netbenefit.co.uk web hosting Hijacks 10000’s of it clients
Net Benefit appears to have Hijacked 10000′s of it’s client sites, take a look at this site islandmeadow.co.uk in Google you will see the netbenefit site, well try this search that’s alot of sites! Each of them now have:
a) dupe content problems
b) ctr problem I would click on a link like that way to spammy
OK so thats a URL sample But I was Pinged today by Peter the veteran SEO at search engine serious his client that was ranking top 10 in google for his primary keywords has been replaced by the net benefit hosting account.
-DaveN
And now, a word from our programmer
To me it’s clear how this has happened. The “vs” in the URL stands for virtual server – these are all dynamically created virtualised servers which are then given an automatic domain name such as web17659 for Linux, nt17659 for Windows (Windows VMs?!? How much money?!). The problem is, these apache servers haven’t had their virtual hosting set up properly.
With Apache virtual hosting, if non of your vhosts match the Host header sent by the web browser, it just returns the first vhost defined in the configuration. On a good server like ours you’d get this – http://64.208.161.69/ – a defined page for every non-matched Host. Clearly netbenefit haven’t done this, so when people hit the sites on their virtual servers via their automatically assigned server address they get the first vhost defined, which usually happens to be a legit site (and then this happens) 
Two more points:
- Every server has a /stats/ dir but for some reason this one isn’t protected
- …someone’s been busy getting these indexed
-Rob
Added Peter updated his seo blog
Patrick Altoft 2147 days ago
Problems with the server wouldn’t really explain why sites like islandmeadow.co.uk are locked into a frame would it? Unless netbenefit set up the forwarding as well.
DaveN 2147 days ago
I just found one that had a cache date of 3rd May.
DaveN
Tom 2147 days ago
http://www.distilled.co.uk/blogWow – that’s an epic screw up! 3rd of May?! Ouch.
Also – looks like that island meadow site has a little bit of hidden content.. Seems like they have a whole host of things wrong with them! (if you’ll pardon the pun)
Mick 2147 days ago
http://http:www.brightblackinternet.com2 things, i liked what i seen when i clicked http://64.208.161.69/ – just tested it on a dedicated server i have with 123reg, got about 15 sites sitting on it, seems all i get is a 404
the other thing was comment 4 – that mob are driving me nuts this past two days!!!
Dimitris 2146 days ago
Actually I was curious if anyone did try to get those subdomains indexed to sabotage the company’s reputation and from the looks of it noone had to do anything. It’s just one giant screwup by the hosting company. For example, take a look at this site http://www.connectglobal.co.uk/ all the navigation links point to netbenefit subdomains, obviously because the design uses relative URLs and the server is pointing at the subdirectories. So it seems that no outsider actually did anything to cause the problem and the hosting company is doing nothing to fix it.
g1smd 2145 days ago
Several other hosts are not completely honest with their setups.
In know of another host that has the error pages (401, 403, 404) set up so that all error pages on your own domain are branded with adverts for their hosting service, but they do allow you to over-ride those in .htaccess with your own error pages — but most of the sites hosted by them have not done so.
Additionally any sub-domain (other than www, that is) that you care to type in will resolve to advertising for the hosting company again, and in that case it cannot be over-ridden at all. These cheap tricks are deceitful to their customers.
The Dudiblogg » Blog Archive » Problems with Netbenefit Hosting 2144 days ago
[...] to Peter (a great guy
) for pointing out the Netbenefit hosting problems to me and DaveN has written up a more in-depth look into the hosting [...]
ivan 1692 days ago
http://nemesis-gs.comgodaddy do the same thing too, I think all web host brands holding page one way or another. I get “under construction” page with Host jaguar myself when I first sign up but after you upload your website, all is fine.
KreCi 1381 days ago
http://www.reviewyourhosting.comA lot of host steal their error pages until you will setup your own (404, 403, 401). But usually it is enought to make .htaccess with your own error pages.
Anthony Roberts 1366 days ago
http://www.myegypt.co.ukBeen with net benefit for several years, not always give the answers I look for, but I have never had a problem with them, unlike others especially the ones based in the states,
Dave 1313 days ago
I just saw my email connect to customermail@netbenefit.co.uk when I don’t even have an account with them. My email account is with easily.co.uk so any ideas on why that is happening?
stephen 1169 days ago
http://dentallabs.co.ukHaving massive problems with netbenefit, been a customer for over 10 years they hosted my site, been paying same old money year in and out. Recently transferred ny hosting to another company, netbenefit took my site down and are now messing about not pointing my domain to the new hoster. My domain names are still registered through them so thats another problem, anyone have any ideas their driving me mad at the moment
Ben 943 days ago
Hi, I’m not really sure whats happening here – I found netbenefit in my email accounts and wondered whats going on – so in layman’s terms – what is?