by Do you find the following link creepy or not?
http://www.4kwd053.info/David-Boles.htm
I did not create that page and while it is not entirely about me, I still find it curiously creepy.
Do any pages like that exist about you on the internet that you didn’t have a hand in or a say in creating?
What is the purpose of someone setting up such a site?
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I have no idea how that site could be useful or making any money. Their homepage seems to be a fairly random collection of links, and the sub pages are just filled with google paid ads.
The site doesn’t seem to be properly indexed by Google either, or maybe it’s been de-indexed : http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Awww.4kwd053.info
-Fruey
Don’t worry, it appears to simply be a site generated by a bot.
fruey!
Thanks for the investigative work. I hope it has been de-indexed because it hurts my other legit links!
Hiya Joe —
What is the point of putting up a bot-generated site? To sell advertising? To inflict link damage to legit sites?
I vote creepy, David. I don’t understand why someone would create that page withour your permission.
Hi Anne!
Yeah, I’m with you on this one. It doesn’t seem right to set up a links page to sell adverts off someone else’s name or set of sites.
It must feel identity theft. It makes you wonder who is out there and why they are programming these bots to do stuff like that.
It does feel strange. I agree that if bots are being sent out to link up those kinds of deeds what else are they scrounging and scraping but not making public?
An innocent looking links page is a warning. If you’re out there on the web, people can take your information and turn it to their advantage without your knowledge.
Right, Anne. There is a larger lesson here. So many young kids pour the details of their lives online and someone is out there pulling in that information — information that may not be exploited for years until they come of age and then their credit rating dumps or their lives become snowed under in loans and bills they never saw coming because they didn’t know about them in the first place.
Here’s an interesting link on child identify theft:
http://www.idtheftcenter.org/vg120.shtml
I tried to take a look at the site and it doesn’t seem to be working any more.
If it was bot generated and just designed to make money, I agree with Fruey in wondering how those sites make money. I could see if someone had a domain name that was a misspelling for your blog or some other site, but not a strange URL like the link in the post.
I wonder if posting caused the creators to pull down their page?
Hmm… you’re right my is down… the entire site is gone.
The page was a list of links to all my sites — except for one link to a “David Boles” who died in 1859 or something…
Let’s hope the site doesn’t reappear!