In this Article: An Unoriginal Concept Banned from HairlossTalk Underhanded Conduct Banned from other Sites Banned from Wikipedia

HerHairlossHelp Banned from Wikipedia; all major Hair Loss Sites From time to time we publish an updated list of websites which have violated our posting policies here on HairlossTalk.com. Unfortunately, some website owners feel it is their right to spam their link on other websites as a means of obtaining traffic. Unfortunately, most recently, the owners of a site by the name of HerHairlossHelp.com did just this on our site, several other hair loss sites, and ultimately they took on Wikipedia as well, and lost. Quite a bit of misinformation as to what really transpired has been passed around. This article discusses the facts, with examples as proof, of what really occurred with HerHairlossHelp.com

About 2 years agout HairlossTalk created a Women's Hair Loss site called HerAlopecia.com. It quickly grew into a bustling online community with unique features, unique offerings, and a very close-knit group of members who, almost entirely, were originally members of ours, here on HairlossTalk.com. Unfortunately, in September 2006, two HerAlopecia members began telling other forum members that the ownership of the site no longer cared about them, and considered them "unwanted step children". They told members their information was not safe or secure on the site, and encouraged discussions that the site ownership had intentionally given their personal info to the search engines. Their motivation for these comments eventually surfaced.

A completely unoriginal concept

The two members had created their own version of HerAlopecia.com called HerHairlossHelp.com. Not only was the domain name taken from another well known site: HairlossHelp.com, but the site itself was almost a carbon copy of HerAlopecia. The colors were different, but the Meta Tag Titles, Section Titles, Forum Names, and literally every main section of the site were carbon copies of those found on HerAlopecia. Even the website mantra "Made by women For Women" on the HerAlopecia home page was written front and center, on the HerHairlossHelp home page. The only problem, was that they needed traffic. Participation. So they began spamming the HerAlopecia forums with their URL, while simultaneously maligning the ownership of the website with statements mentioned above.

Banned from HerAlopecia & HairlossTalk

It was at this time that we started seeing these two women posting on HairlossTalk Forums, blatantly violating our posting policies, and encouraging OUR female members to leave our site and join theirs. Respecting our forum policies meant nothing to them. When they were asked to stop copying HerAlopecia, and stop spamming both sites, they refused, and continued until they were summarily banned from both websites.

Underhanded Conduct Continues

Unfortunately this did not stop them. They continued to register under fake usernames without bothering to modify their IP address or email, and began using the HerAlopecia Private Messaging system to invite people over to their site. When we caught them doing this, they attempted to malign our site even further, claiming we "violate people's right to privacy". To make matters even worse, the owner of HerHairlossHelp created a username "IWantMyHairBack" and began intentionally finding old Porn spam posts and bumping them to the top of the forums. This was an obvious attempt to make HerAlopecia forums look overrun with spam. One by one she found them and bumped them to the top: Example below...

Click to view full size:

Banned from all major Hair Loss Websites

The owners of HerHairlossHelp began going to other websites such as StopHairlossNow.co.uk, Hairsite.com, HairlossHelp.com, and many others, to try and spam their discussion forums and get more traffic. As a result, HerHairlossHelp.com has been banned from every single one of the above mentioned websites for spamming and posting violations. But it didn't end there...

HerHairlossHelp Banned from Wikipedia for Spamming

Staying true to form, the owners of HerHairlossHelp then proceeded to Wikipedia in an attempt to further steal traffic and gain link popularity. They spammed the Wikipedia database nearly 21 times, until the ownership of Wikipedia put a sitewide ban on the Herhairlosshelp domain name.

EXCERPT FROM WIKIPEDIA.COM

"HerHairlossHelp.com - MMoyer - the user had spammed the link 21 times and kept re-adding the link via anonymous IP addresses without discussion after multiple people had been removing it from 7 different articles. The site was blacklisted appropriately and does not add appropriate content to Wikipedia per en:Wikipedia:External links. (And although MMoyer is now claiming it was a different user who originally spammed those links, his original request to be removed from this list had a different spin on it [11]) Neil916 19:11, 29 August 2006 (UTC) In a way, I guess you can say that I did have a vendetta against herhairlosshelp.com after it was spammed so many times. After we removed it, you kept adding it back in. That's why I took the time to collect the sumbission history, monitor it, and submit it here to be blacklisted. You were using anonymous IP's and weren't responding to any of the messages we were sending you [12] [13] [14] [15]. I'm happy to see the spamming stop and strenuously oppose removing that link from the blacklist. Neil916 07:42, 4 September 2006 (UTC)"

You can read more about it here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Spam_blacklist/Archives/2006/10#herhairlosshelp.com

HairlossTalk has, over the years, helped *many* fledgling hair loss sites get their feet off the ground. Those that seemed interested in providing a genuine service to hair loss sufferers. There is an unspoken oath between website owners to never... ever... use eachothers websites to try and obtain traffic or memberships. You want to create a website? Great. Do so by your own hard work, your own unique ideas. And get your own traffic. Stealing traffic from other sites is considered embarrasingly offensive.

Note: The above article is a response to the immense amount of incorrect, dishonest, misinformation that has been flying around pertaining to this matter. If any facts mentioned above need to be substantiated by proof, this proof can easily be provided. Nothing above is inaccurate information, and the remainder is just our opinion, which we put our good reputation completely behind.

HLT