About half an hour ago, after I had finished checking one of my sites "Alexa rank", I decided to have a look at the Alexa "Hot URL's".
I was suprised to see a familiar looking URL at number 5 on the list of hot URL's that I have seen mentioned several times before in a few differant discussion groups. The title of the link is "How I Make $5,000 a Month Posting Links on Google".
The URL usually goes something like kevingotgreen, kevingothisgreen or in this case kevinsgreenblog. com.
The questions in discussion groups are usually something like... "Posting links on Google - Is it a scam?"
The majority of answers are "Yes, its a scam"
So when I saw the scam site ranked at number 5 on the hot URL list, I couldnt help but cringe at the thought of all the potential victims this scam may get again.
Although the site looks very scammy (to me anyway) there are a lot of people that are taken by the promises of easy money. Hopefully the authorities can step in like they did with the "GoogleMoneyTree" scam, before too many people get ripped off.
Looking closer at the Alexa hot URL list, I noticed another link to a site (this time at number 2) that was titled "Is Working Online At Home The Next Gold Rush?" I thought to myself "How ironic!" But then cringed again as I thought, "I wonder if this could be a scam site as well?". Looking at the URL in the link, gave me the impression that it was a legitimate site. So I visited it and took a closer look.
Los Angeles Tribune News (Losangeles-tribune.com/finance/indexb.php) Looks like a normal news site (and that's the scary part), reporting about a successful "Working online from home" story.
But dig deeper, and you will soon realize that it is just another "post links on Google scam".
If you Google the keywords "Losangeles-tribune.com" (without quotes), latimes.com comes up as the first result (as it should). The second result is from quantcast.com (a US only version of Alexa) which estimates 84,543 US people a month visit the site. If that number were correct, then that's a lot of potential victims.
The fact that the domain was only registered one month ago, and has a 16733 quantcast rank, could also mean that those numbers are likely to be a rough estimate and the true numbers may be a lot higher. The sites domain, design and layout make it look somewhat trustworthy and that increases the chances of people falling for the scheme.
Losangeles-tribune.com's website is not on the first page of Google for its own domain name. (some sort of sign maybe?) But it sure is getting a lot of traffic from somewhere.
UPDATE: Keywordspy.com reports that very recently, losangeles-tribune.com started spending $26,591 per day on advertising. (No wonder it gets so much traffic)
Some more information about these sites.
losangeles-tribune.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/losangeles-tribune.com
ICANN Registrar: NEW DREAM NETWORK, LLC
Created: 2009-04-16
Expires: 2010-04-16
Owners details hidden by proxy.
kevinsgreenblog.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/kevinsgreenblog.com
ICANN Registrar: ENOM, INC.
Created: 2008-12-04
Expires: 2009-12-04
Owners details hidden by proxy.
Some interesting reading.
The Los Angeles Tribune News Scam
The Electron Plumber (Exposing the Bullsh*t Of Internet Money Making)
"another part time job work at home money making scheme. This time it’s losangeles-tribune.com pushing the Easy Google Profit scam and stars our old friend Mary Steadman from Mary’s Money Blog."
Consumer fraud reporting
Warning: "Kevin and his family clearly are not the same people in the images on his different websites. In both cases, he clearly states that these are supposed to be actual photos of him (Kevin) and his family:
Warning: Why would he ask for you to pay $1?
Answer: to gain access to your credit card! See this page for an account of what happens.
Just thought I would add, after I made this post, I refreshed the Alexa Hot URL's page, and found a couple more "Make money online scams" in the list.
One of them a near duplicate of the losangeles-tribune.com's Easy Google Profit site, but this time passing themselves off as:
miamigazettenews.com and also
miami-gazette.com
(The Miami Gazette News)
Below are a few more duplicate "News" sites:
nyguardian.com (New York Guardian)
theatlantatribune.com (The Atlanta Tribune)
detroittribunenews.com/homejobs (Detroit Tribune News)
detroittribunenews.com/myspace-jobs (Myspace Job Scam)
philadelphia-herald.com (Philadelphia Herald News)
fresh-off-the-press.com/featured/jobs-working-online-home-gold-rush/
jobs-tribune.com/jobs/index-m.php
sams-dollars.com
A couple of blogs are starting to show up with the exact same story on them. (Ironically some are on hosted Google blogspot blogs)
Another scam? lol Obama bucks. mikehasmoney.com even has its own theme rap. "Mike has money dot com" rotfl
This site links to rts.revfusion.net /p/ f8c4..., When you Google revfusion.net, there are a number of referances to Ad Block filter lists.
The site mentions that you must pay a $2 postage fee. (Guess that's how they get your CC details)
Beware folks, and remember the saying, If it sounds to good to be true.
Why are there no URL's that expose the scams in that list :|
So what does Google say about all this? Answer
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