A bit off-topic, but my fellow Rubyists are pretty web-savvy, so I
figured I’d post it:
Has anyone else been tricked by these websites which frequently come up
at the top of Google searches? They always appear to have the exact
subject matter you need, until you actually click on them. In this
case, it involved a pumpkin patch called Forneris Farms that my wife
wanted to visit.
She found this link while searching the web:
http://www.fornerisfarm.com/
but it should be the plural
The first link works, but it goes to a spammer/ad page. These kinds of
pages are all over the web but I don’t know what you call them. Anybody
know what they’re called and and how they work? And more importantly,
why isn’t even Google aka the King of Search able to stop them?
Has anyone else been tricked by these websites which frequently come up
at the top of Google searches?
No. I always get just the porn I am looking for. It’s sad that Firefox’s
popup blocker prevents me from seeing some of it, though…
And what’s this Google of which you speak? I’ve been to goooogle.com and
gopgle.com but never google…
Devin
James Toomey wrote:
http://www.fornerisfarms.com/
The first link works, but it goes to a spammer/ad page. These kinds of
pages are all over the web but I don’t know what you call them. Anybody
know what they’re called and and how they work? And more importantly,
why isn’t even Google aka the King of Search able to stop them?
This is a very well-known trick, and hundreds of thousands of words have
been written on this topic over the years. It turns out it is not
illegal
to acquire a domain name that is similar to a well-known one, even if
the
intent is to exploit typographical errors. All one can do is warn people
away from them.
For example, people who want to exploit the popularity of my site have
registered “www.arachnoid.org”, “www.arachnophilia.com”, and many other
variants, and I would have to register a lot of domain names similar to
my
own, at personal expense, to prevent this. Further, I would have to pay
a
ransom for the names already registered to others.
The perpetrators are known as “typo squatters”. Here’s a news story
about
this topic:
http://news.com.com/Microsoft+tool+hunts+down+typo+squatters/2100-1029_3-6060935.html
These people are either the lowest form of life on earth, or are
candidates
for that exalted position.