comp.lang.ruby

Paul Lutus

10/17/2006 1:32:00 AM

James Toomey wrote:

> 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.forneri...
> but it should be the plural
> http://www.forneris...
> 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_3-60...

These people are either the lowest form of life on earth, or are candidates
for that exalted position.

--
Paul Lutus
http://www.ara...