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From the “look at me, I’m great, but that won’t stop me from resorting to to lame, scammy, imposter-style tactics to score hits on my site” department; or at least, that’s what it seemed like at the time…

I wanted to go to The Internet Archive, and typed the (unfortunately incorrect) address: http://archive.internet.org. internet.org is owned and controlled by one Michael Bauer, who appears to have an impressive web/internet development background. I’m not impressed by landing here by mistake, especially with no link to the site I was (and presumably most other people would be) looking for. As it happens, any old rubbish subdomain at internet.org is directed to the same page (Michael’s personal blog), not just archive.internet.org. I’m sure this must be great for directing traffic, but really… In the page header:

Hi. I’m Michael Bauer – Local 2.0 Internet guy. I work with companies like MapQuest and Skype before they become companies called MapQuest and Skype. I’ve got a new professional website at Seeing Forests. This one is just going to be all about me. :) And, as always, please don’t confuse me with Michael Bauer – San Fransico food critic (unless you own a fine dining establishment in the Bay Area). Anyway, welcome to my (purely personal) web site. (Oh, and here’s the old site Google.)

Even before I read that (with special mention of the comment directed at Google), I just felt this was taking a cheap shot at hoping to get people landing on his site without the slightest intention of wanting to go there, a scammy SEO (search engine optimisation) tactic, or, in this case, just by having a similar name to something else just for the purpose of stealing traffic by people typing the wrong thing directly.

Where’s the comment button to express my displeasure!? Hmm… a My Resume link – maybe he has an email address. Yes, he does, and perhaps better yet, a phone number. While I’m here, decide to have a look to see who this guy is. Sounds pretty impressive. In the summary:

I am a unique senior Internet executive. I have 15 years of experience developing businesses on the World Wide Web. My forte is building world-class search-centric web applications utilizing open source software and agile development methodologies. My experience spans the entire business process from defining product strategy to conducting consumer research to developing information architecture to leading application development to managing production sites. I build robust solutions to complex problems.

Two things pop into mind when I read this:

1. What consumer research has he conducted for his own site to suggest that people would be happy about landing on his page instead of The Internet Archive, without even a mention of it? Fair enough that he nabbed a great domain name at some stage; if he’d make a link to the (obvious) site that people are probably looking for, or something along those lines, I’d probably be okay about it.
2. Could this guy build a world-class, search-centric web application that filters out exactly this sort-of cyber-squatting bs that just annoys people, or does he actively encourage it as part of the corporate money-sucking advertising world (ie with no consideration for the needs and desires of genuine people – talking to Google might be a sign of this)? And if this guy can’t (or won’t) do it, when will someone else? I’d buy that for a dollar; possibly more than a dollar.

After a first failed call attempt (oops, forgot to dial the “1″ for the US country code), eventually received a ringing tone. Ringing, ringing… Answering machine? Argh! Well, it will have to do. A rhetorical question about why he thinks people would be looking for his personal blog when tying archive.internet.org (at the time not realising for other random subdomains pointed to the same page) and a statement of my opinion that it is lame. I left my name, but not a return number. Michael, if you’re reading (done any Google searches in the past five minutes for links to your site?..), this is me. Don’t worry, you’re not likely to be suddenly swamped with traffic from this blog (readership of about zero?), and most people couldn’t be arsed to actually make a phone call, so I reckon you’re pretty safe. I’m sure you can figure out how to contact me if you need to.

UPDATE: I wasn’t initially aware that pretty much any random subdomain directed itself to Michael’s blog, not just archive.internet.org, which I’d thought of as being, well, lame. Some hours later I received a return phonecall from Michael, who didn’t initially realise what I was talking about in my answering machine message, but figured it out and has since implemented a page specially to handle this complaint, with a link to archive.org (The Internet Achive). Apparently I’m not the only one to have made the same mistake, and Michael figured that since I’d bothered “to call from Australia” he’d do something about it. Good effort, Michael!

(Less-complimentary comments previoulsy appearing in this post removed)

-G.

Posted in: Internet Annoyances by subpixel /