory contents are deactivated sites. A web site listed in a directory will eventually go dead. Then it gets de-listed for a time, and eventually comes back. What happens is the site expires, or the owner abandons it, or just does not pay for it. The host/registrar then does their magic, and it becomes a parked page with landing page content. To a directory bot it might seem as though the site has come back to life. This is where the keen eye of an actual human directory editor comes into play. These sites need to be examined and scrutinized before they are allowed to be re-listed again. I'll give you an example of one such site I noticed today. It was de-listed because it was no longer reachable. We reviewed and confirmed this manually. A couple days later it is active again (not relisted, just active). So we look at it again. There is content. But is it the content of the actual site, or the parking page of the web host/registrar? What do you think? Example One Example Two Well which one is the real deal? If you guessed the last one, you are correct. We used the WayBackMachine to be sure. Why is this so important? Because as a directory owner, especially one that is PAID, you have an obligation to your clients and end users to keep it clean and free of false content. This site may have been listed for a fee at one time. But its no longer the site you may have reviewed and approved. Therefore it should be removed. Anyway, in the case of this false landing page after further investigation we found it was an expired domain that was picked up by a squatter. They then turned it into a parked/landing page to try to capitalize on the previous legitimate use of the site. Watch out for these parked page landing pages!
Good advice. I run into this situation every month when I validate the links in my directories. Some of the sites that end up parked are what I would have called a "quality" site - would have thought these site would have been sold rather than be abandoned...
Another thing to watch for are the sites that change language. I've noticed a large amount of sites that get listed legitimately in our directory and then years later go dead. When they come back they are Chinese sites. There must be some Chinese squatter buying up all these defunct domains and then parking / linking all their sites on them.
Oh my favorite one was the cake decorating site with a keyword filled domain and loads of great content that was converted into a porno site. Got an eyeful I wasn't expecting that day. LOL. After I found that little piece of joy, I opted to do all of my audits by hand. It might take me longer to get around to finding a dead site but at least I'll find the parked domains and altered sites. The other thing I'm seeing with some of the smaller businesses is that they are completely changing their product lines. The site is still live with good content but is no longer listed correctly on my site.
a great deal after all! They have the domain, they have content that others work hard to get it! just beautifull
Im being poilte here when i say that if any owner cant tell the difference (easily) between a parked page and an actual content page of a real site then they shouldn't even be in charge of a directory. This comparison isn't even necessary. I can spot a parked page simply looking at the thumbnails in my directory, if i see a white page then i visit it to see whats going on, sometimes ive just needed to change the url because they still have their site up but switched to a different but similar url. More of a serious matter is having a site listed that is a danger to anyone who clicks on it, come across a few of those, nothing to tell you this until you visit the site and theres some malicious junk going on there.
These are sites that become delisted as well, unless the owner of the site contacts us to ask us to move it to a more appropriate category because they have changed the content. And that does happen more often than you would think. Ah, the point of this thread is that the landing or parked pages are getting more difficult to detect at first glance. Sure it is. They are not as easy to spot or as obvious as you would think anymore. The ones that ARE obvious are the ones Godaddy, Tucows, BlueHost and a slew of others have. Really? Do you want to put your money where your mouth is on that one? Really? If you are using FF to view the site when you are editing your directory it will tell you. My bot catches most of these before I have to even look however.
Determine the IP addresses of your listed sites, wash it against a known list of domain parking services, and delete. Rinse and repeat. It's quick, clean and efficient. All directory owners need to do it more often. And those parked.com and whypark.com domains are all history as well.
Ultimately your best bet is to individually look at each site and review them and re-review them, ONE BY ONE, on a regular basis. Its the only true way to insure that none of these sites gets through.
Washing the listings against a known blacklist of domain parking providers is much more efficient at catching the majority of parked domains. While it does not replace physical reviews, it does quickly identify most parked domains which can be removed at a much faster rate then that those directories which solely rely on physical reviews.
I don't like blacklists for anything PERIOD. Too much collateral damage occurs. I rely on my bot to tell me when a site has gone down, then a review of that site usually shows it's become a parked page once the bot tells me its back. They remain delisted until I remove or relist them, depending on whether they've come back as before or not.
Blacklist is a figure of speech and there is absolutely no collateral damage. When listings match the domain parking provider's IP addresses, a human review can be made to determine if the domain is indeed parked. This greatly expedites the process and can identify the majority of listings that point to parked domains in a matter of minutes.
But you still require human intervention. Hence, my point. The only real way to be sure is to manually review. Whether filtered down or not, the human touch is the only thing that is going to be FOR SURE.
Human intervention is required after comparing IP addresses, which sure beats going on a hunt for parked domains by viewing each listing. Not that reviewing each listing is wrong, because it has to be done. But there is no reason for letting parked domains sit for months waiting on a human review when they can be as easily identified as the bot you use to ping IPs that don't resolve. Similar principal, just much more efficient.
those happen all the time especially to some directory list that are dead and didn't update their list time to time. Its part of the job but it still better if we can minimize or nothing at all to have that.