Do authoritarian regimes monitor domain registrations?

Hi all,

Last week I regged S A U D I Y A C H T I N G .com and within a day it had close to a hundred visitors.
The name was never registered before. Since then it receives a handful of visitors each day.
Could it be that the Saudi regime (and other authoritarian regimes) actively monitor domain names containing certain keywords?

 

Technically, it wouldn't be that difficult to setup.
It would just require access to the zone file for them.

Since it's parked at Dan, not really possible to see who visits your domain (IPs and browser agents would be helpful so you can see if it's bots, what the ISP of each visitor is, etc)

 

Hi @JanO

More extensive info on the nature of your traffic can be seen using the DAN-Google Analytics integration (you have to arrange this first).

With regard to all newly registered domains (and domains added to domain marketplaces) I'd say: they always get a bit more attention from both bots and humans, because they appear on the frontpages and in feeds, alerts. Furthermore, registrars and registries might exchange newly registered domains with other commercial parties.

For this reason, the statistics during the first period can be a bit misleading indeed. Still, I think ~100 views in 1 day is a good score. Hope you will find the right buyer for your domain, or vice versa

 

Because of this (domain) I've setup Google analytics indeed. It doesn't show traffic from Saudi Arabia, but from UAE it does.

 

The good news is that you don't risk much anyway.
TLD is .com, they don't have any access

 

I don't think so
They monitor the most visited websites
May be they monitor few keywords but not general words

I guess it might be a mistyped popular website

It can be saudiya chting
Like saudiya Chatting
Saudiya is another way of transliteration of saudia in arabic

 

Could also be search traffic for S type Audi / Audi S

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_S_and_RS_models

It could be almost anything...

 

100 people who search Audi S ending up on s a u d i y a c h t i n g .com on the day the domain is regged? Seems a bit far fetched to me.

 

Fair enough - I just threw that out there, but on second thoughts it wouldn't have been indexed yet.

Someone on another forum may have posted a comment that the domain had just been registered. Someone may have tweeted it. It could be on a feed.

It's only 100 visits. If you start getting thousands of hits, it would be worth looking into.

 

Do they float well? I guess that would be mandatory to use them as yachts....

@JanO Even if there was some monitoring, wouldn't they have a look once a day, or maybe more once a week? What would be the use of connecting so often during the day? Track any small change the moment it could happen? I don't think so.

Best bet is bots trying some common passwords (SSH logging, usually). I've got a bunch of them on several domains also. And I guess it's usually this kind of "traffic" when you see threads talking of a traffic spike without explanation.

 

People buy/access newly listed name lists constantly.

Everyone from IT, to web hosts, to general spammers and more. In my experience I have noticed the more 'value' a name has, the more visits it gets (especially from designers/hosts) within days of its registration.

My thought is that because it contains two 'valuable' words...Saudi and Yachting...it is assumed the person regging it has lots of money. People are simply looking to make a dollar selling you something. But of course, I could be wrong.

 

register zpolwopoaerdwpsw-yutruwiieurie.com and you will get traffic the first two weeks and a few emails too especially if you do not use privacy.

Others said this already, automated systems track new registrations, they visit the page too and see if there is a contact form or email already on it.

For a person that just registered their first domain, those emails seem welcoming. They feel that maybe the designer that emailed them and the social media expert were all meant to be as the universe is trying to help them with their new project. This is why the spam doesn't stop, because it works.

To your question if governments watch domain registrations, well, i'm sure someone sold them the service, but the hits you got are not a bunch of people refreshing to check when and what you will write.

By the way its a very nice name.

 

Thank you for the responses @Berserker , @Mister Funsky & @AEProgram

I was just suspicious due to the relative high number of clicks in the first 24 hours in combination with the keyword Saudi. My other ~75 handregs in the last 5 years also generated traffic from day 1 but then we're talking up to 10 visits, not 100.

Makes sense.

Anyhow; since none of all respondents think it's an issue I guess there's no issue. Cheers

 

You should feel safe visiting a Saudi embassy in turkey
👍

 

@AEProgram More thinking about opening an erotic shop in Riyadh aimed at LGBT's. Just found out there aren't any yet.