Ask HN: Stop ex-boyfriend from SEOing my sister to death | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Stop ex-boyfriend from SEOing my sister to death

3 pointsjazzdev4 comments

My sister's ex-boyfriend bought her a domain name and built her a web site a few years ago. They broke up last year. Now he wants thousands of dollars for his work on her web site. She's trying to move on. She got a new domain name and built a new site.

He seems to still be doing active SEO so her old domain name appears first in search results. And the old domain has a page with just her name. No content. The old domain is her name, FirstLast.com, and has been around for 3 or 4 years. Is she screwed? Is it possible to get her new domain which has actual content about her to do better?

Thanks!

IANAL, but she could try suing in small claims court. If he doesnt show up, she gets an enforceable judgement. If he does the judge might give her the domain name back. Surprising things have happened in small claims, like neighbors shutting down crack houses. It's cheap and an interesting experience.

They are already lawyered up. It would cost her about the same 5 figure amount to sue that he is asking for.

Get tons of spam backlinks.

There are services called xrumer blasts. Some say it works to help SEO, I personally think it will nock the site down (Thousands of spammy blog links. Google is getting smarter).

I want to keep my white hat on while dealing with this. ;-) But it's an interesting idea. I also thought about reporting the old site as a spam site to Google. Although a 3 word site doesn't fit my definition of spam, it also doesn't fit Google's content guidelines:

  Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that
  clearly and accurately describe your content.

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