Google recently was caught hijacking 404 error pages when the users have installed their Google Toolbar. They do not make any money from these 404 errors, Google “helps you” by allowing you to easily search for something:

What Google is doing could be considered “ethical” since they’re not making any money from these user errors. But what your web hosting is doing is not right. Let me explain, in more detail, what is happening and what is becoming an increasingly common practice in the web hosting industy:

When you set up a website, you pay for two things: a domain name and web hosting. A domain name (like www.BillHartzer.com) must be registered at an official Registrar. You then need pay another company, a web host, to “host” your web site’s computer files, the files that sit on a web server, the ones that are requested by web browsers when someone comes to your web site.

An expired domain name (or a parked domain name) at GoDaddy.com looks like this:

Many people register domain names but never actually set up web hosting for them. It is common practice now for domain name registrars to automatically put up “domain parking” or “landing pages” on those domain names that aren’t currently be used. The domain Registrar makes money when someone clicks on a link: these links are actually paid ads that usually come from an affiliate partnership with Google AdWords or Yahoo! Search Marketing. The domain name owner has NOT told the registrar where they want their domain name to “point”, like to a web host where they actually have a web site up and running. Some people, typically called “Domainers”, will register or own a domain name and then point the domain name to a domain name parking service that puts up the ads on behalf of the domain owner: and the domain owner shares the click-thru revenue with the domain parking company.

I believe it is totally acceptable for a registrar to put up a “domain parking page” and monetize that web page (make money from it) if the owner of the domain name does not specify where they want the domain to point. If the domain name owner isn’t using the domain name for a live web site and they aren’t using the domain name to earn domain parking revenue themselves, it is okay for the domain registrar to monetize it as long as they indicate something on the web page (like it’s an expired domain or that the domain owner has not set up a page on it, etc.).

Another way that some ISPs (the company you pay for internet access) make money is at the router or ISP level (you as a customer have no control over this). If you are browsing the web and you type in a domain name that doesn’t exist, companies like Time Warner and Embarq might put up a web page telling you that the web address is not correct: and they may put up click-thru ads on the page, giving the ISP a chance to make money.

But what if you have bought a domain name, you are pay a web host good money to host the web site for you–and your web site is live. People are going to it and the web site has a lot of visitors. Does your web host have the right to automatically display advertisements on your web site (on your domain name) when one of your visitors goes to a page that doesn’t exist on your web site?

Absolutely not. This is where I personally draw the line. It’s your web site and you should have a choice when it comes to whether or not your web hosting company makes money from your web site. I was absolutely appalled when I recently found that web sites hosted by Ecommerce.com are having their 404 error pages hijacked like the image I show at the top of this blog post.

Your web host, the company that you pay for web hosting, actually thinks that it is “okay” for them to make money from their customers’ web sites’ 404 error pages. Granted, in this case, the web host, IX Web Hosting, owned by Ecommerce.com, has taken website monetization to a new low. There are about 300,000 web sites hosted on the ixwebhosting.com nameservers.

I was very interested in the legality of this, and it turns out that apparently it has been added to the Terms of Service:

XXII. Non-Existing User Pages

IX Web Hosting reserves the right to supply content-enriched pages, including but not limited to search engines, advertisements, directory links, etc., for non-existent user pages that are served by IX Web Hosting to requesting sources. These pages include error pages (i.e. 404 Not Found), new account place-holder pages, unused domains and suspended user sites.

All users of IX Web Hosting services have the option of creating their own error pages and content pages. Unless created by the user, such pages will default to the IX Web Hosting provided content.

Ecommerce.com / IX Web Hosting is not the only web host doing this, some of the largest web hosting companies, such as Lunarpages, are also hijacking their customers’ 404 error pages.

Technically speaking, you do have the right to change your 404 Error Page on your web site, and it’s called setting up a “custom 404 error page”. If you are using WordPress on your web site as a CMS or as a blog, then you probably already are taking care of your 404 error page. From my experience, about 98 percent of web sites do not have custom 404 error pages, and the majority of web site owners don’t even know that they can make one.

What do you think? Does a web host–someone you pay for web hosting–have the right to monetize your website without your knowledge?

1. Search Engine Rankings are Dead. Bruce Clay recently declared that search engine rankings are dead. Pretty soon companies won’t be going to Google to check their rankings for their top 3 most important keywords. They won’t have a need to keep paying for search engine rank checking programs and services that will “check your rankings” every 5 hours. The software developers who write and update those scripts will soon be out of a job. By giving the SEO industry a financial bailout, those who will soon be out of a job will be able to get trained on how to create content. And it will keep them out of the unemployment line.

2. Barack Obama was elected because of Social Media Marketing Barack Obama successfully used social media marketing to get elected. He’s all behind social media and hasn’t spent a dime on Search Engine Optimization. Barack Obama needs to help SEOs with a bailout because everything seems to be leaning more towards marketing in the social arena..and more SEOs need to start to understand marketing in this new social media economy.

3. It helps the Online Retailers indirectly. Bailing out the SEO industry is really an efficient way of directing fiscal stimulus towards the online retailers who really need the cash. Giving money to SEOs will help them be more efficient and will help get better search engine rankings for their clients, the online retailers.

4. It will help the Internet stocks. Ultimately, it helps the Search Engine Optimization companies buy more links. I can’t believe I said that. But, we all know that lazy SEO companies buy links. By bailing out the SEO industry, you’re pumping more money into the internet. It will ultimately help those internet stocks go up.

5. It might be cheaper than the alternative of letting SEO companies fail. If any SEO company fails, then all of those snake oil SEO salesmen will be forced to move on to another industry: and then the government will spend lots of money hiring Federal Prosecutors to go after them. We all know that the FCC and the US Government is not doing much to prosecute all the rip-off SEO snake oil salesmen out there. Bail out the SEO industry and you’ll keep them in the SEO industry: they won’t move on to another industry where they the government will have to prosecute them.

6. Pumping money into the SEO industry will help the internet companies be more profitable. I said it before. By pumping money into the SEO industry the search engine optimization companies and SEO consultants will be able to make those internet companies more profitable. More profitable internet companies mean their stocks will go up.

I can envision a financial bailout that goes directly to the search engine optimization industry and those who work in the SEO industry, including search engine optimizers and the search engine optimization companies themselves. By pumping more money into the SEO industry, SEO companies will be able to hire more writers and web developers to create more content. By creating more content for clients the internet companies will do better: they will then be able to spend more money on paid search campaigns, which will ultimately not only help themselves (the online retailers and those companies that actually have web sites) but it will also help the search engines because they’re paying more for PPC ads.

So count me in on a strategically-oriented bail-out financial package that benefits the SEOs and SEO companies rather than giving money to the auto industry or any other industry that might beg for a financial bailout.

As you know, I am a pretty big fan of Digg.com. I try to get over there as often as I can. For the last few days I could not help but notice the Hannah Montana tickets being given away on Digg. Seriously. I keep seeing an ad for Reliant Energy; if you switch to Reliant Energy then you will have a chance to win Hannah Montana Tickets. Here is a screen capture I made of the ad running on Digg:

Whoever made the decision to run an advertisement for Hannah Montana tickets on Digg.com didn’t make a very bright decision, in my opinion. In fact, I am going to go out on a limb and say that it’s one of the worst demographic targeting decisions that you can every possibly make.

I’m not saying that there are not any pre-teen girls from Texas who hang out on Digg and talk about techy stuff, but the last time I checked, pre-teen girls are not typical Digg.com users:

According to ZDNet.com, “Recent published Digg demographics indicate that the Digg community is 94% male and generally twenty or thirty something techies earning $75,000 or more.” As you might recall, if you want to advertise on Digg, you need to go through Microsoft. Even Microsoft publishes the demographics on Digg to their advertisers: These are the key demographic* indicators: - 66 percent male - 42 percent 35 to 49 years old, - 26 percent 21 to 34 years old - 44 percent with annual income $75K and above - 68 percent college and above education - 14 percent professionals - 10 percent executive or managerial occupation * Source: Alexa.com, June 2007

Nowhere do I see any indication that anyone possibly remotely interested in Hannah Montana or Hannah Montana tickets would be hanging out on Digg. But again, perhaps I might be interested in switching to Reliant Energy and giving the tickets to my daughter. Wait. I don’t have a daughter, I have two sons, aged 7 and 20 months.

I just don’t get it. Someone please enlighten me.

Here we go again. Third Pipe predicted it and now it’s happening. Time Warner, using their Road Runner internet service, is attempting to monetize typo domain names and domain names that are not found when their users are type a domain that doesn’t resolve.

If you are a Road Runner customer, Road Runner is attempting to make money by presenting you with a page full of advertisements if you land on a domain name that does not exist or cannot be displayed. See the screen capture below:

Many companies in the past have gotten a lot of heat from customers (and non-customers) by attempting to make money every time one of their customers types in a bad domain name or goes to a web page that cannot be found. In many cases, there was such a publich backlash about these horrible (unethical?) business practices that the companies ended up stopping what they were doing.

A while back Embarq was caught attempting to monetize these typos by redirecting their users to their own default search portal. Here is an other example of what Road Runner is doing and the type of page that is displayed. You can see this example for yourself by going here or even here.

If you are not familiar with this practice, let me explain: If you are using a web browser and type in a domain name in the address field that does not exist, an error page (from the web browser you’re using) should come up. Your internet provider should not ‘automatically’ be displaying a page of advertisements. Every time you click one of the links that’s displayed on the error page, your internet provider makes money from you. After all, you’re paying them for internet access, right? Why pay them twice?

If the fact that your Internet provider is attempting to make money from you, then there are a few things that you can do. You can complain to your ISP, you can blog about it if you have a blog and make it public, or you can switch your DNS default. It is possible to configure your computer and your own router so that this doesn’t happen.

Domain Name Wire originally reported this and we’re continuing to see it happen with all sorts of typo domains.

CNN Markets Domain Name but Fails to Turn It On
Yes, you’re reading that right. CNN bought iReport.com for $750,000 and according to sources they’re actually running commercials or telling people watching CNN to go to iReport.com. I haven’t personally seen CNN mention iReport.com. In any case, apparently the marketing department failed to tell the IT department to actually change the DNS and make the site live. OOPS! Take a look at the screen capture below:

So much for getting the iReport.com website live. Last time I tried, I had a domain name purchased and up and running with content within 15 minutes. At least you could redirect it with a 301 Permanent Redirect to CNN.com in the meantime… Sheesh! (Or, better yet, CNN should redirect it with a 301 Permanent Redirect here to the iReport exchange page.)

Oilman Todd Friesen Leaving Range Online Media
Todd Friesen has announced that he is leaving Range Online Media and going to Visible Technologies. That’s big news in the Search Marketing community.

11 Must Read Social Media Blogs
SEO 2.0 is out with a great post about 11 social media blogs that you need to read. What’s interesting is that I, too, am seeing that many blogs are now changing their focus.

Match.com Goes Grey Hat
Courtesy of Mr. Wolf, Match.com has noticed that there’s a bunch of old-style text on the homepage of Match.com. Wow, that sure does bring back memories of SEO circa 1997.

Watching Sphinn
Maybe it’s just me, but someone has too much time on their hands if you’re spending time watching Sphinn. Sure, it’s useful information to have, and I probably will use the data that they’ve outlined here. I, like the other SEOs, like Sphinn. I guess if you’re going to sphinn something then you ought to be doing it on Thursday.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but I recently turned off nofollow on this site. So, if you comment and it passes my “tests” to prove that you’re a human and I approve of your comment, and you wish to inclue a link to your site or a page on your site, then the “link” will count.

There have been reports recently, following anchor text link tests, that nofollow links still pass some link credit. But, ideally, it’s better to have a dofollow link than a nofollow link. Andy Beard, like me, is a strong supporter of dofollow on blogs. If you’re a blogger, then you need to check out Andy’s ultimate list of dofollow plugins.

Sphinn has launched. Some say that this Web 2.0 style site will replace Threadwatch. Perhaps it will, but for now you might want to check out my list of top social bookmarking sites.

Jill Whalen recently talked about the 10 types of bloggers. It’s an interesting read.

Daily Blog Tips recently published a list of top 25 seo blogs. I’m not surprised by the list–but I would have used other criteria. I’m not on the list, but this blog isn’t really a “SEO blog” by definition. My goal is to talk about more thing that matter to marketing professionals–like social media, search, and marketing online. I’ve got news for you: if you’re still focusing on “SEO” then you need to move on. More about that later.

On a related note, Search Engine Journal recently talked about top 150 marketing blogs.

And also related, you might want to check out Top Rank Blog’s list of search marketing blogs.

The other Andy talked about how social networking is not a popularity contest. In most cases, it’s not just a popularity contest, it’s the one who can write the best content and who has the ability to use technology to their advantage.

Related to the popularity contest issue, Michael has some great tips about what Rae said.

Matt Cutts recently spoke at WordCamp2007. If you’re interested, Stephanie Booth took notes. Matt Cutts talked about a few ideas for bloggers, including:

- make a PDF sign converter (what’s a PDF sign converter?)
- make a Lolcat builder
- make an iPhone app directory
- sell your moustache on eBay — linkbait! (yes, he actually mentioned our well-known friend, the black hatter!)
- make a free hugs campaign
- write some tutorials
- write some analysis
- hunt down all the wikipedia defaces
- do some liveblogging
- create controversy (like Dvorak!) — linkbait!
- mention Robert Scoble (did you see that I mentioned Robert Scoble here in this post? Wait–let me mention Robert Scoble again so maybe I’ll get some link love? LOL)
- make lists (13 reasons why something rulez or stinks)

In the WordCamp speech, Matt also mentions some additional tips, and mentions “SEO Title”, a WordPress plugin. Also, you might want to note that he mentions that Google doesn’t look at meta tags that much.

Jason Calacanis recently posted about Mahalo and the “Michael Vick Dog Fighting Video”. Who cares? I don’t.

Dave Naylor recently uncovered a Mahalo killer. I’ve checked it out, and yes, Aftervote could really be a Mahalo-killer.

Could someone PLEASE tell Greg that he needs to update his blog? It hasn’t been updated since Wednesday, April 4, 2007 @ 8:45 pm. And I thought Jensense hasn’t updated her blog in a while. Sheesh!

Mike Grehan just wrote in his Clickz column that he was in Los Angeles and noticed that the Google Universal Search results are different in the US than they are in the UK. What’s interesting is that he’s reportedly been seeing a commercial search result on the left side of the Google search results.

In related news, Kim Krause Berg is reporting that Clickz has relaunched.

Andy Beal is reporting that Google has invested in a high resolution camera company.

Tamar has a wishlist for Apple: give her an iPhone without the “phone” part. Tamar, couldn’t you just buy one off of ebay and not get it activated?

And, finally, Todd has found some great “Friday Finds”. Todd: what happened to the Friday finds last Friday?

Webmasterworld has launched a new review my site section. Here’s your chance to get reviewed by some of the best online marketers for free. You must be a Webmasterworld Supporter.

Sphinn has launched. Some are saying that it’s going to be the next Threadwatch. Was Sphinn the reason why Threadwatch was closed down? We may never know.

Someone should tell Michael Gray that he really doesn’t need to go 3g. Michael, you need to go get a free iPhone from Jason Calacanis.

At least someone is doing something right. We Build Pages is booked up for the rest of 2007: “Sorry, we are currently booked through 2007 for all of our SEO and link building services” is now being displayed on the WBP site. Someone go tell Jim that he’s still linking to Threadwatch. If you’re still linking there, shame on you–go remove your link, now, before you forget.

Lee has posted the TopRank Challenge Contest. Voting ends Friday July 20th at 5pm CST and the winner will be announced Monday morning, July 23rd. Winners will be awarded a bit of cash, some fame and a trip to an upcoming search marketing conference.

Does compete.com really live up to the hype Aaron’s giving it?

Dave says that search engine world is cloaking backlinks. The SEO Days site links to the pubcon site, but doesn’t link directly to search engine world…I have to admit that something strange appears to be going on.

Andy believes that 2007 is the year of the Domainer. Well, uh, yeah, if you aren’t into domains and you’re an online marketer then you really should start looking at domains.

Online Reputation Management is key nowadays…and you’d better make sure that you own your own name online. Todd has a great post about it.

Search Engine Journal recently talked about five ways to optimize for local search. If you haven’t started looking at local search then you need to do it.

Andy says that Facebook may be built on stolen code. Wow, that is one court case I’m going to be watching closely.

Jennifer Laycock recently talked about Corporate Blogging. “When it comes to corporate blogging, some companies have stumbled, some have soared and others are facing serious start-up challenges”, says Jennifer…she points out a few OOPS. Here’s another OOPS: the Kelsey Group needs to clean up their blog. Last time I checked, there were over 140+ comments on their last May 18th post. By the way, there’s no nofollow on those comment links.

If you haven’t read my recent post about protecting WordPress Plugins and you’re running WordPress, then I would go read it…I explain how to protect your WordPress plugins.

Aviva Directory has a great post about directories with the most backlinks. Very informative.

Scoreboard knows the score! Fark sends twice as much traffic as Netscape. That may be true, but from my experience, Netscape users click on ads more often. Which is a good thing.

Then, on the other hand, if you’re just into traffic then Andy can tell you where to get traffic to your site.

Topix, a leading news community on the internet, is transitioning from a news aggregator to a news community and “top 20 news site”. As a part of this transition, Topix.net has appointed Chris Tolles as Chief Executive Officer.

Chris Tolles is a longtime marketing executive and a mamber of the founding team of Topix. He succeeds Rich Skrenta, who has led Topix as CEO since he founded topix five years ago. Chris Tolles has worked closely with Rich Skrenta to change Topix from a news aggregator into the largest news community on the internet today. Rich Skrenta has played a major role in laying out the new executive structure–primarily to capitalize on the next phase of growth of Topix. Skrenta will continue to serve on the Topix board and as an advisor to Topix.

Chris Tolles originally joined Topix in March of 2004, before the official launch of the website. He and Rich Skrenta have a long history of building companies and building large-scale projects inside big companies. Chris Tolles and Rich Skrenta were on the founding team of NewHoo, which was acquired by Netscape in 1998, and re-launched as the Open Directory Project at dmoz.org.

Chris Tolles has seventeen years of industry and entrepreneurial experience. Prior to joining Topix, he co-founded and was the Vice President of Marketing at Spoke Software, which is an enterprise social networking company. Chris Tolles was also a Director of Marketing at AOL/Netscape and served in a variety of sales and marketing roles at Sun Microsystems. He graduated from the University of California at San Diego with degrees in Computer Science and Economics.

I know this doesn’t have much to do with search engine marketing, but it definitely has something to do with television–and the wireless remote control is such an influence on my life (yes, I’m a couch potato sometimes), so I thought I’d pass on the news the the co-inventor of the wireless remote control has died, Robert Adler. He died of heart failure on Feb. 15 in Boise, Idaho. He was 93.

Here’s more from the Zenith press release today:

Best known as co-inventor of the wireless remote control for television, Dr. Robert Adler was responsible for a large number of significant scientific contributions to the electronics industry, including landmark inventions in the field of consumer products and in sophisticated specialized communications equipment.

A prolific inventor with a seemingly never-ending thirst for knowledge, his pioneering developments spanned from the Golden Age of Television into the High-Definition Era, earning him more than 180 U.S. patents. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published his most recent patent application, for advances in touch-screen technology, on Feb. 1.

Dr. Adler’s six-decade career with Zenith Electronics Corporation began in 1941 when he joined Zenith’s research division after receiving his Ph.D. degree in physics from the University of Vienna in 1937. He was named associate director in 1952, vice president in 1959, and vice president and director of research in 1963. He retired as research vice president in 1979, and served Zenith as a technical consultant until 1999, when Zenith merged with LG Electronics.

In the consumer electronics field, Dr. Adler has been widely recognized as the co-inventor (with fellow Zenith engineer Eugene Polley) of the wireless TV remote. Dr. Adler’s “Space Command” ultrasonic remote control for TV sets was introduced by Zenith in 1956. He received the 1958 Outstanding Technical Achievement Award of the Institute of Radio Engineers (now the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers or IEEE) for his “original work on ultrasonic remote controls” for television.

Among Dr. Adler’s earlier work was the gated-beam tube which, at the time of its introduction, represented an entirely new concept in the field of vacuum tubes. The use of this tube greatly simplified the sound system in television receivers, markedly improving reception by screening out certain types of sound interference while lowering the cost of the sound channel.

Dr. Adler also was instrumental in originating and developing a synchronizing circuit which permitted demonstrably greater stability in fringe areas of the television reception. This invention was in wide use for many years and its principles are still employed today.

The electron beam parametric amplifier, developed in 1958 by Dr. Adler jointly with Glen Wade, then of Stanford University, was at the time the most sensitive practical amplifier for ultra high frequency (UHF) signals. It was used by radio astronomers in the United States and abroad, and by the U.S. Air Force for long-range missile detection.

Dr. Adler’s original work in the field of acousto-optical interaction was instrumental in the 1966 public demonstration, by a team of Zenith engineers, of an experimental television display using ultrasonic deflection and modulation of a laser beam to produce a wall-size TV picture without a cathode ray tube.

During World War II, Dr. Adler worked on high-frequency magnetostrictive oscillators for use in Armed Forces communications equipment. His early work on electromechanical filters paved the way for the development of the highly compact filters widely used in aircraft receivers after the war. In the mid- 60s, he suggested the use of surface acoustic waves (SAWs) in intermediate frequency filters for color televisions sets, a technology that has since become universal, not only in television but as an essential building block of cellular telephone handsets.

Dr. Adler also pioneered the use of SAW technology for touch screens. Touch screens employing principles he originated are now in widespread use in airport kiosks and in museums such as the Holocaust Museum in Washington, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, the Milwaukee Art Museum, and the San Jose (Calif.) Technology Museum, among others. Since the early 1990s, as a consultant to Elo TouchSystems, Dr. Adler actively contributed to the commercialization and further innovation of his SAW touch screen invention.

In 1951, Dr. Adler became a Fellow of the IEEE, a professional honor which is conferred by the Institute’s board of directors solely on the basis of “eminence and distinguished service.” He was cited for his “developments of transmission and detection devices for frequency-modulated signals and of electromechanical filter systems.”

Dr. Adler received the 1967 Inventor-of-the-Year Award from George Washington University’s Patent, Trademark and Copyright Research Institute for his inventions in the field of electronic products, devices and systems used in aircraft communications, radar, TV receivers and FM broadcasting.

He received the Consumer Electronics Outstanding Achievement Award in 1970 from the IEEE. This award is made annually to an engineer who has contributed significantly toward the advancement of consumer electronics through engineering achievements.

Dr. Adler also received the IEEE 1974 Outstanding Technical Paper Award for his report on “An Optical Video Disc Player,” representing early work in what was to become the digital video disc or DVD. His other IEEE awards include the Edison Medal in 1980 and the Sonics and Ultrasonics Achievement Award in 1981. The Edison Medal is the principal annual award of the IEEE and is presented for a career of meritorious achievement in electrical science, electrical engineering, or the electrical arts.

Together with Polley, he was honored in 1997 by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences with an Emmy award for Zenith’s introduction of the first wireless TV remote controls 50 years ago. He was a charter inductee in the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame in 2000. Dr. Adler was a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Born in Vienna, Austria on Dec. 4, 1913, Dr. Adler emigrated to the United States, settling in the Chicago area in 1941, when he joined Zenith. He lived on Chicago’s North Shore for six decades, more than 50 years in Northfield, Ill., and in Northbrook, Ill., since 1998.

A lover of the arts, Dr. Adler was active in the Chicago cultural community for decades, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Masters of Baroque, and community theater. A world traveler for both business and pleasure, he was fluent in German, English and French. He was an active participant in a Chicago-area French Club in the Chicago area for 35 years.

He was as passionate about hiking and skiing as he was about science and the arts. He was an avid downhill skier until age 89, and was still hiking in the past year.

A memorial service is being planned for the Chicago area this spring. He is survived by his wife Ingrid (nee Koch) Adler.