Website Advice

charlie792

Hi, Im not sure if this is two seperate issues or kind of one bigger issue but I hope someone can offer me a bit of advice.
My OH has a website which is a portfolio of his work it is registered and hosted through 123reg. The website itself is not the problem however when checking the stats they are slightly worrying. For the last few months every month or so the same person (at least same IP address) has accessed his site through either Semrush or Whorush - basically a site that shows the domain details etc - now firstly I find it strange that it appears to be the same person visiting his site through this, and on a monthly basis - a friend had suggested that they may be after his domain name but it clearly says on Whorush that it is not up for renewal until November 2011 anyway so why keep checking? (As it happens its actually on auto renewal but I suppose they don't know that). Something else which is really worrying me is that its got his full name and old address on there - surely that can't be safe, Im somewhat worried this could have potentially opened himself up to a lot of fraud opportunities (call me paranoid). It just seems odd that this one person seems to be accessing his site every month or so through this semrush or whorush. Strangely enough his website has had 241 views as of 8 this morning, yesterday it only had 16 for the entire day.....

free4440273

Can you flag it up with the website registrar perhaps?

hubert_cumberdale

my websites get checked all the time by these sites the chances of it being a person are pretty slim

my site gets roughly 4000 hits a day and about half of them are autobots (not transformers!!! lol)

you also wouldnt know if it was the same person each time as it will simply be displaying the ip of the whorush site

if you put a domain in there it scans similar domains and displays them which would be presented as a hit to the website owners. so if you put google.com into whorush it would visit sites like that for ex google1.com google2.com etc etc

your OH domain maybe similar to domains that are searched

i just added my site to whorush and it flagged up 292 sites similar to mine so all of those sites will have just recieved a visit

was the IP address that visited the site 208.94.232.66 or 88.214.193.166 or similar

wonka

Yea, as HC says, this is normal for virtually all websites. It's being accessed by "robots" - automatic connections from sites that host directories, like Google.

No need to worry.

millwalll

I have online portfolio too and I only have name and email address on it. If people want me to do work for them they will email me not many companies write letter any more so I dont see point of your address being on it.

charlie792

millwalll wrote: »

I have online portfolio too and I only have name and email address on it. If people want me to do work for them they will email me not many companies write letter any more so I dont see point of your address being on it.

Our address isn't on his own website, but if you go to any of these domain name websites it gives anybody all his registration information, including the address. Ive heard that his webhost should be able to block this being able to be seen?

[Deleted User]

If it's a .co.uk domain you can opt-out on 123-reg control panel.

chunter

[quote=[Deleted User];39932160]If it's a .co.uk domain you can opt-out on 123-reg control panel.[/QUOTE]

for Nominet domains (co.uk's ) you can make private for free.
for top level domains it's a fiver a year.

See "WHOIS Privacy" in your 123 control panel.

But it doesn't matter. No one's going to steal your domain. Maybe with a 100 grand domain you'll get the odd halfwit who tries to grab it through deception.

Oddly enough, the easiest way to steal a domain is to hijack the email address which was used to purchase it. Try and find out how many attempts there have been on cracking that...

RealGem

You can only opt out (not show your details) of a WHOIS type site (a site that gives all registration details) with a .co.uk domain if the site is not a commercial site.

If it is a personal site, you can choose "individual" and it won't show your details. If the site is already setup, you can contact Nominet (who hold all UK registered domains) and they will change it for you.

I set up a non-profit site, and Nominet were very helpful. I was able to call them.

But if it is a business, you can get around the personal info being on the WHOIS site, by using a generic name (such as a biz name, or even an abbreviation) and a PO box address (costs £90 a year).

But then again, most businesses won't mind their details being on the WHOIS site, as they'll be on their own site too.

BTW, you say you have your email on your own site. It is advisable to have this displayed in code ("name AT whatever. com" - people will know to ignore the spaces and change AT to @ ) or as an image, because hackers have email-scraping software to sell to spammers, so it's never a good idea to have your email anywhere online.

chunter

millwalll wrote: »

I have online portfolio too and I only have name and email address on it. If people want me to do work for them they will email me not many companies write letter any more so I dont see point of your address being on it.

The point of the address on the website is not for you.

It's to give the potential customer confidence that you are a legitimate business. Not having an address gives the impression you have something to hide.

chunter

RealGem wrote: »

BTW, you say you have your email on your own site. It is advisable to have this displayed in code ("name AT whatever. com" - people will know to ignore the spaces and change AT to @ ) or as an image, because hackers have email-scraping software to sell to spammers, so it's never a good idea to have your email anywhere online.

huh.
Use an Obfuscator. Standard practice.
Doesn't work for all, but if you have a proper host, you'll have a proper spam assassin which will pick up most of the rest.

http://www.albionresearch.com/misc/obfuscator.php