Kindred Konnections a.k.a. mytrees.com -- problems?
shellyinoh
mytrees.com?
For several years now I have been in correspondence with them on and off,
asking them to take their link to my site off of their site. They won't.
This is really taking the fun out of researching and having my site FREE to
the public (since 1997).
Currently if you're not a subscriber and go to mytrees.com, just type in
FOOR or FOORE and press enter. Most of the results shown on the first page
are mine and will be followed by the URL of www.foorgenealogy.com. If you
click on that link, it insists you register before you can get to it.
When registering, you must decide on what kind of SUBSCRIPTION you want.
1. Paid subscription ($5/10 days, $15/month, $100/year -- all with automatic
renewal)
2. FREE subscriptions that REQUIRE you to:
a. Gedcom your data to them
b. build a tree on the site and receive some free subscription time
c. do online document extractions for them for free subscription time.
(in other words -- pay them, give them your data, or work for them for
some free time)
My site is listed on all major search engines. A person looking for
information on my site can use these kind of search engines to find it. But
at least twice a year someone locates an individual on my site via Kindred
Konnections, and they always say how long it took them to finally get to me.
(There are more than that, but most know how to finagle their way out of KK
and get to the URL). Yes, these people are usually (not always) either
newbies to computers and/or research, or aren't very computer literate. I'm
happy they found me, but I think it's wrong how KK makes them register and
either pay, work, or submit data in order to locate me. I have over 25,000
individuals in one of my online databases alone, and every single one of
those individuals is indexed on the KK site.
I have, over the years, repeatedly asked them to remove the link to my site.
They won't.
My number one goal in putting all of my data online is so that it is FREE
and available to all. I, personally, think it's unethical for KK to index
my data. My only recourse is to password-protect my database and require
anyone who wants access to it to email me for the password. This would mean
not only could KK not spider/index my site anymore, but neither can any
other search engine, and I don't want that.
If you have a website up, and are not a subscriber to Kindred Konnections,
is your data indexed at their site as well? Just curious. Please let me
know.
Anyone have any suggestions as to how I can get them to stop indexing and
using my site?
Lesley Robertson
"shellyinoh" <shell...@foorgenealogy.com> wrote in message
news:10E_a.270612$BA.61...@twister.columbus.rr.com...
> Anyone have any suggestions as to how I can get them to stop indexing and
> using my site?
>
You could put a note on your site saying "if you got here via KK, complain
to them as access is free". Maybe if they get enough complaints from paying
members, they might so something.....
Lesley Robertson
Wes Groleau
> You could put a note on your site saying "if you got here via KK, complain
> to them as access is free". Maybe if they get enough complaints from paying
> members, they might so something.....
They had a version of my GEDCOM on their site.
When I complained to them that the header clearly
prohibited using it for commercial purposes, they
claimed that I had given it to them. As "compensation"
they "gave" me one month free access--and lots of free
spam.
I instructed them numerous times to stop spamming me
and to delete all trace of my info from their servers.
Eventually, the spamming stopped, but I found out a
few months after that that the obsolete GEDCOM was
still there.
D. Stussy
Depending on how much control you have over your web server configuration, you
may not need to do that. It seems that all you need to do is to deny access to
their indexing robot - and they will eventually drop your site. Use whatever
"browser type" variable their robot returns as the criterion to deny.
I find it obnoxious that they want to charge people for handing out the URL to
your site (that's what it comes down to).
> If you have a website up, and are not a subscriber to Kindred Konnections,
> is your data indexed at their site as well? Just curious. Please let me
> know.
I found that their web site is another BRAIN-DEAD one that requires javascript
to be enabled. No thanks.
> Anyone have any suggestions as to how I can get them to stop indexing and
> using my site?
See above.
Sue Doe Nyme
> I found that their web site is another BRAIN-DEAD one that requires
javascript
> to be enabled. No thanks.
ditto, great to know someone else feels this way
shellyinoh
has any. Also would like to know if you have a site online as to whether
they've indexed your site as well. My suggestion to find out would be to go
to mytrees.com and search on a name you feel is somewhat unique to your
site.
It's been years now that I've been trying to tackle this problem, and I've
gotten nowhere. I've also held my tongue when people discuss Kindred
Konnections (a.k.a. mytrees.com). I'm not holding it any longer. I think
they're unethical, they refuse to stop indexing my site for their records
(which means they have links to over 25,000 individuals on my searchable
database), and I'm very upset. I would, and will, never EVER suggestion
their site to anyone. They're taking ill-gotten gains and making profit
from them.
Shelly
--
www.foorgenealogy.com/gene.html "Genealogy in Bloom Twp., Fairfield Co.,
Ohio"
www.foorgenealogy.com "Foor Family Genealogy"