In preparation for his podcast series, organiser James Hopkin recently conducted research into the history of Newtons Nation to make sure he was giving out accurate information.

His research led him to the Newtons Playground website, which was the official website of the skateboarding event in 2008.

He noticed that the website now seemed to be used to promote an event, which Mr Hopkin believes to be fake, while using links through the website to send people to other websites.

Mr Hopkin explained that the original domain was owned by Bathurst Regional Council, but when council chose not to run Newtons anymore, the domain was left to expire.

The domain would have been taken over by a company, he said, which then aims to re-sell or re-register it.

The website is then made to look legitimate, but it uses links that go back to a client’s website, which helps to improve their Google ranking. 

In the case of Newtons Playground, links send people to Skately, a board shop in the United States.

“Google is the largest website in the world and it uses a voting system, so the website with the largest number of links seems to have the most authority,” Mr Hopkin said. 

He shared details on the Newtons Nation Facebook page this week, which he said was to prevent people being fooled by the Newtons Playground website. 

“If Newtons wasn’t happening each year, then it doesn’t really matter, but as we have an event every year, if people search for it and find this website, they may think the event isn’t happening,” Mr Hopkin said.

“It is for the downhill skating community to be aware that there is a false website out there, so they don’t reference to it or link it it.” 

Anyone wanting details on the event should visit www.newtonsnation.com or find Newtons Downhill Skateboard Racing on Facebook.