My NameSilo .COM's Get Indexed In Search Engines???

[DomainAuction]

Hi Name Pros,

I've been using NameSilo for a majority of my domain registrations but recently I noticed a HUGE inconvenience they have caused for me and several investors when simply doing a Google search for the brand that I am developing...

The name of my upcoming brand uses a .COM domain and we are based in the United Stated with upcoming expansions in Mexico, Canada, and several other countries in South America. Our expansions were to be kept confidential until date-of-launch but thanks to NameSilo that was impossible ...

Once confirming our expansions; we wanted to obtain all possibilities (and typo's) of our brand name in ccTLD's and additional .COM's so we purchased the ccTLD's for the brand (E.g., *.mx, *.ca, etc) from other registrars since NameSilo currently does not offer such extensions but also purchased .COM's such as TheBrandsNameMexico.com, TheBrandsNameMX.com from NameSilo ...

One week after purchasing those additional .COM's from NameSilo we noticed them listed on Google (several times, and from different aggregated resources / URL's) when simply Googling the brands name ...

Pretty much all .COM's registered from NameSilo such as TheBrandsNameMexico.com have somehow appeared in Google Search results when simply searching for the brand. Let me be clear, literally ALL domains including the main/root .COM domain we will be using for the brand are 100% untouched. We simply just registered them and left them as-is until it is time for launch.

#1 - All of my NameSilo purchases have their Privacy enabled prior checkout

#2 - Our competition now knows that we are expanding into Mexico, Canada, and the South American countries because of this (... and my investors were PISSED)

How can a completely untouched domain registration be scraped so easily? Do all newly registered domains simply go into some sort of public database? If not, is NameSilo somehow selling my info?

Whatever the case is; they must fix this. Who knows what other information is floating around the web when it SHOULD NOT be (...especially if privacy is enabled and/or paid for)

 

[MasterOfMyDomains]

@namesilo will answer your questions I am sure.
Not exactly sure what you mean, that they were indexed in google search?

 

[karmaco]

Did you disable the parking pages after registration? You mentioned buying other extensions elsewhere. All registrars have auto parking pages.

Privacy means your identity is private not that your names or registration of them doesn’t make it to a search engine or a database. To do that you have to insure no records or limited records in your panel.

Your issue is visibility not privacy.

 

[namesilo]

Hi Name Pros,

I've been using NameSilo for a majority of my domain registrations but recently I noticed a HUGE inconvenience they have caused for me and several investors when simply doing a Google search for the brand that I am developing...

The name of my upcoming brand uses a .COM domain and we are based in the United Stated with upcoming expansions in Mexico, Canada, and several other countries in South America. Our expansions were to be kept confidential until date-of-launch but thanks to NameSilo that was impossible ...

Once confirming our expansions; we wanted to obtain all possibilities (and typo's) of our brand name in ccTLD's and additional .COM's so we purchased the ccTLD's for the brand (E.g., *.mx, *.ca, etc) from other registrars since NameSilo currently does not offer such extensions but also purchased .COM's such as TheBrandsNameMexico.com, TheBrandsNameMX.com from NameSilo ...

One week after purchasing those additional .COM's from NameSilo we noticed them listed on Google (several times, and from different aggregated resources / URL's) when simply Googling the brands name ...

Pretty much all .COM's registered from NameSilo such as TheBrandsNameMexico.com have somehow appeared in Google Search results when simply searching for the brand. Let me be clear, literally ALL domains including the main/root .COM domain we will be using for the brand are 100% untouched. We simply just registered them and left them as-is until it is time for launch.

#1 - All of my NameSilo purchases have their Privacy enabled prior checkout

#2 - Our competition now knows that we are expanding into Mexico, Canada, and the South American countries because of this (... and my investors were PISSED)

How can a completely untouched domain registration be scraped so easily? Do all newly registered domains simply go into some sort of public database? If not, is NameSilo somehow selling my info?

Whatever the case is; they must fix this. Who knows what other information is floating around the web when it SHOULD NOT be (...especially if privacy is enabled and/or paid for)

Hello. Can you please expand on what you have reported? Are you perhaps referring to WHOIS? Or maybe the default parked page for domains? If WHOIS, there is nothing we can do about that. If the default parked page, you can easily remove that via any number of options. Please also feel free to email us at [email protected] for help.

Also, as a point of reference, we do support .ca and .mx domains.

 

[DomainAuction]

Hello. Can you please expand on what you have reported? Are you perhaps referring to WHOIS? Or maybe the default parked page for domains? If WHOIS, there is nothing we can do about that. If the default parked page, you can easily remove that via any number of options. Please also feel free to email us at [email protected] for help.

Also, as a point of reference, we do support .ca and .mx domains.

This occured with untouched .COM's (nice knowing you support .CA and .MX, will look into that!) --- but yea; I simply register them and enable privacy prior checkout. That said, this should not happen for a TON of reasons. Also, the customer should not need to do anything but enable privacy for their purchase to remain private and not be indexed in search engines. All the customer needs to do is pay NameSilo and rest assured that a $9 domain name won't cause their phone to continously ring the following morning like mine did.

I understand it would require probably quite a bit of changes to prevent this from happening to me or others in the future; but I also believe that that's OK. Especially because of the harm it can do for someone.

Simply put; my domain portfolio should not be public if privacy is enabled AND the domain should not suffer (by doing anything extra like having 0 records) --- not many domainers know the damage that causes for future development and SEO.

Thanks for the professional reply; I'd love to see this change --- thank you, keep me posted please.

 

[namesilo]

Hi Name Pros,

I've been using NameSilo for a majority of my domain registrations but recently I noticed a HUGE inconvenience they have caused for me and several investors when simply doing a Google search for the brand that I am developing...

The name of my upcoming brand uses a .COM domain and we are based in the United Stated with upcoming expansions in Mexico, Canada, and several other countries in South America. Our expansions were to be kept confidential until date-of-launch but thanks to NameSilo that was impossible ...

Once confirming our expansions; we wanted to obtain all possibilities (and typo's) of our brand name in ccTLD's and additional .COM's so we purchased the ccTLD's for the brand (E.g., *.mx, *.ca, etc) from other registrars since NameSilo currently does not offer such extensions but also purchased .COM's such as TheBrandsNameMexico.com, TheBrandsNameMX.com from NameSilo ...

One week after purchasing those additional .COM's from NameSilo we noticed them listed on Google (several times, and from different aggregated resources / URL's) when simply Googling the brands name ...

Pretty much all .COM's registered from NameSilo such as TheBrandsNameMexico.com have somehow appeared in Google Search results when simply searching for the brand. Let me be clear, literally ALL domains including the main/root .COM domain we will be using for the brand are 100% untouched. We simply just registered them and left them as-is until it is time for launch.

#1 - All of my NameSilo purchases have their Privacy enabled prior checkout

#2 - Our competition now knows that we are expanding into Mexico, Canada, and the South American countries because of this (... and my investors were PISSED)

How can a completely untouched domain registration be scraped so easily? Do all newly registered domains simply go into some sort of public database? If not, is NameSilo somehow selling my info?

Whatever the case is; they must fix this. Who knows what other information is floating around the web when it SHOULD NOT be (...especially if privacy is enabled and/or paid for)

Also, please note that all domains (well, maybe not for a few select ccTLDs) are available via WHOIS search and that several sites publish WHOIS listings as a form of click bait. Therefore, it would be expected that virtually every domain is "findable" via Google if you search for it.

This of course does not in any way mean we are selling information. We take the privacy of our customers extremely seriously and have never, would never and will never sell information. WHOIS is not something unique to us.

Regarding privacy, @karmaco is entirely correct - WHOIS privacy plays absolutely no part in shielding a domain name from WHOIS. Privacy refers to replacing your personal information with information populated with privacy data.

 

[DomainAuction]

Did you disable the parking pages after registration? You mentioned buying other extensions elsewhere. All registrars have auto parking pages.

Privacy means your identity is private not that your names or registration of them doesn’t make it to a search engine or a database. To do that you have to insure no records or limited records in your panel.

Your issue is visibility not privacy.

Also, please note that all domains (well, maybe not for a few select ccTLDs) are available via WHOIS search and that several sites publish WHOIS listings as a form of click bait. Therefore, it would be expected that virtually every domain is "findable" via Google if you search for it.

This of course does not in any way mean we are selling information. We take the privacy of our customers extremely seriously and have never, would never and will never sell information. WHOIS is not something unique to us.

Regarding privacy, @karmaco is entirely correct - WHOIS privacy plays absolutely no part in shielding a domain name from WHOIS. Privacy refers to replacing your personal information with information populated with privacy data.

How do I disable parked pages? But wouldn't it make more sense to make the parked pages ineligible for indexing unless the owner asks for them to be? I've never experienced this with any other domain defaults (aka "parked pages") ...

Also, a domain with 0 records is a complete no-no (in my opinion and 15 years of SEO experience); especially for future development. How can I make it so the domain defaults contain records but are not eligible for indexing?

Whatever it takes, i'll do --- I honestly never knew it would do this and it hurt my current project bigtime.

 

[namesilo]

This occured with untouched .COM's (nice knowing you support .CA and .MX, will look into that!) --- but yea; I simply register them and enable privacy prior checkout. That said, this should not happen for a TON of reasons. Also, the customer should not need to do anything but enable privacy for their purchase to remain private and not be indexed in search engines. All the customer needs to do is pay NameSilo and rest assured that a $9 domain name won't cause their phone to continously ring the following morning like mine did.

I understand it would require probably quite a bit of changes to prevent this from happening to me or others in the future; but I also believe that that's OK. Especially because of the harm it can do for someone.

Simply put; my domain portfolio should not be public if privacy is enabled AND the domain should not suffer (by doing anything extra like having 0 records) --- not many domainers know the damage that causes for future development and SEO.

Thanks for the professional reply; I'd love to see this change --- thank you, keep me posted please.

Thanks for the reply. I really am sorry, but there is nothing that we, or any other registrar in the world, can do to prevent a domain from being searchable for the reasons I listed in my previous reply (which I think crossed paths with your most recent reply). Again, there is absolutely nothing that can be done to shield the fact that domains have been registered. Several web sites harvest WHOIS and produce click-bait sites based upon the information therein. Also, zone records are available from most registries (including .com) which makes learning about newly registered domains simple. I would think of it like the USPTO web site... if you register a trademark, it is published. With a domain, if you register it, then consider that it will be able to be found. This again has nothing to do with us specifically or any other registrar.

Hope this helps.

 

[namesilo]

How do I disable parked pages? But wouldn't it make more sense to make the parked pages ineligible for indexing without asking them to be? I've never experienced this with any other domain defaults (aka "parked pages") ...

Also, a domain with 0 records is a complete no-no (in my opinion and 15 years SEO experience); especially for future development. How can I make it so the domain defaults contain records but are not eligible for indexing?

Whatever it takes, i'll do --- I honestly never knew it would do this and it hurt my current project bigtime.

As stated in my replies, simply removing a parked page does not mean that your domain will not be found if you run a search engine query specifically for it. The parked page may come up as one result, but so will all results from any web site that produces WHOIS results that gets spidered. I really wish there was a way to keep domain registrations private for reasons such as yours, but WHOIS is a publicly available service, and there is not an option to prevent your domains from being indexed, cataloged, etc.

 

[DomainAuction]

Thanks for the reply. I really am sorry, but there is nothing that we, or any other registrar in the world, can do to prevent a domain from being searchable for the reasons I listed in my previous reply (which I think crossed paths with your most recent reply). Again, there is absolutely nothing that can be done to shield the fact that domains have been registered. Several web sites harvest WHOIS and produce click-bait sites based upon the information therein. Also, zone records are available from most registries (including .com) which makes learning about newly registered domains simple. I would think of it like the USPTO web site... if you register a trademark, it is published. With a domain, if you register it, then consider that it will be able to be found. This again has nothing to do with us specifically or any other registrar.

Hope this helps.

Thank you as well; do you have any recommendations to minimize possibilities? I like the USPTO example; but I also haven't ever experienced this with any other registrar. It was a turn off, but only for my ventures that require obtaining additional domains. Still a loyal customer, have made several purchases since.

 

[DomainAuction]

As stated in my replies, simply removing a parked page does not mean that your domain will not be found if you run a search engine query specifically for it. The parked page may come up as one result, but so will all results from any web site that produces WHOIS results that gets spidered. I really wish there was a way to keep domain registrations private for reasons such as yours, but WHOIS is a publicly available service, and there is not an option to prevent your domains from being indexed, cataloged, etc.

Got it, thanks for reaching out.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

If you want to disable it at all - remove all nameservers OR enter the following:
ns1.example.com
ns2.example.com

 

[namesilo]

Thank you as well; do you have any recommendations to minimize possibilities? I like the USPTO example; but I also haven't ever experienced this with any other registrar. It was a turn off, but only for my ventures that require obtaining additional domains. Still a loyal customer, have made several purchases since.

Thanks, much appreciated. I really am sorry, but once a domain is registered, it can be found in WHOIS. You are free to remove parked pages and there are several options for doing so. You can change name servers, remove/update DNS records, etc. If you email [email protected], we're happy to help you specifically as well.

 

[Acroplex]

When you register a domain, and add privacy, isn't your info at the WHOIS instantly masked? What am I missing here?

Some domain registrars mask your contact info but not your name/company. Which can make it worthless as a paid feature.

 

[namesilo]

If you want to disable it at all - remove all nameservers OR enter the following:
ns1.example.com
ns2.example.com

Yes, following the recommendation above will definitely do the trick.

@DomainAuction - A faster solution, assuming our name servers are already in use, is to delete all of the A/CNAME records for the domain. The parking page will then not load within just a few minutes.

 

[namesilo]

When you register a domain, and add privacy, isn't your info at the WHOIS instantly masked? What am I missing here?

Some domain registrars mask your contact info but not your name/company. Which can make it worthless as a paid feature.

Personal data (company, name, address, email, phone, etc.) are masked, but not the domain itself. Therefore, as stated in my replies, there is nothing to prevent "services" that spider WHOIS and regurgitate results as click bait from publishing the domain name.

 

[namesilo]

When you register a domain, and add privacy, isn't your info at the WHOIS instantly masked? What am I missing here?

Some domain registrars mask your contact info but not your name/company. Which can make it worthless as a paid feature.

Sorry - thought you were asking if the domain name was masked (too much multi-tasking!)

You are correct in what you wrote - sorry for any confusion on my end

 

[Acroplex]

Yeah. So this isn't related to WHOIS privacy then. Just curious.

 

[anantj]

It is likely information obtained from the Zone file which will contain most names registered newly (or names which did not have a NS attached to them previously but have them now). Nothing specificially to do with whois privacy.

but I also haven't ever experienced this with any other registrar.

Can you provide an example of this?

 

[campout]

All the customer needs to do is pay NameSilo and rest assured that a $9 domain name won't cause their phone to continously ring the following morning like mine did.

That must've been from the ccTLD's you said you registered at other registrars. It couldn't have come from names bought at NameSilo with privacy enabled from the start.

EDIT: I'm assuming that these were telemarketers calling you.

 

[tonyk2000]

I'd say that the root problem is not the whois privacy OR content of a parked page, but the inclusion of the domain name(s) in DNS zone(s). DNS zone is one only source for telemarketers, indexes etc. I may register jshdjshd8342978.com (or anything that was definietely not registered before) without attaching DNS servers to it - and I bet no Indian will email or call me with design offers for it, even if I publish my direct private cell phone number in whois ;
and the domain would never appear in google or anywhere. Nobody, except myself, registry and registrar will know that I regged it. And, should I never attach any dns servers - and let the domain expire - the only list it will appear in will be pendingdelete list provided by the registry when the domain becomes pending delete.

Question to @namesilo - is it possible to remove dns servers from a domain management area, or not to assign any dns servers to a handregged domain through namesilo.com ? I never tried this, had no need to. But it may become necessarry earleir or later, and this thread is an example. If not currently possible, you would of course be able to remove dns from any domain manually on registry level if asked- or to simply set ClientHold registry status with the same no-dns effect - but what would be shown as the result in control panel?

Edited: for the sake of completness, details my registration with no dns will also be delivered to whois data escrow provider which is now obligatory, and possibly somewhere else as a part of bulk whois access program...Both these things are icann - regulated I think.

 

[Kuffy]

I don't understand the problem here. Firstly, you say your purchased the names, and I assume that you mean registered. If not then surely the issue is with the previous owner.

As has beem mentioned, when you register a name it is listed as being in the zone. There isn't really a way round this, as there has to be a record somewhere that the name is no longer available. At the time of listing, the dns and who is info is recorded, and any subsequent changes as logged as changes, but the initial record will probably still be in the spammers harvesting files. Because of this, you need to preplan the registrarions if they are sensitive. Why is the DNS an issue? Surely you would just point them to some pseudo=parking page so that it looks as if the names have been registered by one of those "dreadful domain name speculators". Just because the name is registered it doesn't mean that your company will use it. GoogleCars isregistered in a number of extensions but afaik Google is not planning on manufacturing cars. Also many companies make protective registrations with no plans to use the names. It seems that by publicising the issue, you are alerting the world to the fact that the company really does have serious plans for expansion into those markets.

One also has to question why it was thought fit to register so many names. If a competitor is using a name in bad faith, it may be better to claim the name later, than to alert the market to the expansion plans. Another question is - what other action did the company take as part of the brand expansion, how about trademark registrations?

 

[xyo]

As @tonyk2000 asked/suggested, it is currently NOT possible at Namesilo to completely remove Nameservers from a domain. Though this is technically perfectly fine for at least all gtlds registries and can be done at some other registrars.
This way, at least the domain wouldn't be published in the zone file. I'm not sure if new .com/.net registrations are automatically published somewhere else, but I think not.

So this would be an adequate way to (at least better) shield new registrations from appearing anywhere on the internet.
I do miss this feature at quite some registrars so would be a nice thing if Namesilo could implement this.

 

[NameOmnia]

I believe this is a problem with Google and the way they collect searches. ( big brother big time )

Out of curiosity have you checked if the same results are visible with another browser especially one that does not track your searches?

 

[Kuffy]

As @tonyk2000 asked/suggested, it is currently NOT possible at Namesilo to completely remove Nameservers from a domain. Though this is technically perfectly fine for at least all gtlds registries and can be done at some other registrars.
This way, at least the domain wouldn't be published in the zone file. I'm not sure if new .com/.net registrations are automatically published somewhere else, but I think not.

I don't think this would solve the problem. A simple name availablity check would indicate that the name had been registered, and this is the fact that th OP was trying to conceal. I believe it would be better to provide misleading ( but legitimate) information in the whois.