Content thief - red-bet.com

[lots0]

This an attack.

This attack was not designed to make money from affiliate programs (at least on the site that stole the content) it was designed to drop Dom's domain out of the serp (Search Engine Results Pages).

The sites that are intended to make the money will have no traceable connection to the site that stole all the content.

I have been dealing with attacks like this for the last several years.

Ya I know some of you think I am a paranoid nut case... But it is a fact. The attacks do happen and they do work.

Dom your best and fastest bet is to contact google threw the webmaster tools (if your site has been verified) and explain what has happened and ask them to fix it.

also everyone needs to report the site to google for spam.

[lots0]

Dom I forgot to mention to tell google these guys are in violation of the DMCA.

Google seems to work faster when you bring up the DMCA.

[dominique]

Well, in April 2007 I sat on a panel that was whitehat versus blackhat and a lot of blackhatters did not like what I had to say.

Shortly after that this RedBet site, after being dormant for years, puts up G&C content. A couple of months after that, G&C gets a google penalty that drops everything that used to be page one down to page 5. All the previous #1 pages (hundreds) now go to the top of page 5, and when it comes to turning the corner to page 4, they drop down to seven, over and over and over for two years.

If it weren't for people bookmarking G&C and word of mouth, our site would be all but dead today. Google traffic is negligible.

I don't know if this redbet is the cause, or the sole cause, but it sure is a heck of a coincidence.

BTW the owner of that site has other sites too, and Casino Rewards had him as aff and suspeded his account and notified him. I have no idea who else he has accounts with.

[dominique]

Dom your best and fastest bet is to contact google threw the webmaster tools (if your site has been verified) and explain what has happened and ask them to fix it.

also everyone needs to report the site to google for spam.

Did that yesterday...

[winbig]

Dom I forgot to mention to tell google these guys are in violation of the DMCA.

Google seems to work faster when you bring up the DMCA.

Yes, and I wrote a complaint to their hosting company (GoDaddy), and they are investigating the DMCA violations as we speak. ENOM is not being at all cooperative, so that's being worked on right now...

And Bryan, thanks for the honor of being the first person to get a site listed in the evil webmasters section of your site.

Hopefully we can figure out who exactly is behind this so we can name and shame further.

[dominique]

They have stolen content from more sites:

In their "contact us" it says:

Do you have any questions, comments or feedback or just want to come in contact with PokerListings.com, please use the contact information below. PokerListings.com will get back to you within 48 hours.

[winbig]

Nothing like a little suspense to increase anticipation....but this better be good

So, is this good enough, so far?

[lots0]

One last thing to point out... And its not very nice.

All the sites that legitimately link to G&C (like me) are going to have google blackmarks against their site until this is resolved.

The reason - Until this is resolved google will view G&C has a 'bad' neighborhood.

For most well established sites the black mark effects will be negligible, but for new or small sites without a large network or without good solid incoming links, they maybe hurt quite bad in the rankings.

Dom you also need to keep an eye on the incoming links to G&C that are in the google webmaster tools. Go thru ALL those links and report the spam links to google.

If this attack follows the standard pattern, the bad guys will be pointing hundreds (maybe even thousands) of 'bad' links toward high traffic pages/landing pages on your site.

Usually it takes the combined effect of duplicate content and 'bad' links to completely drop a site like yours has been.

[winbig]

One last thing to point out... And its not very nice.

All the sites that legitimately link to G&C (like me) are going to have google blackmarks against their site until this is resolved.

The reason - Until this is resolved google will view G&C has a 'bad' neighborhood.

For most well established sites the black mark effects will be negligible, but for new or small sites without a large network or without good solid incoming links, they maybe hurt quite bad in the rankings.

Dom you also need to keep an eye on the incoming links to G&C that are in the google webmaster tools. Go thru ALL those links and report the spam links to google.

If this attack follows the standard pattern, the bad guys will be pointing hundreds (maybe even thousands) of 'bad' links toward high traffic pages/landing pages on your site.

Usually it takes the combined effect of duplicate content and 'bad' links to completely drop a site like yours has been.

I'm just wondering if this is the same guy that posted well over 2,000 comment/blog spam messages around November 2007, targeting GNC.

And what I don't get is that there are about 181 that are STILL indexed with Google, and why they haven't been dropped from the serps...

[lots0]

Oh Ya...

One last thing...

Dom now maybe you see why I am so adamantly anti spam and anti blackhat and why I refuse to give EVER give spammers a second chance.

You got some people (who shall remain nameless) that think its perfectly OK to tell people how to SPAM and how to manipulate the SERP...

And shit like this is the end result...