Bots are crawling new domain registrations and namesquatting Twitter handles | Hacker News Reader

Bots are crawling new domain registrations and namesquatting Twitter handles

rossduggan.ie

66 pointsduggan37 comments

I haven't seen anyone ask the obvious question: just how many of Twitter's ~175 million accounts [1] are simply bots for this and other reasons?

I haven't used my Twitter handle in the better part of a year (I tried it; sorry but for me it's just a glorified link aggregator and not a particularly interesting one at that) but somehow I still get people following me.

Number of users for a site like Twitter is no doubt an important metric. It probably comes up in funding rounds. Those funding rounds will probably have goals/targets for Twitter to reach. Twitter has, to my knowledge, only ever stated the number of accounts, rather than the 7 or 30 day actives.

This all begs the question: does Twitter have a vested interest in inflating their own numbers such that they like bot auto-registration and, well, anything that increases the account total?

[1]: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-how-many-use...

> Twitter has, to my knowledge, only ever stated the number of accounts, rather than the 7 or 30 day actives.

I can't believe a VC sticking $100m into a social network like twitter doesn't demand very detailed breakdowns on user metrics.

What Twitter tells a VC with millions of dollars is quite likely different from what they tell the general public for issues like this.

s/begs the question/raises the question/g

note: this is only an attempt to be informative, not sarcastic or a smart ass.

What a great opportunity for a registrar to differentiate themselves! They could tell you if your handle is available on popular social media services before you register your domain, and then help you sign up for your handle simultaneously with your registration.

Godaddy already tells me to get twitter when I buy a domain.

The downside there is you have to use godaddy.

There's no downside to GoDaddy for domain names, you're just jumping on the "fuck GoDaddy" bandwagon. I have dozens of domain names through GoDaddy and have never had an issue. Just set your DNS servers to something else and you never have to visit GoDaddy again.

That's been my experience as well. I still hate the freaking Maze Of Offers you have to navigate in order to checkout, but after that, no hassles. And their admin tools have gotten pretty slick.

But I try to scope out the availability of the usual suspects before committing to a name. But I don;t recall seeing any Twitter reminders, and I bought a domain just the other day. Maybe I'm immune to the noise on the site.

I own about 20 domains through Godaddy and they've been great. Customer support has been awesome too. I've never understood the hate for Godaddy as far as domain registrars go.

I'm satisfied too; but their emails and the procedure to move domains away from them are slightly annoying. Also their panel has too much mess thrown in. Overall I've been using them for years - I'd recommend them.

I'm not actually, i used godaddy for my registrations before. It was really terrible and i'd never go back.

First off, buying a domain takes about 30 minutes. You have to navigate through what another commenter very aptly called their 'Maze of offers'. It's ridiculous. Everything in godaddy's management panel is a maze and impossible to use. They spam you like no tomorrow, and they randomly change your products to auto-renew when you don't want them to. Their COM domains start at $12 where other companies sell them for $10 or even less. Their pricing for everything else is ridiculous-- i mean, come on, $50 for an SSL certificate? Even changing your nameservers is an error prone process where you press Submit and wait 10 minutes[1] for their servers to tell you if it was successful or not-- but that's after you navigate their ever-changing[2] interface and two or three unique[3] control panels, trying to find where to change your nameservers.

I'm not jumping on any bandwagon, i used them for years and they are a horrible company.

[1] This is a slight exaggeration. It's literally about 4 to 5 minutes.

[2] Their entire site layout and organization changed at least once a year while i was using them for registrations.

[3] Not an exaggeration. I've often had to use 2 or 3 different control panels, each with their own design and layout, to change some trivial settings for one of my domains.

I totally agreed with this mentality until I saw the video of the GoDaddy CEO slaughtering an elephant in Africa.

It's a complicated issue. I actually kind of admire him, for his ability to take a politically incorrect side in an issue that's more complicated than people would like to believe. Even if it is just because he's a bit of a jerk.

That said, I'm afraid to touch GoDaddy due to the horror stories about their bait-and-switch tactics.

Have you tested other domain registars? I moved my domains to name.com.

The UI/UX makes so much difference. When I login, I am taken to a list of my domains. Its one click to go to DNS records. I use Google Apps, it one click to setup the MX/A records for google apps. There is no random images making the page load take forever. The random upsell is gone. Its slightly costlier than godaddy, but I much prefer to pay that to save my time.

Be sure to check your DNS setup. Ensure that asdf.yourdomain.com is not redirecting to one of their ad pages. Full story here: http://nathanhammond.com/namedotcom-another-unscrupulous-reg...

I used to use GoDaddy as my primary registrar years ago when they were essentially the only company offering domains under $10, back when $35 was the market norm. I decided to go test them again after reading your comment. I still have an account, so the comparison would be relatively fair. This was my experience, as compared to my usual registrar.

Name.com 1. Search domain name. 2. Click to add the .com to my cart. 3. Click to continue to my cart. 4. Login. 5. Click to pay with saved information. Done.

GoDaddy 1. Search domain name. 2. Click to add the .com to my cart. 3. In page popup with "STOP! Don't miss your chance to SAVE 65!" (for the net, org, info). Spammy. Click "Don't show this again." I just want a domain. 4. Default registration length was listed as 5 years. This is unacceptable. Click to change to 1 year. Just give me the domain. 5. Click next to arrive at privacy options. No, I just want a domain. 6. Click next to arrive at activate your domain, with email and hosting options. I don't care, I just want a domain. 7. Click next to arrive at my cart.

At this point, GoDaddy has already lost. I can have a confirmation email from Name.com in my inbox by the time I arrive at GoDaddy's billing information. GoDaddy does have a huge market: people that are new to buying domains and would like to see all the available options. Another registrar is preferable once you know your way around and just want a domain.

Guess which market reads Hacker News.

Not yet mentioned in this thread, so I'll mention it: GoDaddy's advertising and branding also displays base misogyny on a level which exceeds even, say, Miller Lite. Not cool.

As well as Twitter are there any other services that should be signed up for ASAP to avoid problems like this? Facebook, Youtube, Tumblr?

My (perhaps inaccurate) feeling is that it is most important for Twitter. In my experience most people (except perhaps those both very familiar with the website and pretty techy) are unlikely to try and go directly to a URL for most services based on a name, e.g. typing in www.facebook.com/ycombinator, or whatever the youtube/tumblr/etc equivilents are. Whereas for twitter, if you think you know the name, or even if you just think you have a good guess, lots of people will type it right into the address bar.

Maybe this is because Twitter, right from launch, had a very clear link between "if this is their username, it's also their display name, and also their URL", whereas other services, while they might have done the same thing (often as a post-launch change), it was sold more as a "this makes links look nicer" rather than as a "go straight to an account easily" feature.

This shows the importance of good URL design upfront. Twitter did an amazing job of having well defined REST-ful URLs from the beginning and it was one of the factors responsible for their early success. The more rational, guessable and legible your URL's the easier it is for people to use your web service.

Well, does Twitter's success show the importance of it, or does the success of all those other sites show that it isn't actually important?

It's _a_ factor. Not _the_ factor solely responsible for their success. It's like having well designed tables and chairs in a restaurant; it makes a difference, but if the food sucks or it's in a bad location the restaurant will still fail.

Domain names of course! And get a trademark or several. The latter has more leeway to the point of people blogging about losing their handlers on the online platforms due to trademark rules or something.

Seek your own legal advice with Trademarks. The good advice should include handling 'typo' handlers possibly impersonating your service. eg YCOMBlNATOR.com

I'd like to see a HN discussion of what people think Twitter should do about all the unused Twitter handles or those that were obviously abandoned after a few tweets back in 2009. -Should Twitter charge a nominal fee, say $1 a year for an account? -Should a domain name 'trump' an unused Twitter handle, ie. a way for domain owners to acquire unused Twitter handles?

According to a commenter on the linked page, you can file an impersonation report and will likely get it resolved.

Spotted that, fingers crossed!

Still worth being aware of if your case isn't quite open-and-shut, or you're planning a quick launch. I feel quite an eejit for letting it happen.

Am I the only one slightly worried about this? I mean, they aren't really impersonating anyone, since the Twitter handle was created before the website was even online.

First come, first served may suck sometimes, but at least it's a clear, well-defined and fair way of allocating handles.

Before registering your personal handle, have you checked if someone had the domain?

I agree in principle, but I think there's scope for leeway (at least I hope there is in this case!).

Case-by-case can be painful/time-consuming - I know, it's baked into the ethos of the company I work for - but it has its rewards.

People have more time for a company that has more time for them.

I tried to have a twitter handle released recently and no, they don't process individual requests anymore unless you have a trademark or other legal title.

Registered a new domain today that I'd like the Twitter name for ... good heads up Ross, thanks!

Just to bring some resolution to this, I received a response from Twitter today and, as I suspected, the namesquatting policy does not apply in my situation.

Disappointing (since I have a small group of useless domains now, .com, .net and .org) but a useful lesson.

Twitter's namespace problem is inherent to a single party controlling a centralized service.

If you want to truly own and control your own namespace, you should support services that are distributed, like the rest of the Internet.

Is it just me that always registers Twitter at the same time as the domain?

/me squats @glimcat

Thanks for reminding me to register a Twitter handle for my new site.. Glad noone squatted it.

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