Online Store to Sue Blogger Over Google Ranking?

An anonymous reader writes "An online business owner is threatening to sue blog owner Dean Hunt (DeanHunt.com) because he is upset that the blog owner is doing better than his business in the Google search rankings. After an initial threat, Dean received a follow-up threatening to take legal action against him. So far Dean has elected not to name and shame this business owner."

Perhaps Its the Lawyer

[eldavojohn]

So far Dean has elected not to name and shame this business owner.

Maybe it's the Texan lawyer by the same name [findlaw.com] whose practice has been so far 100% litigation? The letter sure sounds like the author has found something in his books of law that give him just enough edge to use his firm in forcing this guy to settle out of court.

Who ever is doing this, I'll bet there's some stupid law they can leverage that says that Top Level Domains (TLDs) should only be used for what they stand for. Afterall, the .com TLD [wikipedia.org] is short for 'commercial' or 'commerce.' I know it claims to be 'open' but a blog isn't anything commercial so maybe these are just beginning petty threats that will lead to a domain squatting lawsuit? Either way, if the guy's so concerned, why hasn't he registered deanhunt.biz [deanhunt.biz]? If you think I'm out of my mind, you've never encountered a lawyer before.

When I search for Dean Hunt, the blog beats any references to that lawyer's firm by a long shot but the links referring to the lawyer follow the blog immediately after it's #1 slot.

Anyone else find it hilarious that all these news articles are going to Google bomb the blog into a no-way-beatable #1 position for at least a few months? And what's this guy supposed to do? Check Google daily to ensure that he hasn't offended this ranking implication that the online store claims should be in place superseding Google's pagerank?

Re:Ranking....

[kanani]

"suspect part of the reason is my selective use of links in articles I post to supplement the content I post with targeted information,"... Or maybe because you embed the link into every slashdot post?

SEO slashvertisement - viral campaign

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes great. He posts a truly funny e-mail exchange on his site. And now he even gets slashdot exposure.

He even wrote: I will make a viral campaign!
http://deanhunt.com/category/seo/ [deanhunt.com]

This is it and you have fallen for it. Stupidos.

Mod Parent Up

[Nasarius]

This seems *very* suspicious. Parent quotes from this post [deanhunt.com].

SEO Viral Campaign

[Zegnar]

Is this not in fact the Viral Campaign [deanhunt.com] he talks about starting on his blog? Seems to be working, since he's on Slashdot already, plus all the links go to his site and none to the other (ostensibly undisclosed) address.

He is in the SEO biz, and this is a viral campaign

[Infonaut]

This man owns a search optimization business

Nice catch, Sir Homer.

Here's where he tells us he's going to mount a viral campaign [deanhunt.com].

fake news, viral marketing

[ukyoCE]

Just to reiterate what someone else tracked down in hopes of getting this (wholly ambiguous and suspect to begin with) story checked out:

http://deanhunt.com/category/seo/ [deanhunt.com]

Basically this guy has a side job of helping companies up their pageranks, and made all this up as an "experiment in viral marketing". Nothing to see here...and sure explains why he's keeping the company name and search terms secret.

this is crazy

[JustNiz]

The person doing the suing is totally misguided and obviously trying to extort money through fear rather than having an actual case.

How could someone sue another site owner over his google ranking? He has no control over how google rank his site, unless he paid google, which is perfectly legal anyway. At least they should be suing google, but probably decided they'd be destined to lose.

Anyway google don't hide the fact that they sell search ranking order as a product/service.

Why is this even on Slashdot?

[goldcd]

1) Anybody who runs a website with a reasonable number of users gets shit-loads of this sortof email every day. You ignore it and just accept that the world is full of nuts and we've allowed them to send emails
2) This guy is quite clearly interested in fiddling with Google rankings - indulging him by linking and quoting his blog is really really not very helpful.

Re:Tuttle Award nominee

[LWATCDR]

Nope his is still city manger of Tuttle last time I checked.
Tuttleing:
When a person or group make an ass of themselves on the Internet by threatening legal action without just cause.
Usually involving some abuse of power or position all they while displaying a large degree of arrogance and stupidity.

Re:Mod Parent Up

[jlarocco]

Cached page [nyud.net] for people who don't want to help the idiot get hits.

Re:Ranking....

[Anonymous Coward]

If you've got FF, get the customizegoogle extension. Does a bunch of useful things.. including filter out certain domains from search results, with the intended purpose being that you can stop getting links from comparison sites.

Re:Ranking....

[thc69]

Those terms would also be common in non-store results. It's a good idea though; maybe stuff like -"add to cart" -"shopping cart"...