Posted by wheeles 445 days ago
Category: Content filtering | Tags: expired untag tag expired domain
When a domain expires and is not renewed, or transfers to a new owner, it often has a change of use or becomes a parked domain. In order to clear up much of the mistagging of domains that have occurred when people submit their ancient and often wildly out-of-date blocklists, OpenDNS should remove the tags and classification on those domains that have expired and have passed through the "last chance to renew" period that many registrars offer.

OpenDNS should then automatically check to see whether those addresses respond to a query, and if they do (showing someone else has renewed the domain), put them in a recently expired category, or if they match one of the common parked domain templates out there, tag them as parked, or if there is no response at all, remove them from the database completely.

Far too often I have been reviewing sites that have been initially tagged as a specific category, only to find that they expired a couple of years ago and are now parked domains. Of course, this does not get around people submitting very old blocklists and mistagging domains, but it would help to clear up some of the bad data already in the database.
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Comments

written by timb_nz 321 days ago Rating: 0 | Rate Comment: + -

Is there a record kept of what domains used to be classed as?

If there is such a list then it could be possible to match the incoming lists with the historical data (automatically)

written by edavid3001 264 days ago Rating: 0 | Rate Comment: + -

This could be abused. Example - I find my site being blocked by openDNS so I go into my NetSol DNS manager and click the button to move my DNS back to the default parked page for a few days. Once all the tags in OpenDNS are gone, just click the button to move my DNS back to my ISP.

That could also be scripted very easily. Just watch OpenDNS for a block, script the NS to a parked domain page, once OpenDNS removes the block add it back.

I'm thinking Proxy, Malware, and those type of sites. Perhaps the less malicious categories such as sports and education would be ok.

written by wheeles 225 days ago Rating: 0 | Rate Comment: + -

edavid3001, my idea relates to domains that have passed their domain name expiration date. Simply changing the content to a parked domain halfway through the ownership period should not trigger a change of tags. Your trick would only really work once a year assuming you only chose to renew the domain for a year at a time and put up a parked page site at the same time that you renewed it.

I suppose some other test could be used such as if there is a change of the registrant details after the previous domain expiration date has passed.

Of course, with any scheme there would likely be the odd loophole or wrinkle that would need to be ironed out. However, not having a mechanism in place to clear out the out of date data from the database will only lead to more and more domains being mistagged as they expire, or pass into other hands and change their use.

If you can come up with a better solution, please do.


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