In the last entry, I briefly mentioned how the website for the Transgender Day of Rememberance has some black-hat SEO links in its source. I haven't yet heard back from them in reply to the email I sent, but in the meantime I've done a bit of investigating.
Firstly - I've discovered no evidence so far that anything dangerous was added. I didn't think there would be, but you never know. (Of course, "no evidence so far" doesn't preclude the possibility that it exists, but I'm a bit more reassured by this.)
Secondly, I've discovered, by means of the Internet Archive, that the offending links were added to the site between April 18th 2010 and and May 17th 2010, so they've been there quite a while.
The site which was being linked is defunct, though I don't know how long this has been the case. (Presumably, when the links were added in mid-2010, they were active.) The text used to advertise the links refer to buying various Adobe products at cheap prices; I won't repeat the exact text here so as to avoid Google thinking that my journal is spam.
I mentioned in the last post that it was probable that the site was hijacked without the owner realising. I still believe this is the case - more so, actually, because the site is now defunct. While it obviously would be better for the links to have been removed in any case, the fact that they weren't implies that the owner wasn't aware that these links had been added in the first place.
I'm very glad about that, because I really didn't want to have to believe that the site owner was using black-hat SEO techniques on a site which was about remembering those who aren't with us - it would have been abusing the cause.
As it is, I still feel a little nervous about linking the site considering the owner apparently hasn't noticed the additions yet, but as I've so far found no evidence of danger, I'm going to do so anyway, because it's well worth looking at the site and as far as I can see, it's just invisible SEO links that were added.
So, take a look at the Transgender Day of Rememberance site and see for yourself about the number of people who have died because they were trans. It's sad to see. :(
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relieved