How to stop someone redirect their web site to ours

[dayg]

Hi all,

Here is the situation. Our company has a website called: www.weatherlysecurities.com and just recently we discovered another URL called: www.austinnicholls.com that somehow redirect/mirror the traffic to our website. We need to put a stop to this at once. When I do who is on Austin Nicholls, this is what I get:

Austin Nicholls Asset MA (AUSTINNICHOLLS-DOM)
40 C.P.S. #6C
New York, NY 10019
US

Domain Name: AUSTINNICHOLLS.COM

Administrative Contact:
Holditch, Alla (AH9688) cranest@MSN.COM
Austin Nicholls Asset MA
40 C.P.S. #6C
New York , NY 10019
+12127532600 (FAX) +12127533911
Technical Contact:
Quickdomains Hostmaster (QH2-ORG) hostmaster@QUICKDOMAINS.NET
Quickdomains
Queens House, 180 Tottenham Court Rd
London
UK
+44 171 291 3940
Fax- - +44 171 291 3939

Now, I called all the numbers above and none are correct. So I'm stuck and not sure how to move forward and put a stop to this. Help!

 

[Beau]

Block the referrers address.

 

[hoihtah]

so... you're getting too much traffic?
is that why you want to block them out?

it seems odd that you're trying to minimize traffic...
while others are spending $$ to gain more.

 

[dayg]

Beau6183,

Could you explain that in detail? BTW, we have a 3rd party hosting our website. Thanks.

 

[Beau]

If you don't have access to the webserver configs, then you'll have to do it using a scripting language. What languages are supported on your server?

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: Beau6183
If you don't have access to the webserver configs, then you'll have to do it using a scripting language. What languages are supported on your server?

This might be better than blocking: if the script code sees the referrer was austinnicholls.com return a page that says "we have no connection with Austin Nicholls Asset MA" instead of just denying access.

 

[dayg]

Thanks guys,

Let me give them a call and see what they can do. I'll keep you all posted.

 

[Superwormy]

Use PHP to detect whether or not they are coming from that site. Not 100% accurate but its a start.

but anyway, why do you want to STOP people from coming to your website? That's free traffic right there, traffic on the net costs $$$...

 

[JustinSampson]

PHP:

<?
$address = "http://www.austinnicholls.com";

if ($HTTP_REFERER = $address)

{

header ("Location: http://www.weatherlysecurities.com/error.html");

}

?>

Put that at the top of every page on your site (make sure that there is absolutly no content before it, even white space, or you will get a header error). Then create a page called error.html and put what ever message you want the person to get if they are comming from the austinnicholls.com domain. You'll have to make sure that the PHP parses .html pages first, otherwise that code will show up at the top of every page. Contact your host for more info on that.

 

[Beau]

ASP:

<%
&nbspDim strBlockedAddress, strRedirectTo
&nbspstrBlockedAddress = "austinnicholls.com"
&nbspstrRedirectTo = "[Insert URL To Redirect To here]"
&nbspIf Right(LCase(Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFFERER")), Len(strBlockedAddress))) = LCase(strBlockedAddress) Then
&nbsp&nbspResponse.Redirect(strRedirectTo)
&nbspEnd If
%>

 

[dayg]

I appreciate all your help. Thanks for pointing out ways to stop this. I already contacted the ppl who designed our website and hosting it. They are working on it. Funny they told me there was nothing they can do at first until I mentioned what some of you said here. A big thumbs up for Anandtechers here.

 

[dayg]

For those who are interested to see the results. We redirected their site to www.FBI.gov

Just one more question, can a firm get into some legal issues redirecting their website? Can we sue them and vice versa?

 

[BlueApple]

Originally posted by: dayg
Just one more question, can a firm get into some legal issues redirecting their website? Can we sue them and vice versa?

Yes. The FBI is going to sue your ass off now.

 

[edmicman]

what was wrong with people/traffic coming to your website in the first place?