How I recorded user behaviour on my competitor’s websites • Hacker News Board

Re: How I recorded user behaviour on my competitor’s websites

#41

Post by everydaypanos » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 6:17 AM UTC

1 Years years ago when I was learning web development I bought a TLD and just copy-pasted Amazon’s log in page to just check how it works. Amazon somehow found out about this and Google punished that TLD after that incident and it just couldn’t go up in rankings after that.

If I remember correctly they had even put that TLD on sites that report/list “phishing” sites so if you Googled about that TLD you would also get the “they are fraud” results.

2 I think that most pro users just New-Tab everything and go from there. Seems to me that going in n out search results all in one tab is kind of slow too.

Re: How I recorded user behaviour on my competitor’s websites

#42

Post by thecatspaw » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 6:25 AM UTC

brador wrote: post #23

encoderer wrote: post #7

Disturbing, fascinating, obvious in hindsight. Here’s another angle: a “bounce” back to google too quick is a negative ranking signal. By keeping them from going back to google by making them think they in fact did makes this also black hat seo.

The slashdot trick. Still works and is actively used right now.

what exactly is the slashdot trick?

Re: How I recorded user behaviour on my competitor’s websites

#43

Post by scottybowl » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 6:25 AM UTC

everydaypanos wrote: post #41

1 Years years ago when I was learning web development I bought a TLD and just copy-pasted Amazon’s log in page to just check how it works. Amazon somehow found out about this and Google punished that TLD after that incident and it just couldn’t go up in rankings after that. If I remember correctly they had even put that TLD on sites that report/list “phishing” sites so if you Googled about that TLD you would also get…

Pretty simple to find out by logging the referring site that is requesting assets from your server. I used to do this all the time about a decade ago when it was common practice to steal entire site designs.

My favourite moment was when we changed a picture that someone was hot linking to as part of their own website and they emailed us with a rant saying "how dare you change the image"

Re: How I recorded user behaviour on my competitor’s websites

#44

Post by pawal » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 6:32 AM UTC

everydaypanos wrote: post #41

1 Years years ago when I was learning web development I bought a TLD and just copy-pasted Amazon’s log in page to just check how it works. Amazon somehow found out about this and Google punished that TLD after that incident and it just couldn’t go up in rankings after that. If I remember correctly they had even put that TLD on sites that report/list “phishing” sites so if you Googled about that TLD you would also get…

You bought a TLD when learning web development? That seems extreme.

Re: How I recorded user behaviour on my competitor’s websites

#45

Post by thedonkeycometh » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 6:34 AM UTC

This is man in the middle, and illegal anyway under a multitude of US and international computer misuse laws. What is with people doing illegal stuff and questioning whether its actually illegal because they didn't get caught? Is this post truth?

And I'm not crying a tear because he got delisted, should be prosecuted for doing it on live sites and I truly hope his "competitors" (victims) sue.

Re: How I recorded user behaviour on my competitor’s websites

#46

Post by gammatrigono » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 6:37 AM UTC

pawal wrote: post #44

everydaypanos wrote: post #41

1 Years years ago when I was learning web development I bought a TLD and just copy-pasted Amazon’s log in page to just check how it works. Amazon somehow found out about this and Google punished that TLD after that incident and it just couldn’t go up in rankings after that. If I remember correctly they had even put that TLD on sites that report/list “phishing” sites so if you Googled about that TLD you would also get…

You bought a TLD when learning web development? That seems extreme.

This must be sarcasm.

Re: How I recorded user behaviour on my competitor’s websites

#47

Post by thedonkeycometh » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 6:38 AM UTC

cm2012 wrote: post #22

shruubi wrote: post #18

Honestly, it doesn't shock me in the slightest that someone who markets themselves as an SEO expert would not only do something as unethical as this, but also brag about it, as though they think they've done something they should be proud of.

Is this that different than publicizing bugs? He tested it for a small amount of time, noticed a real security vulnerability (he could collect leads), and publicized his findings knowing Google would likely punish him for it. It's mildly unethical at worse, considering he could have happily done profitable leadgen at scale and it would have likely never been caught if he kept quiet.

He didn't set up a test site, he collected live users information without their consent and invaded the legitimate privacy of his competitors, stole industrial information. Then bragged about it. This blog post is most likely more of a "see, it was just a test" cover post in case the feds come in the same way a bigot professes abuse as just a joke.

Re: How I recorded user behaviour on my competitor’s websites

#48

Post by londons_explore » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 6:38 AM UTC

digitalboss wrote: post #34

Update from site "Google’s team has tracked down my test site, most likely using the source code I shared and de-indexed the whole domain."

They don't up/down ranking individual sites for stuff like this. They've probably implemented back-hijack detection for the whole web

Re: How I recorded user behaviour on my competitor’s websites

#49

Post by londons_explore » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 6:44 AM UTC

cm2012 wrote: post #22

shruubi wrote: post #18

Honestly, it doesn't shock me in the slightest that someone who markets themselves as an SEO expert would not only do something as unethical as this, but also brag about it, as though they think they've done something they should be proud of.

Is this that different than publicizing bugs? He tested it for a small amount of time, noticed a real security vulnerability (he could collect leads), and publicized his findings knowing Google would likely punish him for it. It's mildly unethical at worse, considering he could have happily done profitable leadgen at scale and it would have likely never been caught if he kept quiet.

Except he would have been caught by a few of his users.

If I notice a scummy page impersonating Google, I'm gonna alert Google so they can do something about it. (For example add the page to the safebrowsing list)

Re: How I recorded user behaviour on my competitor’s websites

#50

Post by Gustomaximus » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 6:53 AM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #48

digitalboss wrote: post #34

Update from site "Google’s team has tracked down my test site, most likely using the source code I shared and de-indexed the whole domain."

They don't up/down ranking individual sites for stuff like this. They've probably implemented back-hijack detection for the whole web

I've read otherwise but couldn't find anything with a couple min free time. Anyone else read/know about this?