I just searched for something obscure, and Google’s first page was filled with links to a web site I’d never heard of – mybookezz.org. It had a very specific free eBook available on exactly the obscure subject I was interested in. Wonderful, if somewhat unexpected. Clicking on the link popped up something saying I needed to register for free with a credit card to prove I was real. I think not!
A bit of nosing around this professional looking site shows there are no contact details, and further digging shows it was registered but a couple of months ago using a American domain ownership obfuscation company. It’s hosted by – well not by anyone legitimate judging by the reverse lookup. The IP block belongs to Cloudflare, but this means nothing as it will be onward assigned to a hosting company. It also has an alias: mybookez.org – redirecting to the same site.
The whole thing looks like a phishing scam. If it’s not that, it’s encouraging people to upload eBooks to share with the rest of the world. So why is Google ranking this new site so highly?