Firstly let me say sorry if I have posted this in the wrong forum, but I could not really find on that my problem fit into! Recently I started a directory and put it on a VPS server. Yesterday I was doing some seo on my main site when I saw a strange link and so clicked on it. The link was for a domain name with iraq in the url, but my directory was on the page So basically someone has registered a domain name and then pointed it to my directory, or more specifically the ip address of the VPS. So that it appears that my directory is under a different domain name! My directory is on a sub domain of my main site, but for some reason this person has pointed his domain name to my directory, it is not working correctly now as I have moved servers, but I feel this could land me in trouble with the search engines! I did a whois lookup on the domain name and it is a guy in Iraq! Any advice would be appreciated? Thanks chez
that happened to one of my domain names too. I had a domain hosted on a virtual/shared hosting and http://www.nocturnity.com was once pointing to it.
You can implement anti hotlinking measures & deny your website's files from being served to any referrer other than your domain name or server's IP.
I am not sure if I can do this or not, I am on 1&1 hosting and there is no cpanel, just the control panel that 1&1 supply.
then tell them to do it for u, i think u can play with htaccess for all this so if u have ftp acess try it.
My advice would be to block the guy's ip address on your server. And, notify the guy that his use of your pages are placing an unnecessary drain on your server and tell him to stop. Other than that, I , too, would like to hear the input of other's on this problem.
setenvifnocase Referer "^http://www.hisurl.com" sorrynoip=1 <FilesMatch "(.*)"> Order Allow,Deny Allow from all Deny from env=sorrynoip </FilesMatch> Code (markup): Add that to a .htaccess file. {Copy into notepad, save as JUST .htaccess} then up to your FTP.
Search engines care, users care. Hits is not everything VIP. Infact hits are pointless if not treated right.
Thanks very much, I will save this incase it ever happens again. The problem has now subsided, I think that the guy could of leased the VPS before I leased it and so his domain name was pointing to the IP address of my webspace. His domain name no longer does this! Thanks again for the help
In the same fashion that no one is able to control who points a link to their website, no one is able to control who redirects a domain name either. Search engines understand this all too well, can you imagine how many tens of thousands of domain names are pointed to Google.com in an effort to create false pagerank? I tested this in March in 2005 when I registered a domain and decided to see if I could create a temporary, yet false pagerank for a domain name. So, I pointed it to Google.com and forgot about it, eight months later I remembered the test and I checked its rank and low and behold it was a PR4. It wasn’t even a real site and had no backlinks but it showed a “Toolbar†PR of 4. Too complete the test I changed the nameservers to a parked page and in little more than a week it had lost its entire fake PR. Best wishes, Kimmy
It was someone in Iraq and when I changed servers the problem went away. Perhaps the guy used to rent the VPS before I did and his domain was pointing to my old servers IP address by accident
Or he tried to point to a legitimate site, work on getting links pointed to it by directories and such, who would accept the site. When he gets the PR up on his domain, switch to a less legitimate site (The one he really wanted) that would not have been able to get the links. Saved him from creating the temporary site himself. This could get you hit for a duplicate site by Google though.
That is a concerning thought, but the site is clearly not the domain name in question as my site is covered by my logo etc. Anyone thinking my site belong to anyone except my domain name would need to have very bad eyesight. I just googled the domain name in question and it comes up with lots of pages on Iraqi investments etc. The strange thing now is that when you type in the domain name it takes you to a wordpress blog site. I guess we will never know what really happened, I hope it was just a simple mistake.