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LinkedInLinkreferral LinkReviewer site is a scam
May 17, 2010| Tweet |
It's been 7 days since you've joined linkreviewer.com, wondering how your traffic building is progressing?
login and find out at http://www.linkreviewer.com/login.pl
Username : site@example.com
Password : (INSERT PLAINTEXT PASSWORD HERE)
If you are already starting to see traffic, congratulations! IF NOT, WE WANT TO HELP RIGHT NOW by identifying and helping you get over that hurdle.
PROBLEM: I want traffic immediately.
SOLUTION: Have you participated in our directory traffic program yet? Visit 30 sites and
write 5 reviews per day, and you'll be ranked at the top of your category, receiving quality targeted visits per day from both our members and outside visitors! Just login and start participating!
PROBLEM: I forgot to get the code.
SOLUTION: you can get it at http://www.linkreviewer.com/cgi-bin/code.cgi
PROBLEM: I can not put the linkreviewer code on my website.
SOLUTION: a) There is a tutorial at http://www.linkreviewer.com/codehelp.html
b) If you are promoting an affiliate link, you may not be able to add the code to your site. you
can still participate by using the following code which creates a framed page http://www.linkreviewer.com/members.pl?refid= However keep in mind this solution will require work on your part to actively promote this link as opposed to a banner/button on your own site,
which passively utilizes your existing traffic on your site to attract referrals.
PROBLEM: For the referral based part of the program, I am not attracting enough 1st level referrals to get the ball rolling and as a result, not seeing a traffic increase as quickly as I would like.
SOLUTION: There are ideas that will help,
http://www.linkreviewer.com/markettips.html which gives general ideas on how to get a base of lst level referrals.
Remember generally that this is a referral process that builds a steady stream of traffic gradually over time. The longer you participate, the better chance you have of building a permanent residual traffic flow. For instant traffic, login and participate in our click for credit program
for up to 50 hits per day, absolutely free! Also, check out our paid advertising options and inquire
about placement in email campaigns, pop-under website displays and more...
LinkReviewer.com Staff
if you wish to change your mailing preferences DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL, you must go to http://www.linkreviewer.com/cgi-bin/retire2.cgi?retireemail=site@example.com
login and find out at http://www.linkreviewer.com/login.pl
Username : site@example.com
Password : (INSERT PLAINTEXT PASSWORD HERE)
If you are already starting to see traffic, congratulations! IF NOT, WE WANT TO HELP RIGHT NOW by identifying and helping you get over that hurdle.
PROBLEM: I want traffic immediately.
SOLUTION: Have you participated in our directory traffic program yet? Visit 30 sites and
write 5 reviews per day, and you'll be ranked at the top of your category, receiving quality targeted visits per day from both our members and outside visitors! Just login and start participating!
PROBLEM: I forgot to get the code.
SOLUTION: you can get it at http://www.linkreviewer.com/cgi-bin/code.cgi
PROBLEM: I can not put the linkreviewer code on my website.
SOLUTION: a) There is a tutorial at http://www.linkreviewer.com/codehelp.html
b) If you are promoting an affiliate link, you may not be able to add the code to your site. you
can still participate by using the following code which creates a framed page http://www.linkreviewer.com/members.pl?refid= However keep in mind this solution will require work on your part to actively promote this link as opposed to a banner/button on your own site,
which passively utilizes your existing traffic on your site to attract referrals.
PROBLEM: For the referral based part of the program, I am not attracting enough 1st level referrals to get the ball rolling and as a result, not seeing a traffic increase as quickly as I would like.
SOLUTION: There are ideas that will help,
http://www.linkreviewer.com/markettips.html which gives general ideas on how to get a base of lst level referrals.
Remember generally that this is a referral process that builds a steady stream of traffic gradually over time. The longer you participate, the better chance you have of building a permanent residual traffic flow. For instant traffic, login and participate in our click for credit program
for up to 50 hits per day, absolutely free! Also, check out our paid advertising options and inquire
about placement in email campaigns, pop-under website displays and more...
LinkReviewer.com Staff
if you wish to change your mailing preferences DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL, you must go to http://www.linkreviewer.com/cgi-bin/retire2.cgi?retireemail=site@example.com
For obvious reasons, I've obfusicated my E-Mail address and password. You may wonder why the above E-Mail says "Linkreviewer.com", and I referred to "Linkreferral.com"?
While, back in 2006, when I first formed YouN00b.com, the site was a little bit slow and I felt that maybe I should try some good-ol' Geocities techiques (like trading links with people).
At first, I figured that this was a good idea to join this site, however after a few weeks of "people referred to your site" number going up, and the server logs not showing the same, I decided I'd stop using the service. I never did terminate my account.
Site I signed up for: Linkreferral.com (Site Proxied by Link By Proxy)
Upon reciept of this E-Mail, I became concerned very quickly. First off, I haven't signed up for LinkReviewer, the page doesn't load, and I've been signing up on career sites lately. All I need is my information blown across the internet.
First things first, I visited their unsubscribe URL, however I changed my E-Mail address to a arbitrary one. I wanted to see how the site reacted. The page never loads, but also doesn't timeout. I tried to access the root domain with and without www. and via HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP (Yes, I know...Devious).
None of them worked, so I decided I'd ping the site, and it replied. Next step, portscan it. All of the major server ports were open, FTP, HTTP, SMTP, and POP3 (not MySQL, or I'd have tried anonymous connection there too). I figured most likely this was a hosting company by the ports that were open.
Doing a quick WHOIS on the domain yielded these results:
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: LINKREVIEWER.COM
Created on: 12-Mar-10
Expires on: 12-Mar-11
Last Updated on: 13-Mar-10
Administrative Contact:
morse, michael mike@webprogramming.tv
7211 quinpool road
nova scotia, Nova Scotia B3L 1C7
Canada
(902) 455-1921
Domain Name: LINKREVIEWER.COM
Created on: 12-Mar-10
Expires on: 12-Mar-11
Last Updated on: 13-Mar-10
Administrative Contact:
morse, michael mike@webprogramming.tv
7211 quinpool road
nova scotia, Nova Scotia B3L 1C7
Canada
(902) 455-1921
How dare I post this information? Well, it's against ICANN's Terms of Service to register a domain with invalid contact information. So, I tried calling the number, and I get a friendly Canadian "This number is no longer in service", followed by some French gibberish I believe to be saying "Screw you America."
Alright, so the phone number is invalid...How about the address? I look on Google, and the address is registered to two hair salons? Now, I wonder why a hair salon would open up a Link Reviewer site?
Sorry, I can't answer that.
How about his E-Mail address? Well, webprogramming.tv's domain doesn't even come up (Play along, give it a shot!).
Please note that MXToolbox does say that MX records exist, and are free of any blacklists.
With all of this, I decided I'd do an IP to Location check on the IP for the site, with these results:
Citing IP2Location:
65.23.154.183 US UNITED STATES NEVADA HENDERSON DTI INC
65.23.154.183 US UNITED STATES NEVADA HENDERSON DTI INC
A Google search for DTI INC was useless at best, with tons of results.
My next step was relying on the fact that DTI INC's IP was a static, owned hosted IP, or part of a hosted IP range, and not an ISP.
Bingo!
Datarealm Internet Services, Inc. SERVE-BLK-1 (NET-65-23-128-0-1)
65.23.128.0 - 65.23.159.255
DTI, Inc RACKMOUNTED-DTIINC-1 (NET-65-23-154-0-1)
65.23.154.0 - 65.23.154.255
# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2010-05-16 20:00
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS dtabase.
#
# ARIN WHOIS data and services are subject to the Terms of Use
# available at https://www.arin.net/whois_tou.html
65.23.128.0 - 65.23.159.255
DTI, Inc RACKMOUNTED-DTIINC-1 (NET-65-23-154-0-1)
65.23.154.0 - 65.23.154.255
# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2010-05-16 20:00
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS dtabase.
#
# ARIN WHOIS data and services are subject to the Terms of Use
# available at https://www.arin.net/whois_tou.html
Serve.com, better known as "Datarealm" is DTI. Interesting.
Well, I know the domain registrar (and am a customer myself), I know who does the hosting, but I don't know who really runs the site.
Just before I was going to call GoDaddy and let them know of the ICANN violation, and their hosting to let them know that there was unsolicited spam originating from their server with confidential information, I decided I'd look back at LinkReferral.
Of course, I couldn't remember if it was Link-Referral.com or some other odd variant, so I pulled up my handy-dandy Google bar to find out what it is, and am greeted by this:
You don't have to be a rocket scientist (or even a measly programmer such as myself) to see the issue here...
Visiting a few of these links yields that others have beat me to writing about the site.
So, how did I put two and two together about this site? Well, all the links in the e-mail, as well as the login information, matches.
For example:
http://www.linkreviewer.com/cgi-bin/retire2.cgi?retireemail=site@example.comThis is the same URL on both LinkReviewer and LinkReferral. Now I can understand if both had "unsubscribe.cgi?email=------", but retire2.cgi?retireemail=?
That's just a bit fishy.
What else is fishy is that the sites both have both .PL and .CGI extensions. Why not go with just Perl, or just CGI for an extension? (Yes, I realize Perl is CGI).
With the evidence I had at this point, I decided a removal of account (I mean a retire2.pl of my account) was in order, so I did so and replied with this message:
I have received spam from your Linkreview domain name, which I know to be under your control. I will be taking actions
against your company, and I am taking my business elsewhere.
Please note that I no longer wish for any communication from your company or affiliates, and have canceled my account.
Should a correspondence be received, legal proceedings should be expected.
against your company, and I am taking my business elsewhere.
Please note that I no longer wish for any communication from your company or affiliates, and have canceled my account.
Should a correspondence be received, legal proceedings should be expected.
What really kicked me in the ass was this:
(Screenshot modified to fit page)
Please, next time you find yourself needing traffic, just go ahead and e-mail bomb your friends, family, and spam your Facebook page. You'll look smarter this way.
Herpy DerpyMay 17th, 2010 8:36 am CDTPrint: 815a2ce614da76552644
Actually a good read.
Thank you very much for this great info, its extremely helpful. I've tried to promote my site nokiadeals.com for over 1yr now and I get no referral from them. I'll take your advise. Keep up the good work you're doing!
Guest UserJune 5th, 2010 5:40 pm CDTPrint: 815a2ce614da76552644
Pretty nice read man. I would make my own captcha if i was you
faquharJune 12th, 2010 9:50 am CDTPrint: 815a2ce614da76552644
faquhar(real linkreferral nickname)
thx for sharing this info.
Let me tell you something, i had register as a premium member at LR. I referred more than 400 member.
According this scam site, every referred member, i get $0.15 per member. I'm regret with their fake promise and lies. Until now I didn't received my payment.
According this scam site, every referred member, i get $0.15 per member. I'm regret with their fake promise and lies. Until now I didn't received my payment.
MelissaJune 18th, 2010 6:13 am CDTPrint: 815a2ce614da76552644
You have enlightened a huge audience with your in-depth research. I am just amazed & not surprised. Great reporting!
You're all welcome. Knowing that even a few other people aren't being scammed is thanks enough for me.
faquhar:
Sorry to hear about that, and I wish you luck getting what you deserve from them. It is a shame how a site can be put up that wastes others time, energy, and visitors time and energy.
Also, an update...
Since I have posted this, they've changed the WHOIS information to a DomainsByProxy name, which is GoDaddy's "Private Registration" method.
Why did they feel the need to hide their company name?
faquhar:
Sorry to hear about that, and I wish you luck getting what you deserve from them. It is a shame how a site can be put up that wastes others time, energy, and visitors time and energy.
Also, an update...
Since I have posted this, they've changed the WHOIS information to a DomainsByProxy name, which is GoDaddy's "Private Registration" method.
Why did they feel the need to hide their company name?
vinciAugust 28th, 2010 11:27 am CDTPrint: 815a2ce614da76552644
This service no good. The code Java is malicious. for search engines is penalized
NoelJanuary 20th, 2011 7:08 am CSTPrint: 815a2ce614da76552644
faquhar as you claimed Linkreferral.com owe you more than $60 tell us more about your profile in Linkreferral, which website were you promoting using the linkreferral? what was your real name, Location, member ID number, Date of joining,listed url and things like that. Then did you rised the issue within the Linkreferral forum? And why this is the only site alleged that Linkreferral is a scam?
Don't request personal information via this site or your privileges to visit the site will be revoked.
There are other sites claiming it is a scam, as you can see by the search query, as well as the link directly following. I believe there is more than enough supporting evidence of wrong doing here, and I've yet to hear them refute this post, despite it being up for nearly a year.
There are other sites claiming it is a scam, as you can see by the search query, as well as the link directly following. I believe there is more than enough supporting evidence of wrong doing here, and I've yet to hear them refute this post, despite it being up for nearly a year.
CCMarch 22nd, 2011 12:21 pm CDTPrint: 815a2ce614da76552644
I use linkreferral. I don't receive random unwanted emails. The only emails in which I receive are those pertaining to my site I have listed, if someone has searched for a keyword I had attached and found my shop in that way or if they left me a message or a review about my shop on the linkreferral site itself. Also, pertaining to your "Google Search query" while I respect the fact that you are obviously angry with them for some reason it does not do that when typing in the term "linkeferral" in the Google search engine.Falsifying evidence is no way to prove a point. I could easily recreate the exact same image. Heck, I could take your site and put it in there and attach horrid, invalid, and useless words to the end of it. Point is, Linkreferral can work, if you know how to use it. I don't use the "paid" option but it does work for me otherwise. I am sorry if the paid option has not been as affective or even if ppl have been scammed out of their money for using it but if I am not mistaken you only make money with LR when you refer others to use LR. I have received visitors and hits to my site from linkreferral, even made a few sales, and I know many others who have used it effectively without problems as well. Again, I am sorry you and apparently others who have read this did not like their experience with LR but it doesn't mean its a scam either. IMO. )
Nice catch, since Google changed how their search page operates (with the live results), that no longer shows. However I didn't falsify evidence, so don't act like a tool and post erroneous facts on this page. At the date this was posted, that was a direct screenshot from Google.com.
If it works for you, great. I see more people (and more sites) that agree with what I've posted than arguing it.
If it works for you, great. I see more people (and more sites) that agree with what I've posted than arguing it.
Anuja ShiranSeptember 5th, 2011 8:15 am CDTPrint: 815a2ce614da76552644
I have been using this site for some time and now it gives a message that the server is down.