Hijacking Communities

Last week I noticed that MyBlogLog had a bug which allowed people to comment on behalf of other MyBlogLog users and create communities that do not belong to them. This week it seems like the hijacking has begun...

seomoz

It is actually quite funny (as long as it does not happen to you); people can create a community around someone's website and cause harm by putting up funny / malicious pictures and messages. The community in the picture above is the SEOmoz community that I am pretty sure Rand Fishkin did not create especially because that funny picture of the caveman is not of someone from the SEOmoz crew.

MyBlogLog is going to have to start placing precautions on company brand names and website names or else these companies will start being affected in a negative way. If MyBlogLog does not stop this, who knows what crazy things will happen next... maybe people will begin to start finding ways to monetize these hijacked communities.

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Search Marketing Gurus | Search Marketing Tips, Advice, Strategies, December 26, 2006

“MyBlogLog Hijacks - Its Not Just SEOMoz Anymore” — Loren Baker first reported about a flaw in MyBlogLog that happened when he and Carsten were signing up for the service. Tonight Neil Patel's posting about SEOMoz being hijacked/stolen on MyBlogLog. I noticed this first when Loren reported it, I signed ...

Reader Comments (13)

Michael Jensen, December 26, 2006

Good find Neil. I saw this the other day, and thought the caveman looked like Rand (sort of) so I joined this and the other SEOmoz community. :) Very interesting!

Neil Patel, December 26, 2006

ROFL! Hopefully Rand doesn't see your comment.

Rhea, December 26, 2006

Wow, good call. I know Loren had a harmless situation with ownership of the domain, I could see this being a big deal for others. I wonder what blogs haven't signed up yet...hmmm. JK.

Tony, December 26, 2006

Interesting... Actually years ago I was an active member on a certain forum, to the point that I would post substantially more than the actual admin (I believe he took interest in other projects). At some point people began to think that I was the one in charge of the website, and I proceeded to tell the entire userbase to switch over to my (newly established) forum.

Point of the story? It's fairly easy to 'hijack'

Li Evans, December 26, 2006

Hey Neil - Loren pointed this out last week too. I joined that community just to see what was happening there, I knew it really wasn't Rand, cuz at first I think I saw someone else as the author, then it went blank...now "cheapSEO". I wonder what Rand's going to do about this?

Dave Davis, December 27, 2006

Just noticed this myself when trying to join the SEOmoz community.

I think there should be some sort of verification placed on the community domain to verify the site belongs to the profile.

Joost de Valk, December 27, 2006

As you can see i had some fun joining a few seconds before Cameron did ;)

David Temple, December 27, 2006

Nice catch. You got my comment before the cheapseo deleted. Later on he added shoemoney, oilman and another blog. All gone now though but the bug still exists.

Loren Baker, December 28, 2006

Guess the community is up for grabs until someone (meaning anyone) claims it. Ideally, MyBlogLog will implement a Technorati style tag system for claiming such ownership blog communities.

Loren Baker, December 28, 2006

Looks like Randfish claimed the community, and its 44 members!

Neil Patel, December 28, 2006

Yea, it seems Rand, Shoe and a few others got back their community.

GreyFox, December 30, 2006

I have seen these around a lot lately on my favorite blogs (Boing Boing and such) and I can say that I prefer them over banners or popups. I actually look at these.

GreyFox, December 30, 2006

XD I just realized I made a comment on the wrong post