I had a client almost select Siteground as a host, based on the fact that Drupal.org "advertises" them, and that they have awesome reviews.

I explored, and it looks like there are a few pages created by a Siteground employee, designed to market Siteground and also help their SEO campaign for Drupal-related search terms.

http://drupal.org/node/212455 is an example; I used to work in SEO, and that page (and it's link text) is fairly obvious.

This and similar pages on d.o leads to this: http://drupal.org/node/240958#comment-819032

...where folks assume d.o is somehow "advertising" Siteground as a recommended hosting company.

Other d.o folks seem to hate the company, and recognize that "Karen" (the poster) is a Siteground employee who doesn't make that fact at all clear in her posts (which are all to boost Siteground's presence on d.o). There's some interesting reading here that also mentions their blackhat SEO tactics: http://drupal.org/node/84935

Can we treat handbook pages pimping Siteground as spam, and delete please? I'm a doc team lurker, so I didn't want to take action on this without some consensus from the powers-that-be before my first edit :)

Comments

catch’s picture

catch
he/him
Primary language English
commented
Project: Documentation » Drupal.org site moderators
Component: User Guide » Spam

Putting this in webmasters.

fwiw, looks like spam to me. And even if not, it's not suitable for the handbook.

1. the 'tutorials' are a few sentences each with half a screenshot
2. they could've been written for any random arsed shared hosting package with cpanel, not siteground specifically
3. they look spammy
4. Recommends fantastico.
5. http://drupal.org/user/17776/track

senpai’s picture

senpai commented
Status: Active » Postponed (maintainer needs more info)

I unpublished the http://drupal.org/node/212455 handbook page, cause there isn't anything in those "tutorials" that would be beneficial to a new or seasoned user. Most of it is way out of date, and our own handbook pages cover 100% of their material in greater and more accurate detail.

Nice catch, Catch!

johnalbin’s picture

johnalbin
they/他
Primary language English
Location Taipei, Taiwan
commented
Status: Postponed (maintainer needs more info) » Active

I added a warning to that "tutorial", but if I had "unpublish" privileges I would nix it.

The tutorial doesn't actually explain how to do anything; it simply consists of links to the SiteGround site (where there are some how to use cpanel/fantastico pages.)

Good catch, Dave!

johnalbin’s picture

johnalbin
they/他
Primary language English
Location Taipei, Taiwan
commented
Status: Active » Fixed

Whoops! cross posted with Joel.

Setting to fixed.

catch’s picture

catch
he/him
Primary language English
commented
Title: SiteGround advertising / spam » SiteGround spammer
Status: Fixed » Active

I'm re-opening this because I think the http://drupal.org/user/17776 account probably warrants a ban - all I see is 2 1/2 years of siteground spamming. I would just ban normally but worth discussing due to low nid and I'm not sure what the rules are (I'd ban everyone who's ever mentioned Drupal Value Hosting too if it was just up to me). Well spotted dchakrab by the way

dchakrab’s picture

dchakrab commented

Thanks...glad my first foray in doc team was useful :)

I'd second the notion to ban the user; what's the normal process for dealing with spammy user IDs?

Dave.

senpai’s picture

senpai commented

Correction. I credited the wrong person with the catch. Catch, you're officially "not it", even though you're a hell of a cool guy.

Dave, good find. I'm going to discuss this with Sepeck and Killes, and then prolly ban the user. Spammy_posts > low_numbered_uid.

Amazon’s picture

Amazon commented

Let me get an email to the Siteground folks tell them in writing not to do this anymore. I'd like to reach consensus in a written format before outright banning folks.

Sorry I've not gotten to it yet.

senpai’s picture

senpai commented
Status: Active » Fixed
Anonymous’s picture

Anonymous (not verified) commented
Status: Fixed » Closed (fixed)

Automatically closed -- issue fixed for two weeks with no activity.