I’m proud to announce today that I am beginning a new series of video tutorials for Tubetorial that will focus on plagiarism detection, abuse reporting and other related issues. The first of those videos, entitled “How to Find the Host of a Site” was posted yesterday and is now embedded below.

Some may remember that I did a similar video back in 2007, however, the new video is a much more up-to-date version of that video focusing on both Domain Tools and WhoIsHostingThis. This video should explain how to find the host of a site both more easily and more accurately than the previous version.

I’ve also replaced the video on the “Finding the Host” page of the site with new one since it does provide instruction on the new tools (besides, the previous video even showed the old layout for the site).

The video, for those who are interested, is also embedded below:

In 2007 I wrote an article entitled “Why I Embed My Images” that discussed how embedding images and other can provide greater security when you feel there is a risk someone might file a takedown notice. By separating your images from your server, should someone file a takedown notice over an image, your site will remain active and, with good backups, you can get your site back up more quickly.

It is a way to guard against misuse of the DMCA or fair use disputes.

However, since then I have backed away from that stance. Once I moved to my new VPS, I stopped hosting images remotely as I have a good relationship with my host and have no reasons to worry. That being said, in an effort to improve the efficiency of the site, I’ve also started toying with Amazon S3 to see if it can help improve the site’s speed (the images in this post will be hosted on S3 as part of the test).

It was at this point that I realized a problem. If I were malicious in my use of S3, or any similar service, it could be used as a method not to prevent complete site failure, but to avoid a DMCA altogether. It is possible, using these services, to trick users into filing complaints with the wrong hosts, delaying or even preventing anything from being done.

I immediately, using my own site as a test subject, began to seek a way around it and, fortunately, found a way to ensure that, no matter where a file is hosted, you’ll always be able to track down the host with reasonable accuracy.

The Nature of the Problem

If you right click on the images in this post and view their URL, you’ll see that they are hosted on a subdomain of Plagiarism Today named “files.plagiarismtoday.com”. This makes it appear, including to many automated tools, that the content is hosted on the same server as the rest of the site. The problem is that they are hosted on Amazon S3, clear across the country.

This trick is fairly trivial to do and only involves a minor tweak to DNS. There are many legitimate reasons for doing it, for example, hosting images on your domain while using a content delivery network to increase speed.

However, if a copyright holder decided one of these images were infringing, filing a DMCA notice would be difficult. The reason is that since the files are on a subdomain of plagiarismtoday.com most will assume it’s located on my server and act accordingly. This is due to a fluke in both the way we read URLs, where we routinely ignore subdomains, and the way networking tools routinely discard subdomain information.

Some copyright holders, especially those less familiar with DNS and networking, might not consider this and could inadvertently file a DMCA notice or other abuse complaint with the wrong host. This can result in a delay in getting a complaint resolved, in it being outright ignored or even causing it to be handled in a questionable way.

The good news is that there is a simple way around it and, as long as you are careful about how you gather your information, there is no need to make this mistake.

Dealing with Linked Files

When you’re dealing with an image file or any content that is linked into a Web page (not part of the actual HTML) it is important to make sure that you get the correct information about where that particular file is hosted, not just the page that it is on.

The solution is pretty simple:

1. Get the URL of the File: Rather than copying the URL of the page, right click the image or the link and copy the URL. Check and see if it is on the same site, a subdomain or another domain altogether.
2. Use Who Is Hosting This: Once you have the URL, delete the “http://” as well as everything including and after the first remaining “/” and process it through Who is Hosting This. Who Is Hosting This handles subdomains correctly, unlike Domain Tools, which strips out subdomain information in my testing.
3. Confirm the Results: You can then confirm the results by copying the IP address (you’ll have to actually copy the numbers on the site, not using the link) and then running it through Domain Tools. Once you’ve done that, you can then go forward and begin the work of finding the DMCA or abuse agent and contacting them.

Though this adds a few extra steps to the process, it is worth doing to ensure that you contact the correct party as doing so is the only way to guarantee the quickest and most reliable resolution.

Why This is Important

The reason that this is critical is because sending a DMCA notice to the wrong host, at the very least, will greatly slow down the process as the host has to research and figure out what is going on and then decide if they going to A) Disable the page anyway B) Forward the notice on or C) Do nothing.

Since the company that hosts the Web site does not host the image, their role under the DMCA is much less clear. Section 512(c), which usually deals with Web hosts and takedowns, only pertains to “the storage at the direction of a user of material that resides on a system or network controlled or operated by or for the service provider”. Since there is no storage, a regular DMCA notice doesn’t apply.

Section 512(d) does pertain to “information location tools” but in that case, it would be the site owner, not the host that is party for the notice. This section deals with sites, such as Google, that are “referring or linking users to an online location containing infringing material or infringing activity”. Since the host isn’t the one linking to the file, it is the user, the application of 512(d) doesn’t make as much sense.

This isn’t to say that hosts won’t deactivate sites or remove pages if the content is embedded or hyperlinked, especially if the site is spammy in nature or has other abuse issues, but the fastest way to secure removal of images or other media files is to go to the source.

It can be a bit tedious to do, but it is well worth the time.

Bottom Line

The simple truth is that the days of all of the content on a site being hosted on the same server have long since passed. Content embedding from photo sharing sites, video sites and elsewhere have made it much more difficult easily track down where a particular item is hosted.

Though sometimes, as with YouTube clips, where the content is hosted is obvious, other times, as with image hosts, it is much less clear.

Unless you are dealing with textual works, which are almost never embedded (unless you use a service such as Voxant Newsroom that embeds text via Flash and JavaScript), this is something you have to constantly watch out for.

Dealing with content theft issues is not difficult, but it does require a bit of detective work. However, knowing the challenges you face and the tools that can help you overcome them can keep the sleuthing required to a minimum.

But while AbouThiSite was interesting, its data is woefully incomplete, forcing me to continue relying on other sites for most of my information.

However, long-time reader Voyagerfan5761 alerted me to a similar, though more complete, service that had flown under my radar. The service, Quarkbase, promises to provide “Everything About a Site” and to be everything I wanted AbouThiSite to be.

So, I excitedly gave the site a whirl and learned quickly that it is a huge step in the right direction, but not quite the endgame I was hoping for.

What It Does

Quarkbase works very similarly to other sites in this field. Users either punch in the domain they are interested in or use their bookmarklet, to pull up information from dozens of resources about the domain a site is hosted on.

That information is then broken up into seven different categories, which can either be scrolled through on the default “All” page or quickly selected via the tabs at the top. Those sections are as follow:

1. Introduction: This includes basic information about the site including its name, common tags, contact information, logo and slogan.
2. Social Popularity: This analyzes how well the site has performed on various social sites including Digg, Reddit, Delicious, etc. Also pulls the subscriber account from FeedBurner if possible.
3. Traffic: This pulls in a variety of traffic estimates from Alexa. Though notoriously unreliable, it does provide clues as to which countries most frequently visit a site and a general idea of popularity.
4. People: Takes a best guess at the person or people that run the site. It is not clear where this information comes from.
5. Spotlight: This section attempts to glean who is “talking” about a domain, specifically by looking at Twitter. Though flawed in that it can’t parse TinyURLs, which are heavily used on the service, it still works surpringly well.
6. Company: Only shows up on reports of sites owned by a company. Offers company profile information and job postings for the company that owns the site.
7. Technical: This is the “meat” of the site’s information from an abuse standpoint, providing information on who is hosting the site, what the nameservers are and the location of the server.

Quarkbase is able to do this by bringing together information from a variety of sources including Alexa, Zoominfo and more.

The result of all of this information is that the results page is extremely large and, at times, slow loading. The initial page is also very cluttered, though the tab feature makes it much easier to cut to what you need.

All in all, the information that Quarkbase provides is very robust and very simple to use, however, there are a few hiccups that prevent me from making this service my default.

Small Roadblocks

The biggest issue I have with Quarkbase is that the information, in particular in the Technical section, is questionable at best. For example, when looking up Hostgator’s main site, the site doesn’t even fathom a guess as to the hosting provider. It correctly guesses that the ISP is “THEPLANET.COM INTERNET SERVICES” but even that is not completely accurate as Hostgator is its own host, just using ThePlanet’s servers.

This was an issue that has tripped up other services, including Domain Tools, and prompted a fix from WhoIsHostingThis. During many of my tests, Quarkbase refused to even guess about the host information, instead just leaving that line blank, and the ISP information was dubious at best.

Other information on the service was unreliable as well. Alexa’s traffic data is notoriously unreliable, though still an understandable choice under the circumstances. Also, information in the “Introduction” section is routinely either left blank or inaccurate, especially the contact information on non-company sites.

This limits the usability of the service, especially when competing sites such as WhoIsHostingThis have largely overcome many of the same challenges, but it still remains one of the most complete overviews of a site or domain that you can get, even with the hiccups and speedbumps.

Conclusions

Quarkbase is far from perfect, but what it does it does well. Though its results are not as technically-oriented as Domain Tools or as accurate as WhoIsHostingThis, its sheer breadth of data makes it great for a “quick overview” of a site’s information.

Though I again don’t think Webmasters and bloggers will get a lot of use from this tool when chasing down scrapers and plagiarists, especially since the site does not do subdomains at this time, it could provide some assistance with directly contacting infringers, locating the host and learning about the background of a site before moving in.

If nothing else, it might be worth seeing what Quarkbase turns up on an infringing domain just to see if there is anything you were unaware and can use, such as an email address or contact form.

I can pretty much promise you that you will learn something about every site you punch into this service, the question is how accurate and useful will that information be.

AbouThiSite attempts to be one of latter kind of mashups, providing valuable information about a target domain at the click of a button.

But how useful is it in the real world? The answer, sadly, is not very much. It won’t be a part of my arsenal, not unless it adds some additional data. Still, there is much that can be gleaned from it, if others are willing to listen.

What it Does

The idea behind AbouThiSite is very similar to WhoIsHostingThis and Domain Tools in that you punch in a domain and receive back vital information on it. But where Domain Tools is targeted at those who are familiar with networking tools and WhoIsHostingThis focuses on making the process of finding a site’s host simple, AbouThiSite attempts to provide a different set of information in an easy to approach manner.

This includes the following:

1. The IP Address
2. Other Sites Likely on the Same Server
3. The location of where the site is hosted.
4. The PageRank/Traffic of the Site
5. Information About the Colors and HTML of the Site

This information is then displayed in a colorful and easy-to read page that includes a Google Map of the estimated server location, a preview of the site and a link to subscribe to the site’s RSS feed, if it has one.

It is indeed incredibly easy to use, but, for Webmasters dealing with content theft or abuse issues, it is a fairly useless service. In fact, outside of some limited SEO purposes, I have a very difficult time imagining why anyone would favor AbouThiSite over other sites.

Missing Details

The most useful aspect of AbouThiSite is the SEO elements. Having the PageRank, rough traffic and IP information in one place is useful. Though the traffic stats seem to underestimate every site I punched in, the relationships between them made sense.

However, you can get most of this information elsewhere, the only advantage with AbouThiSite being that the information is very cleanly laid out and easy to read. Whether that is worth the trip is up to each Webmaster to decide.

For those wanting to deal with abuse issues, this site is missing critical information that one needs including Whois information, information about the actual host of the site (other than its location) and provides no easy means to obtain it.

Since all of the useful information can easily be procured off another site and you will have to go there regardless to get the information you need, there is little reason to make AbouThiSite a stop at all.

Lessons

This isn’t to say that AbouThiSite is a bad tool, just that it doesn’t fill any needs that I have. There is still a great deal it does right and others may find it useful.

What I sincerely hope is that other sites, especially Domain Tools, might take a look at the way AbouThiSite displays information and glean a few lessons from it, namely how to put a lot of information about a site in front of viewers in a clean, attractive manner.

Though appearance is definitely not everything when looking for tools to help you get the information you need, it does count, as WhoIsHostingThis has showed us. The easier a site is to read, the quicker we get the information.

Likewise, though WhoIsHostingThis is laser-focused and clean to use, it could also benefit from some additional information, such as the location of the host (at least the country) and, perhaps, the whois data.

The bottom line though is that AbouThiSite offers a glimpse of what a good domain information mashup could be without actually being that mashup.

Conclusions

The bottom line is that, if AbouThiSite has information that you find useful, then by all means use it. It’s a fast, user-friendly site that is easy to pick up and add to your toolbox. I, personally, don’t have much use for it nor do I see how others might.

That being said, it appears to me that the site is more of a proof of concept than a finished product and, with that in mind, the concept it does show is valuable.

The Web may not have a lot of use for this site, but there is a lot it could learn from it, if one is willing to listen.

However, they also have a great deal of use when tracking down and stopping plagiarism, content theft or spammers. These bookmarklets, literally with the click of a mouse, can undo much of the dirty work that is required in the process of searching for and stopping infringement.

So what five bookmarklets are most commonly in the top of my browser? Here’s a quick rundown of my five favorite bookmarklets and how they can save you tons of headache when it comes to stopping misuse of your work on the Web.

Mahalo’s Plagiarism Detection Tool is one of the simplest bookmarklets imaginable. Previously covered here last year, the tool works by having you highlight text on a page, meaning your own content if you are searching for plagiarism of your work, and then clicking the bookmarklet to perform a Google search.

It is a simple tool that helps avoid some copy and paste work but also makes it great for quick anti-plagiarism checks. A great use, for example, is if you’re suspicious that a site is a spam blog or if you think you’ve read an article somewhere else before.

Certainly not a complicated bookmarklet, but one that is brilliant in its simplicity.

Need to know who is hosting a Web site? Considering sending a DMCA notice or filing a spam complaint? WhoIsHostingThis has a great bookmarklet to quickly locate the Web host of any page.

Though I previously covered WhoIsHostingThis earlier this year, I didn’t mention its very useful bookmarklet, which allows you to click the link on any page as you are surfing and then be taken to the best information they can provide about who is hosting that site.

Though WhoIsHostingThis is far from perfect, it works reliably enough for most Webmasters and it is by far the easiest solution available.

Stepping up both in terms of power and complexity from WhoIsHostingThis, Domain Tools offers a much more robust bookmarklet for determining who the host is of a site, as well as obtaining whois information for the domain and other networking tools.

Easy one of the most powerful bookmarklets on this list, it is also one of the most intimidating to new users. If you need help interpreting the results produced by Domain Tools, check out the “Finding the Host” page here on Plagiarism Today under the “Stopping Internet Plagiarism” heading.

Want to see how old a page is (approximately) or how long a piece of content has been on there? The Wayback Machine is one of the best and easiest tools you can use.

But while most who need to perform such searches are aware of the invaluable service the Wayback Machine can provide, few are aware that a programmer, Stephen Ostermiller, has created a simple bookmarklet for checking any page you’re on in the Wayback Machine.

The page also provides several other caching services including Coral Cache and Google Cache so you can check other sources for backup copies of a page.

Speaking of caching, before you file a notice against a Web page and get the infringing material removed, you may want to create a backup copy of the site should a dispute arise later.

WebCite is easily one of the best services for doing exactly that. Though it was designed to aid in the citing of sources for academic papers, its on-demand caching service is perfect for those that need to keep a copy of a page they expect to go down.

However, even better is that they offer a custom bookmarklet that not only lets you cache any page that you are visiting, but it emails you an alert when the caching is done, making it easy to keep a copy for your records.

It is the perfect on-demand caching solution for this purpose.

Conclusions

For me, my bookmark toolbar is very crowded. In addition to my other services, my anti-plagiarism bookmarklets take up a lot of room. I’ve had to find ways to organize them so I can have actual bookmarks available to me.

If you are serious about protecting your content or are routinely dealing with spammers, odds are you’ll find at least some of these bookmarklets useful.

In short, though bookmarklets can’t replace some of the more powerful anti-plagiarism tools, they can help make the process a great deal easier and can be very useful for “quickie” checks or information.

Since they are free and install with the click of a mouse, there’s almost no reason not to have them. If you don’t use them, you can always delete them and be done with it.

That alone makes them worth at least a try.

The video, which lasts about five minutes, takes the user through the process of finding the host for this site, instructing on the use of the Domain Tools Web site and various features of it.

The video is my first attempt at such a screencast so it is far from perfect. There also seemed to be a minor encoding issue when I uploaded the video to Revver. I might try a different video sharing site in the future.

Please let me know what you think of the video. I’ve embedded it below.

So, I’ve started taking some time to rewrite and redraft this portion of the site and I’ve started with the two sections most sorely in need of updating.

New and Improved!

The first section to get an overhaul was the first chapter itself, How to Find Plagiarism. To that chapter, I’ve added two sections, one targeted at bloggers and RSS scraping as well as a section targeted at videographers.

Since spam blogging and video sharing sites were relatively new concepts when the draft was first completed almost three years ago, those sections were not included. However, the article also underwent something of a rewrite in the Non-blogging author section as well as other tweaks to the entire piece.

However, it was the third chapter, Finding the Host, that has undergone the biggest revision. The previous version was practically unusable. Sam Spade, the tool of choice when it was first penned, has been defunct for some time and the tips for determining the host of free Web sites was poorly written and hard to understand.

I’ve updated the page to use Domain Tools instead of Sam Spade and provide a much more detailed set of instructions, including screenshots.

This should bring that page into the modern times and and allow newcomers to the site to effectively use it.

Since editing these files and updating them is a surprisingly time-consuming process. I’m going to be doing this update over a period of a few weeks. If things go according to plan, I should have the entire series, along with other static pages on the site, updated by the end of the year or very early next.

Please let me know if you find any problems with them. I’m going to do my best not to let these pages wait so long before another update and they will be under more constant revision from now on.