Highjacked by Hotfrog

[four4aces]

This is my first post and I hope the correct forum.

Recently I updated the home page of a personal web site to make it come up higher in the rankings on Google. It worked! When I typed in the keywords: wenlock basin, my site appeared on the first results page. Also another search string had the same results.

However my web site has now disappeared on the google results page (I have looked up to page 20) and in its place, almost to the line, is the business directory hotfroguk.co.uk with the address of my website in the details! I never registered with hotfroguk but what really bothers me is that my place in the listings appears to be 'highjacked' by some amphibious villain. If my website was still showing I wouldn't mind so much. Even if I type the entire domain name www.wen......sin.com into the search box the result is the same; an address bar entry works, of course.

Where my meta tags, description and home page too successful and got noticed? I haven't emailed hotfroguk yet (which I will) but how can I stop this happening again? Perhaps I shouldn't be complaining after all but nevertheless I am confused.[b]

[Dave Eaves]

If this site has just listed your web address that would not cause your site to drop, if they have actually coppied the content off your homepage and published it that could, which of the two is it?

[four4aces]

Originally Posted by Dave Eaves

If this site has just listed your web address that would not cause your site to drop, if they have actually coppied the content off your homepage and published it that could, which of the two is it?

The site has just been listed in Hotfrog not copied. However, it is very strange that hotfrog is now in nearly the same position in the Google return page as my website was.

[Dave Eaves]

Ive just found a HotfrogUK page with my details on and they have added one of my clients phone numbers instead of myne, looks like it is just crawling the web and picking up rubish, what is your URL? I will take a look at your site for you.

Edit:

Never mind, Iv'e found it wenlockbasin.com right? Your meta-data is fine but you don't mention the phrase Wenlock Basin in your homepage content, I would recommend you mention it once, this is not your main problem though, the reason your site is not ranking is because you have no links, you need to submit to a few quality web directories:

Submit to my Biz-Dir.co.uk (shamelesss plug) and uksmallbusinessdirectory.co.uk as a super enhanced listing and you should see results fairly quickly.

[BuckfastMonk]

Dam that hotfrog guy!

[four4aces]

Thanks.

Time for frog's legs...

[mcanerin]

Hotfrog appears to link to websites using a redirection script issuing a 302 redirect. For new/low ranking sites, this can result in what is called a "hijack".

This can happen because a 302 actually tells a search engine that the original site is HotFrog and that it has been temporarily moved to your URL. Accordingly, the search engine shows the "original" if it has enough link juice.

This won't happen once you have enough links to outrank the page that it's on, but right now, it can be a real issue. It's one of the very few times when someone else can harm your site.

NEVER submit to a directory that uses 302 redirects for click tracking.

Ian

[MattCutts]

I commented on Barry's post, but I'll repeat it here:

"
I looked into this and it's not a 302 hijack. Rather, the original site has very few links pointing to it. We don't 100% guarantee that we'll carry every page on the web, especially pages with zero or near-zero PageRank.

In this case, just writing about the issue will probably solve it pretty soon (because a few more people are linking to the site), but we'll look at ways to help with low-PageRank sites in addition to this.

It's definitely not related to the 302 on hotfroguk.co.uk though.
"

Hope that helps,
Matt

[BuckfastMonk]

Nice of you to comment Matt, excellent stuff!

[mcanerin]

Thanks Matt - it's good to know. I was under the impression that Google had fixed most 302 hijack issues some time ago, and was very disappointed to see what appeared to be the same MO popping up again - redirected link on a high PR directory to a low PR site taking over the rankings of the new site.

As you know, although the issue was being seen as a Hotfrog one, in reality it would be considered a Google one with a very short...err.. "leap".

I was contacted via email by Karl Brown of Hotfrog with a well-worded and fairly thorough email late last night, and was planning to take a much closer look today as a result (it's nice when a company defends itself with intelligent discourse, rather than the usual responses).

In spite of both your response and Karls, I trust you'll understand that I double checked anyway, since I *have* been involved in real 302 hijacks (ala "bizquest" and others) and know that the effect is/was very real and potentially devastating to some businesses.

Anyway, a much closer examination did show that a 302 hijack was not the issue here, and I retract my earlier statement that it was.

Ian McAnerin

[IanAR]

*newbie alert: I can't comment on 302-hijack-ish-ness. I've never examined on in detail. However, ...

... the current code, for a listed site link, in hotFrogUK.co.uk/Products pages looks like this ...

<a id="_ctl1_lnkURL" class="BlockURL" return onClick="ClickThrough( 
        'http://www.hotfroguk.co.uk/Common/ClickThrough2.asp?intType=2&amp;
            strTarget=http://someTLD.co.uk/somePATH&amp;
            intOrigin=1&amp;strID=someID&amp;
            strReferer=http://www.hotfroguk.co.uk');return false;" 
    href="http://someTLD.co.uk/somePATH">http://someTLD.co.uk/somePATH</a>

... from my understanding, Google'd read only the href-value from the <a ... </a> code.

Am I interpreting this correctly, or are there other hotFrogUK.co.uk pages, with nastier code? - Best, Ian

[four4aces]

Just peeked at code myself - yes nasty.

Fortunately this apparent highjack (lack of links actually) hasn't affected me financially just dented my ego! My idea to use the local geographical area - Wenlock Basin - as the domain name, I think, was a good one. It's much better marketing to simply click on the original web site from a google listing rather than indirectly through (any old) business directory, although they do have their uses.

Time to get linked up - there are plenty of tips on this site.

[AussieWebmaster]

seems hotfrog both .com and .co.uk is a directory that is of interest lately - is anyone having problemd with it?

or are people searching before listing there - seems like they are a bit questionable... huge Google ads, no direct link to the businesses, so you give them all the info andd they rank for you and then they sell you leads...

come on guys

[four4aces]

My website was automatically listed in hotfrog, and as the threads discuss it disappeared temporarily as a result. I have to admit I did create an account with them later if only to show a correct map setting. Woolworths has gone from high streets in UK and few, if any, now notice its absence - perhaps the same could apply to HF. Hopping off. . .

[AussieWebmaster]

funny how they are doing this... I spent a lot of time looking but they also do scam listings so all of those rank

what are they? a successful directory that does not give any page rank but passes along leads supposedly - may have to find someone who has them rank well for them and see if they have gotten any leads... what they do have is a pile of content wrapped in a lot of google ads - so no doubt are making bank that way