Welcome to RCF - WHF

fishead · Feb 09, 2005

You have probably seen search results from aboutus.com in the result list at Google when searching for some company or domain. I just noticed the listing the other day when doing some SEO for this site. A Google search for cominvent currently brings the aboutus entry up on third place.

So what’s so wrong about aboutus’s practice? Isn’t it nice if they help people find sites and companies out there? Well, not necessarily. There has been a lot of criticism about aboutus’s practice, a Google search for “aboutus.org unethical” returns 550 hits (such as this). There are several bad things:

* They highly optimize all their pages to show up high on search results, causing them to steal traffic which should have come to your legitimate site. In turn they generate revenue to themselves, not to us as they claim themselves, by having people click their Google ads.....

http://www.cominvent.com/2008/02/13/aboutusorg-spamming-search-results /

This isn't the only site doing this but it is just below me under my own domain names.

rb2d2 · Sep 25, 2004

Yes I have noticed aboutus.com, they are everywhere.. They very seldom if ever produce anything useful for me.

I just Googled my domain name and got a bunch of hits like this but didn't see aboutus.com on the first two pages:

http://omgili.com/inforum%3A4fxearth.net-justice

http://www.sitelogr.com/s/4fxearth.net

I'll have to see what Blake says about this aboutus.com.

dontknow

Nightrider · Sep 25, 2004

I don't really know anything about aboutus.com...

dontknow

rb2d2 · Sep 25, 2004

Ok I see in my carelessness I got it all screwed up. Dave is talking about aboutus.org and I was actually thinking of about.com at first. And on top of that when I went to look around I used aboutus.com which is also a valid domain name.

Brick wall

Jaddon · Oct 12, 2005

went to http://www.aboutus.org/ there mission is
To build the world's most comprehensive, collaborative guide to the best places on the world wide web. We invite everyone to engage with our wiki: whether you're an organization, business, non-profit or individual. Come see why the knowledge of many makes us one of the fastest-growing and most powerful websites on the internet today. It's easy to participate because you can edit our pages!

Looks like they are also breaking copyrights in the process

AboutUs.org shoots out to be “a fully editable wiki, a type of Web site, that has been prepopulated with information about several million websites.” (source). Sounds harmless, right? But what they don’t tell you is they are harvesting WHOIS domain information about each and every website they catalog. Not only that, but they are using the address in that WHOIS information to put up a map pinpointing that location. So any old schmo can get to your house.

Think that’s not so good? It get’s worse. Not only are they redistributing WHOIS information, but they are reposting copyrighted material from the website in question. In my paticular case, their “bot” had gathered a portion of a blog post I wrote a little while back. Keywords: I wrote. That means I own full copyrights to said work and have full control of when and how and if it is used.

But what about the WHOIS information. Honestly, you can get that information by doing a simple lookup yourself. Anyone can. But here’s the catch: Virtually any domain name registrar (whether it be ENOM, GoDaddy, or RegisterFly), explicitly state on the page where you get the WHOIS information taht said information is not to be redistributed in any way, shape, or form. Let’s quote from RegisterFly’s agreement, since that’s who I use: more here

fishead · Feb 09, 2005

Darn rb, omgili.com is taking your posts and sticking google ads on them.

http://omgili.com/inforum:4fxearth.net-out

rb2d2 · Sep 25, 2004

Wonder how many people, if any, have accessed that page? Besides you and me. LOL Hope they are making money because I certainly am not.

sunny

Jaddon · Oct 12, 2005

wow that should not even be legal you should report them RB.

rb2d2 · Sep 25, 2004

They, like almost everyone else, figure anything posted on the web is free for the taking. Besides they claim they are providing a service, much like Google. The fact that they have ads on their page has nothing to do with my material.

dontknow

fishead · Feb 09, 2005

Just go click on their google ads a few dozen times and google will disqualify them for false clicking. lol. devil1