Poll

Is the text posted below...

a) an innocent request to help out a young school kid with an interest in weather
2 (9.5%)
b) a clever marketing concept by Alan's place of many sheds
6 (28.6%)
c) a nefarious drive by malware injection scheme
13 (61.9%)

Total Members Voted: 21

Author Topic: Odd request to add links to your site  (Read 5103 times)

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Offline DadCooks

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Re: Odd request to add links to your site
« Reply #25 on: June 15, 2018, 06:16:08 PM »
This has all the hall marks of a scam, there is no way this is legitimate. The hook may not immediately appear, it could be months or even years, but rest assured you have been compromised.

Offline AD7ZD

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Re: Odd request to add links to your site
« Reply #26 on: June 15, 2018, 09:20:25 PM »
This looks to me like an effort to get backlinks for search engine optimization. The more links to an web page from related sites looks good in the eyes of Google and they will rank the page higher.


CWOP: AD7ZD

Offline 92merc

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Re: Odd request to add links to your site
« Reply #27 on: June 16, 2018, 12:32:18 PM »
I've received 2 of these emails over the years.  Luckily I keep all of my weather related emails.  First one was nearly 2 years ago now.  But I've removed those links from my pages.  Just can't trust it...

BTW, I had to recently change my email address used on my site.  I started getting 20+ rejected emails a day.  A lot of them were in Chinese, or it looks like Chinese to me.  Looks like someone was trying to send emails out as me.  Luckily I'm just using a forwarding account on GoDaddy.  So I made a new account forwarding to my same address and updated my site.  I'm sure they'll scrape it of my site eventually again.
https://www.BismarckWeather.net
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Offline zmarfak

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Re: Odd request to add links to your site
« Reply #28 on: June 22, 2018, 01:56:44 PM »
Got for the first time such kind of email
My site is located in Belgium, seems a little bit too far from the US.

Quote
Happy Friday!

I just wanted to shoot you an email to say thanks for putting together your weather page:  https://www.matar.be/weather/wxlinks.php

As the program director of a summer camp, I've been working on our outdoor recreation guides. We love getting the kids outside and active when the weather is nice -- we only have a few short months to do that in Wisconsin so we take FULL advantage of it haha!

Since we're on the lake, we always do a severe weather safety course to prevent any mishaps.

One of the summer volunteers found these emergency preparedness/weather safety guides:

A Nurse's Guide to Disaster Preparedness https://online.maryville.edu/online-bachelors-degrees/rn-to-bsn/nurses-guide-to-disaster-preparedness

Home Preparation Tips for Weather Emergencies www.angieslist.com/articles/home-preparation-tips-weather-emergencies.htm

I added them to our camp's resources...could you do me a favor and include them on your page too?

I'd love to show my volunteer she's helping others outside of the camp! Plus, as the scout's say: "You can never be too prepared!"

Let me know if you get a chance to update - I meet with her later this evening!

Have a great start to your summer!!
Sarah Trent
http://campprice.com/
Patrick
Davis Vantage Pro2 with a Meteobridge NANO SD and WL (6.04) on a Intel NUC 
https://www.matar.be

Offline mackbig

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Re: Odd request to add links to your site
« Reply #29 on: June 22, 2018, 03:23:47 PM »
Another Sarah,
Its a global conspiracy....




Andrew - Davis VP2+ 6163, serial weatherlink, wireless anemometer, running Weather Display.  Boltek PCI Stormtracker, Astrogenic Nexstorm, Strikestar - UNI, CWOP CW8618, GrLevel3, (Station 2 OS WMR968, VWS 13.01p09), Windows 7-64

Offline Mattk

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Re: Odd request to add links to your site
« Reply #30 on: June 22, 2018, 06:44:34 PM »
As they say if it looks like a duck, talks like a duck, walks like a duck then ...... it's a duck.

This has all the hallmarks of some sort of con!

Offline Intheswamp

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Re: Odd request to add links to your site
« Reply #31 on: June 23, 2018, 09:53:03 AM »
Hi Andrew, and welcome back.
Re that request, I have had several very similar requests over the years and had been adding the suggested links and recognition
http://www.komokaweather.com/komokaweather-ca/wxlinks.php


Whenever I have been able to trace the email address they seem to be legitimate schools or institutions.  I see no issue or concern with them.


Regards,
Paul
Paul, I just checked some of your links and several are to insurance sites (with weather-related info).  The "USA Today - Weather Basics" simply carries you to the front page for USA Today.  Just saying...  :-|

I've gotten several of these through the years.  They start out by being complimentary about your website, then slip in the "link request".  I think there "may" be some legitimate people out there asking for links to be posted but I think most are after "clicks" or trying to improve their web reputation and Google ranking by increasing the number linked sites to theirs.

I ignore the requests.

Davis VP2, v3.12
Cumulus v1.9.4  Build 1079
Today's weather beats no weather at all!
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www.beausandbonnets.com

Offline Intheswamp

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Re: Odd request to add links to your site
« Reply #32 on: June 23, 2018, 09:58:34 AM »
Paul, I see you had already gone through your links to your comfort level...I should've read through the thread to the end.  #-o 

Davis VP2, v3.12
Cumulus v1.9.4  Build 1079
Today's weather beats no weather at all!
www.beeweather.com
www.beausandbonnets.com

Offline 92merc

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Re: Odd request to add links to your site
« Reply #33 on: July 13, 2018, 01:02:13 PM »
Sarah Fox is still at it.  ESL Tutor now.  Similar to one posted earlier.

Received: from eslhome.org ([104.236.68.151])
   by bizsmtp with ESMTP
   id dyaaf133y1AEVdyaafN47D; Fri, 13 Jul 2018 06:58:29 -0700
From: "Sarah Fox" <sarah@eslhome.org>
https://www.BismarckWeather.net
Davis VP2, Cumulus, WeatherDisplay, Blitzortung, Saratoga Scripts, NOAA Stream via PI

Offline satcop

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Re: Odd request to add links to your site
« Reply #34 on: July 13, 2018, 05:17:06 PM »
Sarah Fox is still at it.  ESL Tutor now.  Similar to one posted earlier.

Received: from eslhome.org ([104.236.68.151])
   by bizsmtp with ESMTP
   id dyaaf133y1AEVdyaafN47D; Fri, 13 Jul 2018 06:58:29 -0700
From: "Sarah Fox" <sarah@eslhome.org>

Well Sarah must be doing the rounds got one today as well, same alias and same address.  I guess there is a link between teaching English and emergency preparedness. 
Clifton, Virginia Weather


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Offline miraculon

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Re: Odd request to add links to your site
« Reply #35 on: July 13, 2018, 06:05:23 PM »
Well, I got one of these too. This one is from "Schuyler Rose":

Quote
To: Webmaster

From:
Schuyler Rose
schuyler@writingview.com

Message:
Hi,

I just wanted to send you a big 'Thank You' for your helpful web page
http://www.rogerscityweather.com/wxlinks.php I've been volunteering at
a summer program and one of the girls in my group, Jenna, found your
website while doing extra research about weather and storms for a
project. I just wanted to let you know that your information has been
a big help not only to her, but to our entire group! Thanks so much


During her research, she came across an article that was very helpful
to her:

I am not going to include this site in this posting, since it could be a malware injection scheme. It is very suspicious.

DodgySite.com link here...

Quote
and she was wondering if you would mind adding it to your page when
you have the time. She really wanted to pass along her research to
other people on the Internet and she would be so happy to hear if you
found her research helpful.

Let me know what you think and if you have any other resources for us
to check out!

Have a great day,
Schuyler


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anything