Who The Heck Is . . .

Posted on by

3/15 UPDATE

I believe in “better safe than sorry.” So I did not allow a comment on this post today. Why? Because the email address for the sender was at “gmai” [dot] com and not the correct “gmail” [dot] com format. I wasn’t going to take any chances with a spammer or phisher getting through. So if you don’t see a comment of yours coming through after moderation, and you’re a legitimate blogger or person, you might want to consider how your on-line persona looks to your potential audience. I’m not the only blogger who nixes sketchy comments or contact info.

2/24/UPDATE

Good news for WordPress bloggers. We now have a “Spam?” reporting option in our “Referrer” box. If WordPress thinks a referrer might be spam, a link will appear that we can use to report it. You can find more information here: http://en.support.wordpress.com/stats/#marking-spam-referrers

I have such an option for you-know-who today, and I’m marking it as spam.

1/29/UPDATE

A comment appeared in my moderation queue this morning from *Sem.* I won’t put it on this post because I don’t want an active link to the company on the blog and I don’t like what the company’s doing to my blog’s statistics. (And I’ll be going through the comments to edit any active links there.)  Basically, though, the company has established a blog, which is supposed to be an introduction to its services. I suspect if you now google the terms *blog* and *the company name,* you can find the link if you’re so inclined. I am not, so I won’t. But I find censorship distasteful so I’m acknowledging the company’s visit to this post and the gist of its comment.

Also, “Consider The Sauce” received a reply from WordPress about his concerns with *Sem.* They indicated they are working on a way to let bloggers hide these visits. I’m not a techie, so even if they explained the process to me, I probably couldn’t understand it. Perhaps other hosts are doing the same. I still think it’s worth letting your host know how you feel about “Sem.* As the old expression goes, “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.”

1/24/UPDATE

By now, anyone who looks at their blog host’s stats has probably seen referrers from a company called “S-E*M)A!L-T+”. Basically, the company is doing what the tech-savvy call “referrer spam” with the intent that you visit its website and sign up for its SEO services. The effect on your blog or website? Your stats are now meaningless. Many of the views you receive are not from real readers in the real world. I’m not sure there’s anything we can do to stop it. But at the very least, I’ve reached the point where I’d like everyone to contact his/her blog/website host and ask them to block this company’s spamming. Why? Because any stats your provider gives you are now totally and completely worthless.

Even if this company is legitimate and above-board, it is compromising our ability to determine the effectiveness of our posts, links, and tags in reaching our intended audiences. What really catches the eyes of our readers? False “views” like this make it difficult or impossible to know. If you agree, try contacting your host and letting them know you want real statistics. Maybe then the hosts will make it a priority to block such spam and provide us with truly significant “statistics.”

1/16 UPDATE

After a drop-off in views of this post, I’m seeing an increase again these last two days. And most of the views appear to be from readers in the United Kingdom looking for information about you-know-who. I wonder if the company might be focusing on that part of the world right now. Still no reports of malicious actions, but if you want to be safe, it’s probably best not to click on the links or sign up.

1/1/2014 UPDATE

Yesterday, I contacted WordPress support regarding semalt to ask if they had any information on the company. Following is the reply I received from staff member rootjosh:

It is hard to say.

If I were being suspicious, I would say that the company is crawling sites as a form of advertising to get people to do exactly what you are doing (noticing and being curious) in hopes that they would then sign up for its services. If I were being REALLY suspicious, I might think it was just a scam to get you to give out your email or FB info.

Or perhaps they are running some sort of legit spider crawl. Overall though, I don’t have a lot of faith in anyone who is advertising “search ranking” type services.

WordPress, at least, has not discovered anything malicious in regards to semalt. My instincts are to remain suspicious of such sites. As some commenters below have mentioned, semalt may be about data mining, spamming, or other activity that isn’t in our best interests. But for now, at least, the company doesn’t seem to be a true security threat.

That being said, it might be worth contacting your blog/website host to let them know how many of these “hits” you have received. This could be the beginning of a major phishing scam or a backdoor attempt to hack into the hosts.

I have to wonder about the company’s skills at Search Engine Optimization, though, when my simple blog post begins appearing at the top of search results for “semalt!”

I will keep semalt on my radar, and if I learn anything more, I’ll continue to update this post. Thanks to everyone for sharing your experiences, and please feel free to continue sharing them in the comments as well as any new information you might find.

ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS

. . . using semalt (dot) com on my domain ( jmmcdowell [dot] com) today? And why? Thirty-one hits on my home page have come from this in the last hour.

I looked up semalt and it’s a way to check your google rankings. But who would be looking at my blog?

Any ideas out there?

UPDATE 12/31/2013 — I’ve contacted WordPress Support to see if they have any information about Semalt. If I hear back from them, I will post the reply.

225 thoughts on “Who The Heck Is . . .”

    • I’m hoping someone can. It actually freaked me out a bit. I mean, I could see checking my own rankings if I was serious about building an audience. But why on Earth would anyone else?

      Like

      • I got the same today (12/31/2013) on my blog. When I clicked on it, my McAffee yelled, “WHOA! Sure you wanna go there?!” And so I couldn’t. Tried it on my Mac, I got to some Google rankings site for which a username and password is required. Sooooo…I’ll be VERY interested in any response you get from WordPress. And while I’m here, I’d sure like to know how to contact those WordPress idiots! They keep changing the layouts, settings and all! Someone needs to tell them, “IF IT AIN’T BROKE, DON’T FIX IT!!!!!!” It ‘s driving me nuts! I now have to click here, then there, and again over here, JUST to get to my Dashboard! And then I tried to post a quick message for New Year’s and found the WHOLE set-up has been re-arranged. WTFudge?!?!?!!! Blogging has ceased to be any fun. Let alone quick ‘n EASY! dagnabit
        carolina
        historiccookery.com

        Like

        • I’ve updated the post (see at top) with WordPress’s reply. So far, there’s no known malicious intent. But I’ll continue to keep an eye open about semalt, and I’ll update this post if I learn something new.

          WordPress does like to change things around, and not always for the better. I even did a post titled “If It Ain’t Broke….” after one round of changes. Since yesterday, the “like” feature hasn’t worked in Firefox, which is my preferred browser. But it does work if I use Internet Explorer. And the “Comments I’ve Made” feature, which I use a lot, isn’t showing any of the activity on this post. So what else is missing from it that I don’t know about? Sigh. These days, though, you can find a link to Support at the bottom of the stats page. It’s: http://en.support.wordpress.com/contact/

          I always get replies from staff when I contact support. Usually, the replies are very helpful. But sometimes, well, not so much. Best wishes for your support request!

          Like

          • Hi JM, I have some advice/info regarding semalt.com. They are very much like other sites with more nefarious names. I’m copying a link to a post about it below, but in essence, its a web crawler that is masquerading traffic to your site to bump their numbers. Spam pure and simply. Ideally, if you haven’t already, don’t click on the link you are seeing to it and don’t click on the similar sites named in the article. It’s not just WordPress, I have the same fake traffic on my Blogspot site. Hope this helps. http://spamspoiler.blogspot.com/2012/12/adsense-watchdog-zombiestat-vampirestat.html

            Like

            • Thanks so much for the additional information, Rick. This suggests the increase in “unknown search terms” that I see in my WordPress stats could be coming from them. The increased views from those “unknown terms” started the day they “hit” my blog’s home page so many times in November. This most recent wave seems to have taken a different form, with views supposed coming from various South American countries. I’m glad to see most people are searching for information before going over to semalt’s site. When in doubt about a link, the best course is not to click!

              Like

              • I may be wrong about this (and, anyone who knows more about this please correct me), but I remember reading that the increase in “unknown search terms” also has to do with Google increasingly encrypting the searches in a manner that makes them inaccessible to wordpress’s analytics.

                Like

                • I remember seeing that info about Google, too. It just seems like too much of a coincidence that a major increase in them happened the same day (and afterward) that semalt stopped by. I went from maybe 2 or 3 “unknown” terms in a day to upwards of 20. Far more search terms of any kind than I had seen before. And thanks so much, Google, for making it harder to figure out what’s bringing people to our blogs!

                  Like

      • JM, came over here searching about the same issue. 100’s of hits from semalt.com From what i check, it looks like some seo intelligence gathering nonsense. But there seems to be a lack of spiders (which cannot be blocked). Also hits are coming from different IP addresses. There is a .htaccess hack to block all requests from semalt.com. I also came across a WP plugin called Referrer Bouncer which does a good job. You might want to explore on that.

        Like

        • Thanks for the great suggestions, John. The UK seems to be the focus of their “visits” these last few days, and it was Australia before that. I wonder who’s next in line…. I really have to wonder what kind of response their efforts are generating. It seems that most of us may be curious when we first encounter them, but we’re not going to sign up with them. I’ve never heard that these SEO groups really give their clients useful traffic. And tactics like these make it easy to see why.

          Like

      • I check other people’s to compare sites that I might want to pursue promoting my books on — which actually get traffic vs which ones are just as small as I am already. But that doesn’t seem to apply to this scamlike thing.

        Like

        • This one seems to have taken a different approach that gets past our hosts’ filters for spam. WordPress is apparently working on a way to let us “hide” this company in our stats, but it could be a while before that happens. For now, it seems the best we can do is ignore them and not sign up. I have a comment in my moderation queue from the company, which I won’t approve, but I will update this post soon with the gist of his comment.

          Like

  3. I usually love a good mystery, but I don’t like that you’re feeling creeped out by this. I’m guessing there’s a fairly benign explanation, but the frustrating part is not knowing what it is. Could you have fans at the NSA? 😉

    Like

    • Hmm, there’s an interesting thought! Their headquarters isn’t all that far away, either. 😉 Of course, no US intelligence agency is that far from here. 🙂 I’m hoping it will turn out to be a fellow blogger doing some kind of study for a post they’re working on. I’ve just never seen anything like this before, so it’s really weird.

      Like

    • I like that idea—in the sense that it sounds like a reasonable explanation. More “offers” in my email, though, aren’t necessarily appealing! I’ll keep an eye open and let you know if I hear from them. I wonder if other bloggers are seeing this, too? You’d only see it if you check your stats page and look at the referrers.

      Like

  5. Maybe it’s like an advertising agency or something looking to see how high up your blog ranks on search engines and how much profit they could reap from your website if they contacted you.

    Like

  6. Haven’t heard of that, but I guess someone is very interested in your blog ranking, and I’m not sure what a blog ranking even means.
    I once had 300 hits from a google image search…. I had to put the post it linked to on private for half an hour and then it stopped. Nice to get views but there’s something disconcerting when heaps are coming from the same place.

    Like

    • Wow, 300 hits on a search? Someone must’ve really been interested in that image! From what little I understand, the Google rankings refer to the list generated by Google when you do a search. Apparently you want your site to be at or near the top on Page 1, not buried somewhere on Page 15.

      I’m with you—I like the views to be spread out—not from a single source that appears to be targeting me for some reason.

      Like

  7. I wonder if it’s used by spammers to find blogs and then hit them. You know the ones, they always offer ways to improve your SEO and hit counts, etc.
    Things to check if you haven’t already:
    1. Were all the hits to your home page or specific posts?
    2. Was there corresponding spam received? From same source?
    3. Not easy to check but it could be a robot. If so probably a spam generator seeking suitable targets.
    4. Check some of your recent posts for tags, headings and keywords that may be intepreted as “popular” for other shady reasons. Will need to think outside the box on this one. 😉 For example I once innocently posted something innocent years ago on another platform innocently titled (really!) “Peeping Tom” and it attracted some questionable viewers!

    Otherwise, not too sure but I wouldn’t worry too much unless they actually get into your site and change things. If you’re paying for a WordPress service make sure your security features are up to date.
    Good luck!

    Like

    • Oh, yes, I do see those SEO comments in my spam queue regularly. All the hits were to my home page, not specific posts. So far, no increase in spam or spam that I can tie to that source. My tags are usually consistent and extremely benign, so I don’t think it was “that” kind of traffic. 😉

      To be safe, I did change my password this morning, and it’s a strong one. If I notice any strange spam or further odd searches, I’ll be sure to provide an update on them!

      Like

  8. Hmmm – never heard of it but I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Might be a good time to change/strengthen your password though, just in case. Good luck getting to the bottom of this mystery!

    Like

  9. My thoughts were along the line of Richard’s, especially a robot spammer since it kept hitting your home page multiple times. I trust it’s as benign, though annoying, as that. Do you get a lot of spam registrations?

    Like

    • I suspect I don’t get many compared to popular bloggers who generate a lot of traffic. And my spam queue rarely has more than two or three entries per day. I do think a number of my recent followers are of the “make money blogging” type, though. Based on some of the reader comments, I think this is likely someone doing some marketing research with a bot. I’ll bet they’ve moved on to greener pastures. 😉

      Like

    • Yeah, the comment have me thinking some marketing bot stopped by for a bit and decided my domain wasn’t worth any more effort. 🙂 If there are further developments, I’ll let you all know.

      Like

  11. That’s way out of my tech knowledge. I don’t even know how to check Google rankings! Let your readers know if you figur it out.

    Like

    • All this ranking and “search engine optimization” stuff is beyond me. 🙂 I’d rather make good connections with fewer people than have lots of anonymous “hits.” It’s getting harder to see where the hits are coming from, and a lot of them aren’t even recorded. Maybe it’s time for WordPress to retire the Stats page. 🙂 I’ll let you know if anything more pops up!

      Like

  12. A bit creepy – especially considering your location…gotta watch out for those writer-archeologists-bloggers. Maybe someone is looking for a person of similar/partially alike name? Or maybe it’s the photos people recognize and tell others about?
    It’s probably some spam robot looking for email/blogs to add to their lists adding those from your comments section. Or like someone said a marketing search for potential sites.
    Have you sent a question to WP techies? Maybe they can shed some light.
    The stats are much less accurate now – comments mean more to me. When I started blogging I was consistently highly ranked on Google – first page anyway, then Google/WP changed stuff. You can pay for position. You need lots of links to social media to improve position and other stuff I don’t do.
    Maybe I’ll send a note to Pied Type – she knows a lot about techie stuff – or knows others who do
    Weird…the doors are locked right? (Just kidding – it’s spammers pulling emails for lists most likely)

    Like

    • Yeah, us archaeobloggers are a subversive bunch. 😉 I thought about that similar name possibility, too, or that maybe someone was using this tool to see if domain names were available. I haven’t seen it again, and I’d bet if it was a marketing or spam bot, it realized I wasn’t worth the attention. I haven’t contacted the WP techs, but if something like that shows up again, I think I will. They’d probably know exactly what it was. I did, as a precaution, change my WP password.

      If links to social media are required for high rankings, then I’ll always be low. I don’t use Facebook for more than keeping in touch with friends and family, Google+ for even less, and Twitter and the rest not at all. Of course, for some reason views today are way above average. Maybe it was the post topic and tagging it with “blogging.” Or maybe it’s something else…. 🙂

      Like

    • People have made some good suggestions here for what it could be. And this may be coincidence, but since it happened, I’ve noticed a bit of an increase in search terms leading to some of my posts. Of course, WordPress says most of them are “unknown,” so I don’t know what they are!

      Like

  14. Dunno. Could it have anything to do with the fact you’re a Net Galley member? I’m just guessing, but maybe someone wants to know how influential you are?

    Very, very influential. 😉

    Like

    • Ha, I’m not too sure about that influential! 🙂 But that’s another good possibility for what it could be. And mentioning NetGalley reminds me—I have a review to write!

      Like

    • Hmm, that was an interesting article! I’m still not sure what it was, but as I just mentioned to Kourtney, I’ve had more searches lead to my blog posts since it happened. Maybe that’s a coincidence? Or maybe I reached a threshold and am easing out of the depths in the rankings?

      Like

    • Well, at least with us, they succeeded, right? What’s really odd, though, is that on that same day that they looked at my site, the number of views coming in from search terms went up noticeably. And that’s continued all this week. I’m beginning to wonder if I met some “computational threshold” that results in more traffic. Very strange!

      Like

  18. We can’t shed any light, but we can at least commiserate. We run a very small travel blog, and got about 100 hits the other day (huge for us) from the semalt free rank checker. All of them, like yours, were hits on the Home/About Us page. I can’t find any answers/info, and your post was one of the first relevant things to come up when I searched. Tactics like that certainly wouldn’t influence me to sign up for their service! Very strange.

    Like

    • What’s funny now is that I’m seeing more traffic like yours—people wondering what this “semalt thing” is all about and getting directed to my blog post! For a few weeks after it happened, I did see quite a spike in traffic coming from search terms. Unfortunately, WordPress only showed most of them as “unknown search terms,” so I’m not sure what particular tag or item in posts is directing browsers to my blog. The search traffic had quieted down after that, but seems to be picking up again. Maybe it was just a holiday lull. Maybe a big internet/SEO blogger will pick up on it and do a post to help us all understand it….

      Like

      • Yeah, yesterday I received 27 referrals from “semalt” with a tag of “competitor” on it. So when searching “what is semalt”, your posting came up. In my case it might be one of my competitors (another theater review site in Chicago) checking up on my ranking, but with *27* hits, I’m thinking there’s some kind of bot associated with it. Not sure though. For all I know perhaps it’s Semalt trying to draw you to their site in hopes that you’ll subscribe. Agree with you about SEO though, I found that all those SEO “tricks” are just that, and the real way to increase traffic is by offering good content on a consistent basis.

        Happy New Year!

        Scotty in Chicago
        ChicagoTheaterBeat.com

        Like

        • Bots seem to be the likely culprit, originating with semalt itself. I updated the post (see at top) with WordPress’s reply to my information request. While they’re not aware of anything malicious, I think it’s worth letting all our blog hosts know how much this is happening. Maybe it’s a legitimate business, but there’s always room for caution when it comes to the Internet.

          You have a Happy New Year, too, and hopefully one that is spam- and phishing-free!

          Like

    • I haven’t seen anything more, although I did notice an increase in traffic coming from search terms after that day. Unfortunately, most of them show up in my WordPress stats only as “unknown search terms.” So it’s hard to tell exactly what tags or terms I used in posts that must somehow be ranking higher in search results than I used to do. I’d be curious to know if you and others find the same increase in search-term-related views that I did.

      Like

  20. I operate a food blog and saw a bunch of hits from Semalt in my stats today. Trying to find out what it is, I found your discussion. I guess I can’t shed any more light on this either, other than to say you’re not along (and I’m curious about it too).

    Like

    • Hmm, two of you finding my post on the same day after having your “semalt” views on the same day—I wonder if they do this on some sort of schedule? If you can monitor how your blog views come in, see if you notice an increase in traffic now that comes from search terms, even if your host lumps them under a category such as “unknown search terms” like WordPress does. That happened to me beginning the day after the repeated semalt hits. I had a solid month of increased traffic like that, which slowed down in the weeks leading to Christmas. But now I’m seeing more “search” hits again, so the lull may have been due to lower web traffic all around before the holidays. I haven’t seen anything sinister as a result, so maybe we’ve all just reached a point where the big search engines notice us?

      Like

        • I suspect they are greatly disappointed in the data they get from this blog. 😉 But I find it funny how many people are now coming to this post as they search for info on semalt. You’d think the company would have its site and content ranking at the top of the search results, but that doesn’t seem to be the case….

          Like

        • Hmm, I have no clue why that would be. But if they are linked with Google, then maybe they can share in the weight of that 800-lb gorilla and get into places others can’t? Since I first uploaded this post, I’ve seen an increase in views driven by search terms. I’m curious if you and the others who found my post will see similar increases.

          Like

      • I just had the same types of hits on my blog today from Seamalt. Here’s the exact address that it came from http://semalt (dot) com/competitors_review.php? I also got a bunch of hits on a page on my site that doesn’t really exist, http://69.89.31.195/~sukofami/ so the whole thing seems very strange to me.

        1/29/2014 – jmmcdowell converted the exact link to remove a direct link to the company’s site

        Like

        • My hits came from semalt (dot) com/free-rank-checker.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fjmmcdowell (dot) com, which is very specific to my blog’s URL. So they must be using various referrers to get to our blogs. And all the views went specifically to my home page. It’s getting curiouser and curiouser to me. WordPress even sent me a notification commenting on how much traffic I’m getting today. And it looks like it’s all coming from people who are trying to get info about Semalt. Shouldn’t an SEO company’s posts and site rank higher in search results than my post about them?

          1/29/2014 – jmmcdowell converted the exact link to remove any direct link to the company’s site

          Like

    • If anything, it’s given me the chance to check out blogs I wouldn’t normally know about. Like yours! Just read your Beyonce album review. I’ve been listening to that album pretty much nonstop since it came out and really love it. (I used to write a pop music blog, before my food blog).

      Like

    • My views are skyrocketing these last two days, and it’s clearly due to bloggers and others looking for info on semalt and who they are. Don’t you think it would make more sense for them to have their own site rank higher on searches than my post about them?!

      Like

  22. I, too, found this post after googling “what is semalt”? I have 13 hits from them on my homepage in the last 24 hours. It’s very curious. I believe it will be used to try to sell SEO programs to us, but who knows? I don’t think it’s anything negative. At least, I hope its not!

    Like

    • So far, I haven’t received any ads or sales pitches as a result of their hits on my site. But I have seen an increase in views driven by search engines, even if WordPress says most of them are “unknown search terms.” I certainly won’t complain about increased views of my blog. 😉 And the last two days have seen a tenfold increase in traffic, nearly all of it coming to this post. So you may want to check to see if you start getting more views like I did. It looks like semalt must have “hit” a lot of blogs and websites since this weekend—but wouldn’t you think they’d want to lead you to information about their site over a small-scale blogger’s post wondering who they are? 😉

      Like

  23. I’ll commiserate, too! I got ten hits from the semalt bot(?) today. A couple hours later, I went from 20 hits to 166, but they’re not all on the home page. It looks like a ton of my pages were visited and 146 from the US. (With a smattering of some random other countries.) My overall traffic has been down by 2/3 since the 15th or so. I would go to the semalt link I see in WordPress stats, but I don’t trust it. For a professional SEO company, they don’t seem to have a prominent social media presence.

    Like

    • I took a chance when I clicked on their link in my referrals that day, but it led me only to their home page, where you need to sign up before you can do anything else. To me it would make sense to have some general information about the company that potential customers could read first! Of course, we’re generating some discussions about them here. But I would think it would be a better business model for them (as an SEO company) to have good information about them come up first in searches. And yet a lot of people have been coming to this post these last two days.

      My normal views plummeted before Christmas, too, and I think the holidays played a role in that. I’ll bet you see them picking up again after the New Year. After I had my semalt hits, I saw an increase in views coming from search engines, even though WordPress lumped most of them as “unknown search terms.” I’m curious if you and other bloggers will see a similar increase now that semalt has “found” you, too.

      Like

  24. Oh, this is funny. I just had 10 hits from Semalt on Dec. 29th. When I did an internet search on semalt hardly anything came up, but it did lead me to your blog post 🙂 I think I read from one source that the company is only a few months old.

    Like

    • Wouldn’t you think they should have arranged to come up at the top in the search results?! Especially if they’re linked with Google. 🙂 If they want customers, they really should put out information about themselves on the web so curious folks like us can learn more about them. I did find an increase in search-related views after they “found” my blog, so I wonder if you and other recent “contactees” will see a similar spike in your views. But I’m getting a kick out of how much traffic my blog and this post are seeing as a result of their activity. It’s sort of like free advertising for me. 🙂

      Like

      • Their website does come up, but I was looking for info from a third party. Like when I google ‘what is klout’, I get lots of articles about the website, not just the company’s website. It’s weird 🙂

        Like

        • I sent a request to WordPress support to day, asking if they have any information on this group. Obviously semalt has done something if this little post of mine is now getting several hundred visits with no signs of slowing down. If I get a reply, I’ll definitely do an update post.

          Like

            • I updated this post today (at the top) if you’d like to see WordPress’s reply. I’m thinking it’s worth letting our blog hosts know just how many of these “hits” are coming in. I’m overly cautious when it comes to the Internet, but better safe than sorry, right?

              Like

Comments are closed.