Lesson on Search Engine Optimization

[fazool]

Hey folks,

I just wanted to put some info out there.

Occasionally there are companies that make most of their marketing success by manipulating search results, spamming keywords, hosting phantom review websites etc.

S.E.O. is a science of managing search engine results.

Google, changed their results ranking rules in Oct 2013 requiring more frequent social content to increase ranks.

So, companies will do anything to get their name out there on social websites, forums, etcetera. Just by continuing the conversation, they have succeeded because their goal has nothing to do with the reader or their opinions. Its all about local forum traffic.

A tell-tale sign is a brand new forum user asking a question about a questionable brand. Bingo.

If you know that a company goes to the trouble of hosting dozens of guitar "review" websites, then you need to understand and believe that they make fake forum usernames and make fake forum question posts.

And just saying their name rings the cash register bells for them - even disparagingly because Google doesn't rank WHAT you say - just that their name was used in a recent conversation.

If you really despise these (this) company, simply never use their name on a forum or website again. Stop giving them search rankings.

[barley]

Great information fazool. I knew something smelled but I couldn't explain it.

Thanks.

[Dirk Hofman]

The common term is "astro-turfing". As in "fake grass-roots" advertising.

They hire interns and pay people per post to add fake content to comments platforms like Disqus, forums like this, and add fake reviews and commentary to Yelp and other review platforms. Much of the "opinion" you see in comments, particularly on controversial topics (you know, the ones we can't talk about here) are totally fake.

Lance Armstrong famously did this with a firm called Public Strategies. Members of his Livestrong board like Mark MicKinnon were employees of Public Strategies, the company which orchestrated multi-media attacks on Greg LeMond after LeMond commented on Armstrong's links with the Italian doping doctor Michele Ferrari.

Every time an article would come out on Armstrong, the comments section would immediately get buried in talking points from the Armstrong camp, all pure fiction and drivel.

It happens ALL THE TIME across every topic you can imagine. Anyone with the resources to shape a message uses this strategy as an integral part of shaping public opinion. We're all influenced by it. Horrible stuff.