What do you make of this website

[geogphotos]

https://en.newvisiontours.com

 

I came across one of my images that had been used in the Guardian.

 

https://da.newvisiontours.com/2213751-zahara-de-la-sierra-what-if-you-only-came-to-cdiz-to-meet-her

 

They have a loads of Alamy images but Contributor Services has  'not got any relevant licenses or downloads for this usage' for mine.

 

The home page looks quite legitimate at first sight, but why no contact details?

 

Scroll down and see how many languages each article is translated into. 

 

I tried a WhoIs search and from the address found all sorts of allegations being made about other er....operations.... emanating from their postal address. 

 

The first thing Alamy would want is an email address. They don't offer one. 

 

What is going on? What are they doing and how does it make them money?

Edited March 28, 2021 by geogphotos

[MizBrown]

Scraper site.  I had something I'd posted to a web forum repurposed and given a male gender to the writer when all sorts of scammers were flocking to Nicaragua to make money on real estate.  The assumption would be that everyone will be planning to take vacations when restrictions lift, and will be googling for info.   They're even scraping Conde Nast, which might find this less amusing.  They make money by affiliate links.  One file can't be found so they may be hot-linking.  One of my browsers lets me look at the source code, which would show if they were hot-linking or not, and from where.    Firefox.  And this looks like it's hot-linked:  <script>new Image().src="https://counter.yadro.ru/hit?r"+escape(document.referrer) + ((typeof(screen)=="undefined")?"" : ";s"+screen.width+"*"+screen.height+"*" + (screen.colorDepth?screen.colorDepth:screen.pixelDepth)) + ";u"+escape(document.URL) + ";" +Math.random();</script>

 

Some they just scraped.  And it gave me the page in non-English but not Spanish when I clicked a second time, so they're playing some kind of games.

 

Clicks to various venues are probably how they make money.  I threw up a little in my mouth at the hotel they promoted in Nicaragua. 

Edited March 28, 2021 by MizBrown
TMI

[John Mitchell]

There is no search engine apparently, which means that they probably don't expect anyone to actually read the content.

[K J Bennett]

2 hours ago, geogphotos said:

The first thing Alamy would want is an email address. They don't offer one.

Looking at the page source, the header shows this email

info@en.newvisiontours.com

 

Could be a good start point

[geogphotos]

Thanks.

 

Email address hidden in source code - how inviting 🙃

[MizBrown]

5 hours ago, geogphotos said:

Thanks.

 

Email address hidden in source code - how inviting 🙃

 

They're also not telling anyone about how this isn't an objective review site, either.  So they get paid the more visitors to the site click through to the promo bits, so why have a search engine if you can get more hits without one.   Assumption is that people will be traveling in a surge after the pandemic is under control, or countries stop caring (Costa Rica).

[wiskerke]

22 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

There is no search engine apparently, which means that they probably don't expect anyone to actually read the content.

Who needs one?

(yes I know about nofollow)

In google try: alamy site:newvisiontours.com

 

wim

 

edit:

regular google yields 276 results for Alamy.

google images only 20.

Edited March 29, 2021 by wiskerke