Knowledge Archives
http://www.co-internet.net/net/articles/amazonburundi.txt.html

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://fantomaster.com/ >