I once had an idiot webmaster who hijacked my website and passed it off as his design. All in the hope of landing him a good account. Now I know I should be flattered but it really just pisses me off. The way I have caught these people in the past shows how stupid they are. But then again, what can I expect? If they were smart, then they could have just created their own design.
So how did I catch them? Simple. Log files. I know I have previously discussed this but I will say it again. Analyze your log files. You will discover a lot more about your site from this than through any other ranking report. Reviewing your ranking reports without analyzing your log files is like running your business with blinders on. Look at the details of your log files and regularly stress its importance to your best people on a weekly basis.
One of the most important detail on your log files that you should always review are the page views. This indicates which pages have been viewed. If you are going to be stupid enough to hijack someones code, at least be smart enough to strip out the web log code. Those who hijacked my site apparently arent smart enough to do that. They didnt strip it off and it led me right to them.
When reviewing your page views, always look for strange sites. Check out your referral logs too. You can also catch those who hijack your images and references your site that way. It is important to protect your brand on the internet. Now, how would I shut them down? Simple. Call their web host.
However, before I call their web host, I scrutinize their site first and check if I can gain something from them. As the saying goes, Dont get mad, get even. I checked DomainTools.com and found that there are 188 sites on the IP their domain is assigned to. Now, it doesnt matter whether these are all their domains or whether they are virtual hosting. The important thing is to find at least one piece of information that would introduce me to a niche that I didnt know existed. And that is key in this business. Let others do the research for you so you wont have to do the hard work all the time. All you need to do is to connect the dots.
As I have previously said, always protect yourself from prying eyes and have your own IP address assigned to your domains. I will now share something with you that I have never shared before. Like all other information that I give to you, I ask that you do not share this information outside this circle.
If I am researching and I find a power affiliates website, I will use various tools such as DomainTools.com to find out all the domains assigned to it. Now, if I see that there is only one domain assigned to it, then I know that you are hiding domains. Why? Because no one owns just one domain in this market. This will prompt me to search and search until I find them. And you can bet that I will find them. You will be found out and I will know what markets you are in.
So what do you do? How will you protect yourself? Leave a trail. Leave a trail that you dont mind others to find. For example, on one IP, I have my main site, webmarketingnow.com, a sister eCommerce Consulting site, a web design site, and a handful of others. Nothing of significance to me. But, if a competitor looks and they see some good sites, theyll think that is all that I have. They will be content with what they find because they think they have found something and will search no more.
This reminds me of the movie Quick Change starring Bill Murray, Geena Davis and Randy Quaid. They hold up a bank and then, got lost trying to find the freeway in New York during their getaway. They chanced upon a tourist and decided to stop to ask him for directions. The thing is, he isnt a tourist and ends up holding them up at gunpoint. He cleans out their wallets, but misses the bank money strapped around Bill Murrays waist. As the robber drives away, Bill Murray yells, Excuse me sir, you forgot your map, and my million dollars.
Classic.
They pacified the robber with some spare change when the real money was right there, but just out of sight. This holds true on the web. To protect yourself, I would advise that you take your key URL, assign it a unique IP and then grab four to five other domains. Build them out as dummy sites to throw off the dogs. This is what I do and it is very, very effective. You can see my ten domains, but you will never find my 300+ test domains. Protect your assets and protect your business.
