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This functionality was also used to set up the

seophp.example.com

domain. On Windows machines,

the file is located in

C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

. Add the following lines:

xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx www.yourdomain.com

xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx yourdomain.com

This will let you access your web site at the new provider as if the DNS changes were already reflected.

Simply remove the lines after you are done setting up the site on the new web hosting provider ’s server

to verify the changes have actually propagated.

If you have concerns about this procedure, or you need help, you may want to contact your new hosting

provider and ask for assistance. Explain your concerns, and hopefully they will be able to accommodate

you and put your mind at ease. If they are willing to work with you, it is a good indication that they are

a good hosting provider.

Cross-Linking

A typical spammer ’s accoutrement consists of several thousand cross-linked web sites. These sites col-

lectively drive ad revenue from the aggregate of many usually obscure, but nevertheless queried search

terms. Many sites containing many key phrases have to be created to make his spam enterprise worth-

while. Originally, many spammers hosted all of the sites from one web hosting company, and, hence, the

same or similar IP addresses. Search engines caught on, and may have applied filters that devalue links

exchanged between the web sites within similar IP ranges. This made it much harder to spam, because a

spammer would need to host things at different ISPs to continue.

Similarly, it has been speculated that Google in particular, because it is a registrar that does not actually

sell domain names, looks at the records associated with domains. Yahoo! is also a registrar, so it may fol-

low suit; but it actually sells domains, so the intent is less clear.

In both cases, even if you are not a spammer, and you want to cross-link, it may be advisable to obscure the

relationship. Many larger web hosting companies have diverse ranges of IPs, and can satisfy your explicit

request for a different range. The information that is provided to a domain registrar is up to you, but if the

name and address do vary, the information must also be correct regardless. Otherwise you risk losing the

domain according to ICANN policies. There is also an option for private registration, which prevents

Google or Yahoo! from using an automated process to find relationships, at least. To check the registration

information for a domain, use a WHOIS tool such as the one at

http://www.seoegghead.com/tools/

whois-search.php

. Figure 13-1 shows the tool displaying the data for

www.yahoo.com

.

MSN Search has a useful feature that allows you to see all virtual hosts on one IP by the syntax of

IP:xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

. Multiple statements can be separated by

OR

to request a list of a range of IPs.

This lets you see who else is hosting in a range. Spam tends to travel in packs. Search engine algo-

rithms are also aware of this. The fact that the operator exists may be a tacit admission by Microsoft

that it does examine the sites in an IP range for some reason. See Figure 13-2 for an example, where

we examined the sites located at

66.39.117.78

.

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Chapter 13: Coping with Technical Issues

c13.qxd:c13 10:45 251

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