{"id":10373,"date":"2014-01-27T12:43:32","date_gmt":"2014-01-27T17:43:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/?p=10373"},"modified":"2014-01-29T08:58:35","modified_gmt":"2014-01-29T13:58:35","slug":"linking-%e2%89%a0-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/2014\/01\/27\/linking-%e2%89%a0-abuse\/","title":{"rendered":"Linking \u00e2\u2030\u00a0 Abuse."},"content":{"rendered":"

Got this e-mail today.\u00c2\u00a0 Addresses redacted, but otherwise verbatim:<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n
Subject: <\/b>Link removal request<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From: <\/b>Rodger Lodge <entrust_____@gmail.com><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Date: <\/b>14-01-27 08:46 AM<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
To: <\/b>abuse@my hosting company<\/em>.com, me, hostmaster@my hosting company<\/em>.com<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Hi,<\/span><\/p>\n

We have recently received a notification from Google stating that our website has unnatural links pointing towards it. This has really damaged our rankings on Google and as a result, we’re trying to clear things up.<\/span>
\nOur website url is www.entrust.net.<\/span><\/p>\n

We noticed the following links are pointing to our website from your site:<\/span>
\nhttp:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/2006\/12\/<\/a><\/span>
\nhttp:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/2006\/12\/14\/when-you-really-havent-chosen-not-to-trust-citrix-mac-os-x-and-entrust-certificates\/<\/a><\/span>
\nhttp:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/tag\/citrix\/<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

I appreciate this is inconvenient and isn’t a reflection on your website at all, but if you’re able to remove the links, we would really appreciate it and would be very grateful.<\/span><\/p>\n

I look forward to hearing from you.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rodger Lodge<\/span><\/p>\n

Entrust, Inc.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

So, one of the prime security companies (I’m strongly resisting the urge to link to them here, but I’m above that) is using gmail<\/strong> to send out official notices? Why not a securely signed e-mail from their .net domain? That might be more legit. Also, sending me a copypasta response lifted\u00c2\u00a0 from the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ultimate Guide to Google Penalty Removal<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d seems a little \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 gauche<\/em>.<\/p>\n

If this is for real, then I’m annoyed. I wrote the original article in 2006 in an attempt to help Mac users get work done with a popular remote-access package. I’m not dissing the company in any way: I’m helping people use their products better<\/em>. Linking is not<\/strong> abuse.<\/p>\n

It’s probably just spam, though.<\/p>\n

Update<\/strong>: Nope, not spam. Got an apology by e-mail from Nate Plaunt of Online Performance Marketing<\/a>, saying: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This was an automated email generated by this digital agency and your sites were mistakenly targeted<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.\u00c2\u00a0 Still no apology for the e-mail to abuse@\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6, tho’. That’s never an acceptable first communication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Got this e-mail today.\u00c2\u00a0 Addresses redacted, but otherwise verbatim: Subject: Link removal request From: Rodger Lodge <entrust_____@gmail.com> Date: 14-01-27 08:46 AM To: abuse@my hosting company.com, me, hostmaster@my hosting company.com Hi, We have recently received a notification from Google stating that our website has unnatural links pointing towards it. This has really damaged our rankings on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[761,1889,1117,2777,173],"class_list":["post-10373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computers-suck","tag-email","tag-security","tag-seo","tag-smh","tag-spam"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQNZZ-2Hj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10373"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10384,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10373\/revisions\/10384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}