Site reputation

[dr.flay]

I noticed "Web Of Trust" is flagging some of Mr.P's (Pietro) sites as bad, so figured we have to do something about that.

The hosts he is using are a bit of a problem for reputation.
It is not actually the host, but the way the domain names are made.
Users on the same root domain have hosted malicious files, and it affects people with legitimate sites with a sub-domain.

Unlike the other stupid sites like the Norton reputation service, WOT can see claimed sites as a different URL, so will save comments and ratings for that sub-domian.

Mr.P has signed-up with WOT, claimed his URLs and added his WOT codes to the sites, and now it time for us to do our bit.
Please install the WOT browser plugin, and then rate and leave comments for other users who may think the site is a threat.

https://www.mywot.com/scorecard/utdatabase.99k.org (Good rating)
https://www.mywot.com/scorecard/ut99files.t15.org (Phishing)
https://www.mywot.com/scorecard/ut99maps.juplo.com (Phishing, Malware or viruses)
https://www.mywot.com/scorecard/ut99maps2.juplo.com (Phishing, Malware or viruses)

 

[DarkED]

It's sad to hear, but this is nothing new and has been going on since the dawn of search engines and anti-spam measures.

The most efficient solution is to buy your own domains using a trusted registrar, run your own servers (if you want to lease virtual machines, lease from a well-known provider like Amazon or Rackspace) and make sure everything (reverse DNS, Google record token, etc.) is in order.

A side note - even with all that, you'll probably still get some anti-spam watchdogs that flag your domains/servers as malicious-use and put them on the lists, even if they are obviously not being used for such purposes. Many public email providers (coughhotmailcough) will probably block emails coming from your domains/servers even if they're in good standing with all of the watchdog lists. And really, there's absolutely nothing you can do about it except sending an appeal after the fact and waiting.

 

[dr.flay]

I know it is nothing new, but it does not stop the problem getting worse by ignoring it.
It is easy for any webmaster to take control of the situation, but they need to be proactive.
As it is nothing new, more and more malware products, browsers and plugins are available to block sites based on web reputation.

I regularly have to deal with customers locked out of legitimate sites.
1st I have to teach them how to bypass the protection, then report the situation to Trend, Avast, Norton or who-ever they got their protection from.
WOT does not work like that. They do not fix ratings. Community members MUST do the rating.

The issue is that the root domain includes it's own name.
This is common with several free or low-cost solutions.
Be ahead of the game:
If you register your site with WOT and add the code, before the root domain gets a bad reputation, it would not matter, because WOT now has specific code embeded in your site, so your ratings are linked to that.

What happens on these hosts happens everywhere on all hosts, but is masked by a non-connected URL.

It is easy to change the situation with WOT, as they see the sub-domain as separate, so when a site-owner registers the URL, and adds the WOT code you get given, then positive user ratings will be specifically linked to that URL.
Without any new ratings it continues to inherit the old score.

It is the comments that people can leave, that will ultimately make someone trust a site.
Sites also get hacked and gain a bad rep. but if comments tell you when the site was hacked and when it was fixed, you can choose to over-ride the red circle of doom.