Fooling Search Engine very smartly

[ashishdabas]

Hi All,

While surfing the internet I came across to one very unusual thing where one website is very smartly playing with Google and other search engine bots. Actually after checking the whois entry i found that both websites are different but one website is actually showing the PR of other.

Please visit yatraonline.in and then check its cache where you will find the cache of http://www.yatra.com. But actually yatraonline.in is booked by makemytrip company. This something which done very smartly on the server side because it not traceable by any cloaking software in the market as well.

I have nothing to do with both the websites but as i am in this field thats why i am keen to know the technique if anyone knows.

Thanks
Ashish

[kgun]

The second is also # 2 on the first SERP if you search for

yatraonline.in

Do you think it is the same person.

I have a similar site:

The blog of MultiFinanceIT: Based on financial and IT links collected since 1995.

with a legal DNS redirect

http://www.blognorway.com/

[incrediblehelp]

Couldnt they just recently moved websites?

[ashishdabas]

I am very much sure that both domains are not belonged to one company. Makemytrip is very well known company in travel domain in India and yatra is his main competitor in India. It is current that both are fighting to grab the market using different techniques.

If its a DNS redirect then how one company can do without having the access to the server of another company. Very strange, on the other hand very interesting thing to learn.

That is sure that yatraonline.in is not getting benefit from this setting because google is reading yatra.com not yatraonline.

Anyone who have the knowledge of server settings must know this as well.

Thanks
Ashish

[activeco]

Originally Posted by ashishdabas

Please visit yatraonline.in and then check its cache where you will find the cache of http://www.yatra.com.

site:yatraonline.in - Google Search
does not return yatra.com content.
You probably mean that search for "yatraonline.in" returns yatra.com on the first position.

[deepakbisht]

I think we all should wait and watch, things will cover up in few days/weeks...it appears Google is treating yatraonline.IN (without WWW) as yatraonline.COM (which Yatra.com site and redirected to yatra.com), thus showing the info of yatra.com. It is just a data misrepresentaion thing i would say

Google has encountered several cases where it has lost analytics/adsense/ or may be even losing search index data

so wait and watch for few weeks

[Old Welsh Guy]

Google spiders sites via IP addres rather than domain name. I have seen a lot of this of late ESPECIALLY with load balancing. Googlebot is getting confused over which domain it is on if IP's change. I have only seen this happening with relative urls though, NEVER with absolute urls. (another reason for chosing absolute over relative).

[Jerry Nelson]

Guys, its a clear cut case of cloaking, if you see settings on some tools they have done server side coding to fool google. Now you call it a work of smart linux administrator.

Now supportive comment, when two websites like Yatraonline.com and Yatraonline.in has been registered by separate entity. No way google can treat this one as both have different public IP. But if you write server side piece code, you will be able to fox google crawler. It will damage the cloaked website sooner or later.

This is a black hat SEO technique not taken very well by any search engine and websites get blacklist if found guilty.

Interesting this was, i read this and found a piece of code last night as google crawler reads but now that code is not there, it shows that Yatraonline.com and Yatraonline.in are two separate thing and google can not immediately started treating them differently. Isn't?

[kgun]

Originally Posted by ashishdabas

If its a DNS redirect then how one company can do without having the access to the server of another company. Very strange, on the other hand very interesting thing to learn.

I did not say it is a DNS redirect.

Google is very precise on the definition of cloacking » Breaking News: Google Launches NoFollow Google Help Center WebProNews Videos: Videos from WebProNews.com

Cloacking to Google is showing different content to people and GoogleBOT.

May be one SE spiders simulator can solve the problem.

[activeco]

Originally Posted by deepakbisht

..it appears Google is treating yatraonline.IN (without WWW) as yatraonline.COM

Where exactly do you see it?
I can't reproduce your findings.

[Jerry Nelson]

Originally Posted by kgun

I did not say it is a DNS redirect.

Google is very precise on the definition of cloacking » Breaking News: Google Launches NoFollow Google Help Center WebProNews Videos: Videos from WebProNews.com

Cloacking to Google is showing different content to people and GoogleBOT.

May be one SE spiders simulator can solve the problem.

That precisely was my point, there is a webtool:

Check for Cloaking, Cloaking Detection, Wembater Tools. where you can check if cloaking logic has been applied., in my previous post i wrote as well, this tool shows difference between the two and gives enough indication of cloaking. I saw that code last night but someone has removed it now. But none the less, someone has posted that google will treat them equally when it is not the case.

[kgun]

According to that tool, if you define the URL as content,

BlogNorway.com is a cloacked version of the Blogger site. In Norway this is defined as a legal www-forwarding.

[mjain19]

Yes, i'm pretty sure about Nelson's finding as the server header are also returning today's date in last modified attribute.

"Last-Modified: Thu, 05 Jun 2008 07:38:02 GMT " I'm excited to hear about the theory of this tricky spam and how "YATRA.COM" will be effected in Google, with this cloaking.

[kgun]

There is a diiference between

1. WWW-forwarding done at the registrar.
2. DNS-pointer done at the registrar.
3. .htaccess redirects.

Related WPW thread: Affiliate link hijacking.

[activeco]

Originally Posted by mjain19

Yes, i'm pretty sure about Nelson's finding as the server header are also returning today's date in last modified attribute.

Google cache from 05/29 doesn't show anything strange.

This tool cannot detect cloaking either.

[mjain19]

Check this cache version : cache:yatraonline.in

cached on 2 Jun 2008 11:27:32 GMT., but not on 29th May.

Till yesterday the site - "http://www.yatraonline.in" was redirecting here - "http://yatraonline.in", but today it has been removed along with the cloaking code / settings, and thats why tool is not detecting anything today.

[activeco]

I see. The link: credits them too with all the yatra.com links.

Cloaking, DNS, proxy...; I guess a report is the solution for those to whom it may concern.

[nirajkrsingh]

Hi Ashish,

WhaT ever u mentioning is simply a DNS Poisioning Technique. Please learn about this in details u will get info about this in wiki and some of the PDF available online.

Also to mentioned this since u r with yata do u think u have done a good job by this.????

[kgun]

Are you from Inida?

A short introduction here http://www.webproworld.com/introductions/ could help.

[crankydave]

I didn't see the code but this simply does not appear to be cloaking to me. I did notice at least 1 301 has been changed.

IF and this is a big IF, a redirect was put in place on the yatraonline.in site that pointed it to yatra.com, and then removed after the SE's had followed the redirect, then naturally, the cache and links from the target would appear to be attributed to the site after the redirect was removed (assuming it was a 301 or meta refresh). Notice I said "appear" and not actually attributed. This would not be cloaking.

Dave

[kgun]

Are different content shown to humans and GoogleBOT?

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by kgun

Are different content shown to humans and GoogleBOT?

IF it was a redirect then no. IF/When the redirect was in place, both humans and bots would be shown the redirected content by the site. Once/IF the redirect is removed, both humans and bots would again be shown the same content by the site.

They key to something like this would be to time the arrival of bot and how quickly they attribute the redirect. Once that happens the redirect is removed.

I keep bolding "if" because I'm speculating. Part of what leads me to believe that this is the case, is the TBPR is showing up as well. Typically, this only going to happen if 301 is put in place. The root will show the TBPR immediately and not have to wait until the next export.

Just to add, I see no real purpose for doing this. There's really nothing to gain by it UNLESS one was trying to fool someone into buying the domain or perhaps links and then it would have to be quickly since everything *should* revert once the site gets recrawled.

ETA... Selling though, doesn't appear to be the motive since the registrar is using it to feed another of their sites. It appears to be a lame attempt to get rankings that won't work.

Again please keep in mind I'm speculating and nothing more.

Dave

[kgun]

Originally Posted by crankydave

They key to something like this would be to time the arrival of bot and how quickly they attribute the redirect. Once that happens the redirect is removed.

Like sending out 100 million emails and have a site up for some minutes / hours?

[activeco]

Originally Posted by crankydave

They key to something like this would be to time the arrival of bot and how quickly they attribute the redirect. Once that happens the redirect is removed.

Well, one can cloak redirects too.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by activeco

Well, one can cloak redirects too.

Yes but all that gets cloaked is the URL itself. A visitor or bot would have to land somewhere then click through. Cloaking wouldn't have Google showing the cache, the links, and TBPR from the homepage of one site for another to the best of my knowledge.

Here's what I see...

The domains appear to be owned by different entities/people.

One domain is showing the cache, links, and TBPR of the other. All the links within the cache point to exactly where they are supposed to.

The site that is showing the "wrong" cache, links, and TBPR is getting zero SE benefit from what is being shown. The information only "appears" and nothing more.

To me, this smacks of 301 or meta refresh with 0 delay (refresh would be treated as a 301) that was followed, attributed, then the redirect removed.

I can't think of a single instance where a "cloak" would cause this. Google bot would have to have been redirected not simply served different content in order for the links, cache, TBPR to "show up" for the wrong site. A redirect yes. A cloak, no.

And again my speculation only.

Dave

[nirajkrsingh]

[quote=nirajkrsingh;379646]Hi Ashish,

WhaT ever u mentioning is simply a DNS Poisioning Technique. Please learn about this in details u will get info about this in wiki and some of the PDF available online.

Do any body think on DNS poisoind on this matter????

[site Mater]

Interesting post, whether is DNS positioning or cloaking, if you know that you are trying to captilize on competitive brand term then everyone will raise fingers against that. In that spree it can turn out as an suspicion even if you dont have any intentions.


I would say makemytrip shouldn't have bought yatraonline.in domain at first instance to avoid any chance of suspicion.
But some guys just thing otherwise, isn't

cheers

[semtra]

I just came to know a similar case, if you check clearfares.com it is returning 200 in server headers and if you check the cache:Cleartrip | Clearfares you will find content from Cleartrip | Airfare Deals & Email Alerts .

Is this again a DNS Poisoning case of something else?

SEMTRA