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Amazon Burundi? The Search Engine Metaspam ------------------------------------------------------ by Ralph Tegtmeier ------------------------------------------------------ AMAZON.COM is, as every child should know by now, one of the web's best hyped success stories. While actual profits may seem negligible compared to their dominant role in the online book market, it's certainly not reflected in their stock quotes. The company has been expanding aggressively. In the retail field Amazon is now offering lots of non book related stuff like toys, videos, computer hardware, house improvement gear and even online auctions. On an international scale, they have established profitable partnerships and are currently offering their services in the UK and in Germany, both major online markets. While their plans for further international expansion may be anybody's guess, fN has discovered some indications possibly pointing the way. Or are they? Have a look at what we found: http://www.amazon.af - (this, in case you're wondering, is Afghanistan!) http://www.amazon.as http://www.amazon.am http://www.amazon.at http://www.amazon.az http://www.amazon.bt http://www.amazon.io http://www.amazon.bi (Burundi) http://www.amazon.com.cn (China, former site text: "All right reserved. Amazon family") - no typo! == CLOSED DOWN? http://www.amazon.com.fj (Fiji) http://www.amazon.ie (Ireland: formerly redirected to http://www.readireland.ie/ of Read Ireland Book Database, now to http://www.amazon.co.uk) http://www.amazon.kg (Kyrgyzstan) http://www.amazon.li (Liechtenstein: redirects to German Amazon.de at http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/subst/home/home.html) http://www.amazon.com.mx (Mexico: formerly showed aereal pic of scenic Amazone river) == CLOSED DOWN? http://www.amazon.no (Norway, assignation unclear) == CLOSED DOWN? http://www.amazon.pl (Poland) http://www.amazon.pt (Portugal: service currently unavailable) http://www.amazon.co.za (South Africa) http://www.amazon.com.sg (Singapore) http://www.amazon.com.sc (Seychelles) http://www.amazon.ch (Switzerland: redirects to German Amazon.de at http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/subst/home/home.html) http://www.amazon.com.tw (Taiwan: used to redirect to http://www.scisci.com) == CLOSED DOWN? http://www.amazon.to (Tonga) http://www.amazon.com.ua (Ukraine) http://www.amazon.sk (Slovakia) == CLOSED DOWN? Some of these may be mere domain squatting prospectors hoping that Amazon.com will buy them out one day. We suspect this to be the case with both the Chinese and the Taiwanese domains, with Mexico a possible third candidate. (Amazon.gr is currently being offered for sale at Greatdomains.) As for the others - they qualify for blatant search engine spam by ANY standard! Click on Amazon in Switzerland, and you'll be redirected to Amazon.de (Germany). Same for Liechtenstein and Austria. All four German speaking countries, true - except for one little fly in the ointment, namely that Swiss domain registration is supposed to be reserved to corporations and individual physically located (read: "resident") in Switzerland. Now where would Amazon be located in Switzerland, fN asks - and to what purpose? They do seem to have avoided the more notorious tax havens in the Caribbean, which might explain their interest in Liechtenstein as well. Alternatively, being on of the internet's most important online ad sponsors, some local NICs seem to be only too tempted to bend their own rules when it comes to assigning Amazon domains they don't actually qualify for. Regarding their search engine submission policy, the case is pretty obvious: most SEs will penalize URL entries operating with instant redirects. (The results listed above were all culled from AltaVista.) Featuring a URL purporting to be in Afghanistan (or, at the very least, Afghanistan related), only to direct visitors to their US site, is misleading at best. Or would they want to argue that they've suddenly discovered the gigantic internet markets of Burundi, Fiji and the Seychelles to peddle their US mail order service? No: it doesn't take a degree in rocket science to figure it out - Amazon.com is simply and blatantly spamming the search engines to consolidate their overall domination of the web's retail market. So what does this illustrate? Take your pick: that all those purportedly "little guys" out there spamming the SEs aren't alone; that some forms of spamming are gradually becoming acceptable even in the top notch corporate world; that whatever will work, will sooner or later actually be done if it seems profitable ... |
This text may freely be republished or distributed in
unmodified form provided the following resource box is
included intact either at the beginning or the end of
the article and a complimentary copy or notice (link)
is sent to the author at the address specified below:
Ralph Tegtmeier is the co-founder and principal of fantomaster.com GmbH (Belgium), http://fantomaster.com, a company specializing in webmasters software development, industrial-strength cloaking and search engine positioning services. He has been a web marketer since 1994 and is editor-in-chief of fantomNews, a free newsletter focusing on search engine optimization, available at: http://fantomaster.com/fantomnews-sub.html You can contact him at mailto:fneditor@fantomaster.com (c) copyright 2002 by fantomaster.com All rights reserved. Downloaded at: http://zeroeffort.com fanto
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