Domain Types
Categories
The spamnation.info database of domains advertised by spam contains the following major categories:
- domain registrar
- A company offering Internet domain name registration services.
- web hosting
- A company offering web hosting services.
- logo and graphic design
- A company offering graphic design services including logo design, general graphic design, or Flash animation design.
- website design
- A company that specializes in designing and developing web sites.
- mail service provider
- A company that offers Internet email services, such as webmail or mail forwarding.
- Internet access provider
- A company whose main business is providing broadband or dialup access to the Internet.
- merchant services
- A company that offers credit-card handling or online sales processing.
- SEO/SEA
- A company that offers services such as URL submission, 'search engine advertising' (by banner ad exchanges or bulk email) or 'search engine optimization' (improving the placement of a website in search engine listings).
- consulting and outsourcing
- A company that offers technical or business consulting, translation services, or outsourcing services.
- printer supplies
- Inkjet refills, toner for laser printers and other consumables.
- training courses and higher education
- A company whose main business is providing training courses, or an educational establishment.
- manufacturing
- Manufacturers that use spam to promote their products or solicit business partnerships and distributors.
- tourism services
- Travel agents, tour operators and hotel owners who promote their business by spam.
- hardware and software
- Online stores offering computer hardware or software for sale.
- other net services
- Miscellaneous Internet-related products or services.
- software developer
- Software developers using spam to promote packages or programs that they have developed.
- general website
- A general, not necessarily commercial, website promoted by spam.
- mainsleaze
- A mainstream company, often a well-known household name, that has unwisely decided to use spam to promote its products.
- joe job
- An innocent victim of a malicious third-party who sends out spam in the victim's name in an attempt to cause problems for them.
- link farm
- An organization or company that sends out letters to website owners requesting that they link to some other website. The website may either be a real website that the sender would like to promote or, more often, a bogus 'directory' site whose main purpose is to sell advertising.
- unsolicited newsletter
- Domains that sign you up to a newsletter that you never asked for, and then send it to you on a regular basis thereafter.
- bulkmailer or list vendor
- Commercial bulkmail operations and mailing list vendors.
- stock promotions
- Sites offering investment advice and sites that are set up to promote stocks, often as part of a pump-and-dump scheme.
- charities
- Charities and non-profit organizations.
- businesses
- Small and medium-sized enterprises whose main business is offline, but who promote their activities on the Internet.
- e-commerce
- Online retailers and other general e-commerce businesses.
- personal
- Personal and vanity websites.
- redirector
- A website used by a commercial bulkmailer to redirect requests to a different site. Spams often contain links to redirector sites. When those links are followed, the bulkmailer logs the details of the request (which may include information identifying the message recipient) and then forwards the request to the advertised site.
- political
- Spam sent from politicians and established political parties.
- job offers and work-from-home
- Domains that offer 'work-from-home' opportunities or claim to be hiring 'experts' for some profitable business. These are typically scams of one kind or another.
- get-rich-quick schemes
- MLM, pyramid scams and other get-rich-quick schemes.
- phishing
- Domains set up to support 'phishing' scams.
- banking and credit cards
- Providers of banking services, credit cards or other financial services.
- not yet classified
- Domains that have not yet been classified.
- faux blog
- A fake 'blog' created for the purpose of hosting pay-per-click ads or other advertising material.
- possible scam
- "Investment opportunities" offering absurdly high rates of return and other classic cons.
- books, films and music
- Sites advertising books, films, music and similar products.
- land investments
- These sites offer the opportunity to invest in land or real estate, usually abroad. Many are probably scams.
- ad hosting
- These sites host advertisements for various spam-promoted products.
- syndicated advertising and affiliate marketing
- These businesses manage advertising campaigns for companies, including major names. They act as middlemen between the company and their affiliates. The affiliates place ads on websites or send out email promotions, and are paid per click or per impression. Some of these affiliates are professional email or blog spamming operations.
- lead generators
- Lead generators are middlemen serving businesses such as higher education institutions, mortgage and insurance vendors. They collect names and addresses of people interested in a particular service and sell them on to as many vendors as possible.
- link exchange requests
- Certain sites send out automated requests to the owners of other popular websites proposing to 'exchange links'. A link exchange request is essentially a demand for free advertising, sent by a program that systematically targets websites matching some criteria (or often no criteria at all). As such, link exchange requests usually meet the basic definition of spam.
- work at home scheme
- 'Work at home' schemes offer the chance to earn money part-time or full-time from home, often through simple tasks like typing or 'envelope-stuffing'. Some such schemes might be legitimate, but a very high number are simply scams.