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Before you buy a domain name, first check to see if it's haunted

bryanbraun.com

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Re: Before you buy a domain name, first check to see if it's haunted

#191

Post by lefstathiou »

ruthmarx wrote: post #173
lefstathiou wrote: post #18

This happened to me and I found this tool super helpful to get my site unblocked: https://dnsblacklist.org/ I purchased a valuable premium domain to host a personal art collection (of anime cels). For some bizarre reason, the site was inaccessible from my work computer and it was de-listed from Google even if I typed the url itself into search. I hired a square space specialist to figure out why, to no avail. I then…

> I hired a square space specialist I had no idea such a thing existed. If you can set up your own domain why would you need someone that specializes in a super limited non technical frontend for customizing prebuilt web templates?

In hindsight I didn’t need him. I am pretty technical but I couldn’t figure out what happened so I hired some squarespace seo guy to make sure I had everything configured properly. It was the first and only time I heard of this happening.

Re: Before you buy a domain name, first check to see if it's haunted

#192

Post by AnthonyMouse »

dustyventure wrote: post #180
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The search index knows when the first time it saw that old link was. If it was before the reset, regard it as pointing to a different domain than the current one.

Google can take various actions to put pressure but it ultimately doesn't control how the entire world treats archived text. A google rank at zero and lots of 2 hop routes to your site that google can either penalize for being an accurate historical record or not is better than a rank of zero and a domain that has never been in historical artifacts.

The historical artifacts exist independently of the search ranking. Actual bad guys can get a new domain to get a clean slate without taking the old one down. The reason they care about the cost of domains is their domains get a bad reputation immediately and they have to cycle through far more than one domain a year.

If they were going to consistently use the same domain for links while they churn through hundreds/thousands a year for Google, the extra cost for one extra renewal for the persistent domain would be entirely negligible. And on top of that would make it trivial for Reddit/Facebook/etc. to disable all the historical links because they all go to the same scam site.

Re: Before you buy a domain name, first check to see if it's haunted

#193

Post by barryrandall »

6031769 wrote: post #81
lukan wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Maybe it's a problem that just isn't worth fixing." There is a finite amount of short, memorisable names.

But also an ever-increasing number of TLDs under which to register them.

But only .com actually matters.

Re: Before you buy a domain name, first check to see if it's haunted

#194

Post by xp84 »

lazide wrote: post #141
xp84 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, these days, with domains in general being nearly free compared to the profit potential of a single successful spammer grift, I’m not sure I even see the point of blacklisting domains at all. 25 years ago maybe a spammer would be devastated that he had to “start all over and buy a new domain and build up its reputation.” Now, spammers launch and abandon what, a million new domains a day? Google or anyone spi…

The only reason they go to those new domains is because of the blacklist . If you remove the blacklist, they’d just stop doing that and it would be even easier for them.

I'm imagining/advocating for blacklisting them for say, 12 months, and re-evaluating them at that point. This imposes the identical cost on the spammer as now (each "detection" costs them a year's domain registration) while allowing a reputation "reset" for innocent people who acquire haunted domains.

Yes, the spammers can sit on their domains once blacklisted, renew them, and redeploy their spam on them 12 months later, but they'd have nothing to gain from the reuse, since the names of their domains are just nonsense anyway.

Re: Before you buy a domain name, first check to see if it's haunted

#195

Post by lazide »

xp84 wrote: post #194
lazide wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason they go to those new domains is because of the blacklist . If you remove the blacklist, they’d just stop doing that and it would be even easier for them.

I'm imagining/advocating for blacklisting them for say, 12 months, and re-evaluating them at that point. This imposes the identical cost on the spammer as now (each "detection" costs them a year's domain registration) while allowing a reputation "reset" for innocent people who acquire haunted domains. Yes, the spammers can sit on their domains once blacklisted, renew them, and redeploy their spam on them 12 months la…

Fair point.

I’m guessing that would complicate blacklist maintenance quite a bit, which is why we aren’t seeing it work that way.

Most of these blacklists (at least initially) were emergency type measures - ‘block these spammers’, then move on with life.

Blacklist maintainers would need to maintain date first seen/date last seen info, and purge/re-add correctly.

Technically, seems like an ‘append only’ type thing is what they’ve been doing for the most part.

As this evolves and the idea that these do need some kind of expiration or we end up with more maintenance headaches becomes more widely known, maybe eh?

Or if there is some kind of legal rules around it.

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