No Press Is Bad Press Even Online

otter42 writes "The NYTimes has an 8-page exposé on how an online business is thriving because of giant amounts of negative reviews. It seems that if you directly google the company you have no problem discerning the true nature; but if you instead only google the brand names it sells, the company is at the top of the rankings. Turns out that all the negative advertisement he generates from reputable sites gives him countless links that inflate his pagerank."

No need to RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks to the NYT's valiant efforts, you can be spared from reading TFA: just check out the comic [nytimes.com] instead.

Re:Hyperlinks and Pagerank 101

[datapharmer]

sure there is, use rel="nofollow" if you don't want to share link love.

Re:Hyperlinks and Pagerank 101

[devbox]

This whole conversation is stupid, because Google and other search engines understand rel="nofollow" attribute in links. It's already there. Besides, PageRank is just one system Google uses - they have countless amount of other algorithms too.

Re:Nofollow?

[mounthood]

rel="nofollow" isn't new and it's useful for large websites with user submitted content. Slashdot, for example, adds it to outbound links to remove any incentive to increase page rank by spamming links. All the major search engines respect it AFAIK.

Are People Really Reading the Results?

[oDDmON oUT]

Sure, Google DecorM****s.com and the top five hits are all for that company, followed by a link to Resellerratings.com [resellerratings.com] where the company has a stunning 1.39 lifetime rating out of 10.

Googling Lafont (with multiple suffixes), designer glasses or designer frames brings up a number of vendors, DecorMy... not being one of them.

Seems to me people need to hone their search skills and *always* search for ratings on vendors when ever they make a purchase, particularly when using them for the first time.

[Please note, I munged the company name, just to insure he gets no wuffie from this post]

Re:ORLY?

[oDDmON oUT]

Google: Christian Audigier glasses

DME is #6 on that results page, what's your point?

A smart shopper would click here [google.com], and quickly find that DME is *not* a low price leader for any style of frame from that designer, pictured on the results page.

Not to mention that lower priced vendors on that page are associated with e-tailers that have standards and pull...or is Amazon not "all that" anymore?

Do your homework on the vendor you intend to buy from, don't take links blindly, and you'll be fine.

Re:Short-sighted?

[sampas]

The guy in the story is taking advantage of the fact that the authorities (who we're paying for via tax dollars) will do absolutely nothing for months and months until more and more complaints pile up. Most police reports are now online so that crime victims don't waste officers' time reporting crimes. The victim in the story reported the crime to numerous authorities, who responded by doing nothing for a long time. Likewise, the bank did nothing. It would be cool if Google did something about it, but it's not their problem. Our tax dollars pay the salaries of those who are supposed to protect us. It's a fairly simple case of fraud, harassment, and threat of violence. If you ever thought the your bank would protect you in case of fraud or identity theft, they won't. The only thing the banks protect is their own money. Maybe you've noticed the news about mortgage fraud? Not many convictions there, either. On the upside, though, they did manage to catch Bernie Madoff eventually....