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."

Ranking....

[BWJones]

Yeah, well there are lots of blogs that do better than a number of businesses and organizations for whatever reasons Google assigns ranking. I get a number of amused emails from people that find Google ranks my blog [utah.edu] higher than their dedicated sites for a shocking number of items. They want to know how I've engineered it, and I have to say I honestly don't know. But if they want to pay Google to increase their ranking above mine, go for it.

I suspect part of the reason is my selective use of links in articles I post to supplement the content I post with targeted information, as well as my hosting it from my office in an educational institution. Occasionally getting linked from places like Slashdot, BoingBoing and Digg can't hurt either....

Re:Ranking....

[OrangeTide]

google likes those who link and get linked. If your online store is poorly connected on the WWW then your ranking will be based on other factors that don't seem to be quite as important to google.

My resume is better ranked on google than some (minor) online stores.

Re:Ranking....

[cayenne8]

" If your online store is poorly connected on the WWW then your ranking will be based on other factors that don't seem to be quite as important to google."

What I find even more amusing...that so many people thing the internet was constructed primarily for commerce...when in fact, that is only a fairly recent by-product.

Re:Ranking....

[grahammm]

I have often wished that stores would not get such a high google rank. Many a time I have used google to try and find information about a product only to find the first few pages of response to be filled with stores selling the product and (even worse) price comparison sites.

Re:

[montyzooooma]

What's needed (and may even be available) is a google search term -shop.

Re:

[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"...

Re:Ranking....

[garcia]

They want to know how I've engineered it, and I have to say I honestly don't know. But if they want to pay Google to increase their ranking above mine, go for it.

I routinely outrank local businesses that I write about on my site. Generally these businesses are unknown to Google and if I don't link to their actual site (it may not exist prior to me posting about them and them subsequently finding out that I gave them an unfavorable review).

I have watched local businesses like Divinci's Pizza [lazylightning.org] go in and out of business while trying to gain top Google ranking. I have also had pissed off business owners post to my site trying to prove that they aren't as bad as I said they were.

Why am I ranked higher? Probably because of Slashdot and the various other blogs that link back to me (I'm somewhere around 270 links). Other than that, who the fuck knows.

But who cares what they say about their own stuff?

[TheLink]

And maybe some (not all) blogs should be ranked higher because more people find what they say about those businesses more interesting and useful than what those businesses say about themselves.

If I want to find contact information and other objective information (menus, product/price lists) for the business then I'll try their website first, but if I'm wondering whether to do business with them, frankly their website is secondary.

Even if I'm looking for docs on a particular product I don't bother with start

Re:

[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?

Re:

[BWJones]

Or maybe because you embed the link into every slashdot post?

Absolutely as it is part of my sig. Why would I not do that as Slashdot ranking has its advantages.

Re:Ranking....

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

When I google myself I don't even come

Didn't you hear the warnings about hair growing on the bottom of your mouse if you do that too often?

Re:Ranking....

[morgan_greywolf]

The part I find bizarre is this:

Exactly how does the online business owner figure that the blog owner, Dean Hunt, bears any responsibility for how Google ranks his blog with respect to the online store? Only Google is responsible for how it ranks pages. I suppose the business owner can sue Google, but somehow I doubt he'd get very far, considering that Google doesn't owe the shop owner anything in terms of pageranking unless he entered into some sort of contract with Google, but that's all between him and Google, right?

Re:Ranking....

[Christopher_Edwardz]

I would imagine that the business owners are attempting to "fool" google's ranking system. They just assume that Dean Hunt is trying and beating them and they're crying foul.

Perhaps they paid someone like a search engine placement company [seop.com] and feel a little angry at being cheated?

Re:Ranking....

[morgan_greywolf]

Okay, so I own a tree service company and call it Aardvark Tree Service, Inc. w00t! I get put first in the phone book!

You come along and start "AAA Tree Service Co.", since you also figured out, as did I, that companies are listed in the phone book in alphabetical order. Does this mean I now get to sue you because you are now first in the phone book?

This whole thing is just an utterly ridiculous penis measuring contest.

THIS IS FAKE, HE MADE THIS UP! PLEASE READ.

[Sir Homer]

This man owns a search optimization business, with its only purpose to increase the PageRank of other sites. There is no threatening letters. Mr. Dean Hunt fabricated them himself. He even writes in his website:

Over the coming weeks I am going to be attempting my very first viral campaign. A viral campaign is something that has interested me for a long time, and if done properly it can be one of the most powerful tools any webmaster has.

There is NO evidence this guy is telling the truth, but there is ALOT of evidence this guy is lying his ass off. Don't believe this Slashdot readers!

Mod Parent Up

[Nasarius]

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

Re:

[jlarocco]

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

Re:Mod Parent DOWN

[rk]

How about these?

asshole [deanhunt.com]

shithead [deanhunt.com]

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].

Re:He is in the SEO biz, and this is a viral campa

[mysticgoat]

An entry for wicktionary:

deanhunt

1. noun A particularly stupid way to shoot yourself in the foot with a viral advertising campaign gone bad. That advertising firm went bankrupt after the deanhunt it launched in December, 2006.
2. verb To publicly state that one is going to perpetrate a big advertising hoax and then attempt to initiate that hoax on slashdot or another forum known to be full of clever, investigative skeptics with lots of time on their hands. The advertising campaign might have been successful if its author hadn't deanhunted it on slashdot.
3. deanhunted, deanhunting adjective Referring to the state of self-destruction of credibility due to a particularly stupid deanhunt. The deanhunted advertising agency was never able to recover after the unfortunate series of events that it triggered in December 2006.

It looks like this is turning into a cautionary tale for would-be advertising gurus: just becoming widely known is not enough; you need to very much avoid becoming widely known as a laughingstock.

If this is true...

[denebian devil]

He did a really good job of it. A scan of his last couple months of posts show that on average he gets about 3-5 comments per post (if he's lucky). With this google search term fiasco, he's been getting dozens of comments per post, the highest so far being 158 on one post alone.

Mission accomplished??

Re:

[91degrees]

Well, I for one don't think he's an ass.

If this really is his plan, then I'd say it's a pretty good hoax. I'm not the only one who finds hoaxes funny.

Re:

[ergo98]

>If you're going to use the man's own words against him, then make sure you look at all his words.

Are you seriously arguing that the two don't coincide because the possibly fictitious story has a different timeline than his proclamation that he was going to start a fictitious story?

Um...do you know what fiction is?

Re:

[Zeinfeld]

Interesting. Most people who publish such letters want to stick it to the person who is attacking them. It is entirely believable that someone would do this sort of thing and similar things have happened. But why hide the identity of the site? Of course it is entirely possible that the site can't be published because it never existed. Other points that are compatible with this interpetation include the short length of time the blog has been operating for, only since July. And if you read the alleged email

Here's my secret

[shaneh0]

And I'll share it for free:

A rich internal link structure.

Blog software creates this by default, but you can do it manually. A recent website I was hired to optimize will illustrate this. The site is customSiliconeBracelets.com. When I was hired they were on the 30th page for their two desired phrases: Silicone Bracelets & Custom Silicone Bracelets. Now, they're number 1 in both of those.

To accomplish this, I did two main things:

1. Add a bunch of text. It's mostly nonsensical. It's not meant for human consumption. It's there for keyword density.

2. Add a shitload of intra-site links. Every keyword in that nonsensical text is linked to other pages in the site. If you tried to navigate the site by following such links (instead of using the sites navigation) you'd go in circles for hours. Which, when you look at the logs, is essentially what Googlebot does.

Of course, there was all the "standard" stuff like page titles, H tags, links with titles, alt text on images, etc. But those only get you so far. The real beef is in the link structures, friends.

Re:Here's my secret

[mccoma]

great.... "nonsensical" content - no wonder Google is becoming so polluted with crap. I do hope the search engines adapt to this crud.

Re:

[shaneh0]

Keep in mind that it's not gibberish, it's just not what I'd call beautiful prose. An excerpt:

"The custom silicone bracelet ( silicone bracelets ) has become a powerful new medium for organizations, schools, foundations and sports programs worldwide to raise money and promote their message or cause! Commonly referred to as the silicone bracelet, rubber wristband, silicone wristband , rubber bracelet, rubber bracelets, silicone rubber bracelets , charity bracelet , charity wristband,, silicone bracelets, or

Re:Here's my secret

[Nasarius]

3. Get removed from Google once they realize you're trying to game the system.

Re:

[shaneh0]

Hey, feel free to mod me -5 offtopic. I couldn't care less. If your goal is to boost your google ranking--and if it is it's probably because the success of your business depends on Google--then this is good advice.

People look at SEO as a scummy job but it exists for a reason. I'm a web developer--I created the companies shopping cart and back-end processing system--and I just happened to get into SEO for a previous client who needed the service. I have no issues with it. I'm not using any unethical or 'ille

Re:

[mysticgoat]

You should have kept it a secret.

You know that Google does ban web sites that are obviously gaming their system. You know that you have set up your current clients so that sooner or later one or more of them will be banned. And now you have publicly stated that you purposefully put your clients in that kind of jeopardy.

Any potential client who googles "shane harter" before committing to you might stumble across these posts and recognize that paying you money for the risk of possibly becoming banned from

Actually....

[shaneh0]

Before I complete any SEO contract I submit the site to Googles review team. If it gets banned, I do what I need to do to fix it. Usually it's just a 30 or 90 day ban at first and they'll unban you if you fix the problem that caused the ban.

If it doesn't get banned within 45 days after submission, they pay the remaining part of the contract and it's considered complete.

So far, 15-or-so websites later, I've *never* has a website banned.

All you need to do is follow their webmaster guidelines, as I've already

Re:

[shaneh0]

I think it's HILARIOUS that you equate SEO with stealing, fraud, price fixing, insider trading and war profiteering. It says a lot to me about your personal values system and your judgment.

I have many thoughts on this.

1)
You're not deriding the entire software development profession just because some people create spyware, are you? Of course not. You pay your bills writing software. You think it 'contributes to the overall happiness of mankind' or some such thing.

But you're quick to judge the entire SEO indu

Re:Get a Clue.

[anagama]

"5 - Is telemarketing good business? Junk mail? Sure, the rules are level, it's a tool that can be used. But it's a detriment. It's a drain. "

This is your thinking, and this is why you're wrong.

What is a drain about Junk Mail? It GIVES PEOPLE JOBS. It MAKES PEOPLE MONEY.

It's a needless waste of natural resources, trees and oil come to mind immediately but there must be others. It does nothing but cause me frustration and increase waste. And you can be sure the junk mailers aren't contributing to even the financial costs of landfill space, let alone the environmental costs of their actions. It is a "tragedy of the commons" situation.

As for "job creation" -- so would roving bands of rock throwing hoodlums. Think of all the glass companies and installers that would employ. Now, breaking people's windows is illegal because it wrongfully deprives the window owners of their personal resources. The distinction with junk mail is that sadly, junk mail is still legal because people haven't figured out that junk mailers are wrongfully depriving us of our resources (money to clean up after the bastards, and environmental destruction to make the crap). So from a moral rather than legal perspective, where "moral" includes the notion that depriving people of their personal resources is wrong, junk mail is just as immoral as property damage. It's just sadly legal.

Re:

[Short Circuit]

On Slashdot, that's irrelevant [slashdot.org].

Re:Ranking....

[megaditto]

No it isn't. Robots.txt does not include "article.pl" [slashdot.org] which is the article front page that shows all the comments.

As long as your post is modded up and thus visible via article.pl, all your links get counted!

In particular, all +5 Comments' links are registered by google.

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?

Even easier.

[khasim]

Put a little link at the top of his site saying "If you're looking for Texas lawyer .... click here (link)".

What's next? Students sued because they're more popular than the unpopular students? "Sally only won home coming queen because she's a cheerleader and promiscuous! It's UNFAIR!"

TV ad - Was your child devastated when she wasn't voted home coming queen? The law offices of Dewey Cheatum can help. We also provide Google ranking services.

Re:Even easier.

[no reason to be here]

Sally only won home coming queen because she's a cheerleader and promiscuous!

I'd like to meet this Sally.

Re:Even easier.

[kaizenfury7]

Yeah right... like you'd really be able to recruit her into your World of Warcraft guild.

Re:Even easier.

[dourk]

Put a little link at the top of his site saying "If you're looking for Texas lawyer .... click here (link)".

No way. Why should I change? He's the one who sucks.

Re:

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

Blogs are a form of news reporting, news is commerce and has been for years. Ergo, any kind of argument that a 'personal blog' has nothing to do with commerce is a horrible one.

I'm not going to say that the quality of an argument doesn't mean anything in Texas.

I'm not going to say that the quality of an argument doesn't mean anything in Texas.

D'oh. Here it comes.

'Reality Based Sources' show that the quality of arguments has no effect on their validity in Texas.

There. I just couldn't resist.

Re:

[torstenvl]

Do Texans tell you to "expect a letter in the post"? That doesn't sound like a Texan to me.

Even the stupidest lawyers aren't stupid enough

[Sir Homer]

To send letters like that. I have a feeling Mr. Dean Hunt is fabricating this story, as his business is mainly google bombing and search engine optimization.

Re:

[nietsch]

You are not the only one with that feeling. Pretending to protect the innocent could also be a guise for not having any proof. We'll see if he ever discloses his name and domain.

Re:

[Gnavpot]

Ummm...it's an email. You want him to print out the email, and then scan it?

Actually, I think he want the email scanned for bit potential.

It is a well-known fact (among experts at least) that the standard deviation of the bit potential is higher than usual in faked emails. In a normal email, the 0s usually varies between -0.05 and +0.05 and the 1s between 0.95 and 1.05.

In a faked email created with a cheap falsification program, it is not unusual to see variation up to +/- 0.3 from the nominal value.

Using

Commerce

[Khammurabi]

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?

Main Entry: commerce
Pronunciation: 'kä-(")m&rs
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French, from Latin commercium, from com- + merc-, merx merchandise
1 : social intercourse : interchange of ideas, opinions, or sentiments
2 : the exchange or buying and selling of commodities on a large scale involving transportation from place to place

I

Re:

[Shadowlore]

Either way, if the guy's so concerned, why hasn't he registered deanhunt.biz? If you think I'm out of my mind, you've never encountered a lawyer before.

I have encountered many lawyers. Hence .ass would be a better TLD for lawyer sites. Generally speaking of course.

Re:

[mr_mischief]

Anyone who deals in designing or hosting web sites professionally as a service to other companies will tell you there are plenty of idiots doing business online.

Cry me a river...

[Marton]

An undisclosed somebody is threatening to sue a poor little blogger over something. Come on. This is not news. Where are the facts?

Re:

[epiphani]

News: Google changes search results for business over blog
Not News: Small business files weightless and doomed lawsuit over Google ranking.
Slashdot: Some blogger receives email from business complaining about Google ranking.

Re:

[udderly]

Facts? Facts? We don't need no stinking facts!

Re:

[Quebec]

I agree with the comment: without the facts this is not a worthy story

Re:

[devilspgd]

But great marketing for this guy's little blog, and his own business too, no?

Dump him to page 4

[totallygeek]

It would be funny to duplicate the content and massively interlink sites to drop the business page ranking even worse. Does anyone know if this approach has been successfully attempted in the past?

Re:

[Rob T Firefly]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb [wikipedia.org]

Simple

[torstenvl]

FRCP 12(b)(6) the thing. Plaintiff has not stated a claim upon which relief can be granted. Then you're done.

Re:

[DoorFrame]

I suppose he could make some sort of an argument for fraud if he was motivated.

News in Brief: Slashdot assists in bogus claim!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that deanhunt has been slashdotted, the bogus claimant can rejoice, for deanhunt no longer exists (at least for a few hours).

Re:

[Hijacked Public]

The bogus part is that there is no bogus claimant.

How is this even his problem?

[coyote-san]

Google is the one ranking entries. The blogger has absolutely no control over what Google does. So why is this even his question?

Think about it. No matter how frustrating it may be, can Bob sue Jim because Mary said Jim was a better lover? Of course not.

For that matter, if a lawyer is involved hasn't this already gone far enough to bring in the state bar? Lawyers can push the envelope, but they can't threaten to sue somebody when they know they have absolutely no chance of prevailing.

Re:

[slew]

Seems to me like this is like "John Smith, J.D." complaining to "John Smith" that the phone book publisher accidentially listed "John Smith" first in the yellow pages under "sharks" and that "John Smith" should ask the phone book publisher to remove his name from the yellow pages because obviously he is not a professional shark, unlike "J.D." which is a professional shark and much more deserving of the first listing. Of course "John Smith" has nothing to do with the fact he was listed in the yellow pages u

Reminds me of....

[SuperStretchy]

A quite I heard:
Fighting on the internet is like the Special Olympics. Even if you win, you're still retarded.

While not necessarily the most tactful of quotes, it does ring true.

Bernard Shiffman

[CyberLife]

The guy's name isn't Bernard Shiffman [slashdot.org] by any chance, is it? :P

MY BLOG WAS SUED BY MICROSOFT

[Shihar]

I am totally serious. My blog was SUED BY MICRO$OFT because I made some software that was so much more awesome then theirs. I even have the letters they sent me to prove it!!11!!! Now, if the Slashdot editors will kindly accept my claim without any sort of validation and post me on a Slashdot front page...

Seriously. Show an ounce of journalistic integrity and don't give a podium to utterly baseless claims. He doesn't even say what company is suing him so we can't even bother to ask that company if this is real. Any idiot could have made this up for the singular purpose of driving up hits. I am not saying that the guy is liar (he very well could be telling the truth), just he shouldn't get a free stage to advertise until there is at least the semblance of a claim that can be fact checked.

Re:

[rmadmin]

I agree completely. And the fact that he's 'protecting' the company that wants to sue him? WTF? I'm calling his bluff. If someone was trying to sue me for something stupid, I would advertise it to the best of my abilities. If you're gonna sue me for something stupid, I'm going to let EVERYONE know just how stupid you are.

So, is "anonymous reader" the opposing site owner?

[AnswerIs42]

Considering the refered site in the post is now 500 error.. I think the submitter has accomplished what their threats did not.

I am not saying that "anonymous reader" IS the person sending the threats to Deanhunt.com ... but who knows in this day and age.

30 Comments and nobody asking about Mike?

[Overzeetop]

Wouldn't every body here want to see a blog by Mike Hunt?

Laugh. It's funny.

Okay, it isn't. It's tired and overused. And oddly enough, MikeHunt.com is safe for work. Whoddathunkit?

Never underestimate the subtle stuff.

[ScentCone]

On a site I run, I've got articles I've written about other businesses (typically complimentary) that invariably rank higher than the businesses' own web sites, especially on slightly odd-ball searches, but often on something as simple as the business's name. And the only thing I'm doing is using better grammar, and generally carrying on in a more conservative way. Google seems to reward restraint. Breathless promotional material always seems to take a back seat to lucid, well-constructed information.

Sure, Google ranks plenty of blatant trash higher than it sometimes should, but it's not always that way. My own experience is that actual, real content remains king. Small businesses frequently don't take the time to actually write any real meat for their own web sites. Hell, a lot my older stuff still isn't even all that standards-compliant (I swear I'll get around that CSS stuff one of these days), but it usually exceeds the sites about which I'm writing. And, of course, it's a feedback loop. The more credible some of my pages appear, the higher the new ones rank, too. No witchcraft, no magic sauce: just careful writing and resisting the urge to run content from the slimier ad engines.

Re:

[spyrochaete]

Google seems to reward restraint.

Very well said. It seems that blogs in general are Google's favourite subject matter because they are composed of full sentences and typically contain hyperlinks to popular sites. Many businesses use decade-old tricks like spamming meta tags or individual words in text the same colour as the background, and Google has evolved much since then. In other cases, corporate sites use gratuitous Flash elements, complex dynamic content, or session IDs which cannot be consider

Re:

[mr_mischief]

What I'd really like to know is why they didn't just offer to pay a huge amount for an ad on Dean's site rather than badgering him with threats of a frivolous lawsuit. Problem solved, since they'd be getting traffic via his rank.

If a person beats another person for coercive purposes, that's illegal. If a person makes a threat of physical violence in order to get someone to change their behavior, that's illegal. If a person files a frivolous lawsuit that can be illegal. When is it going to be illegal to thre

My response

[DebianDog]

Dear [edited]

Since your business [edited].com is doing rather well and top ranking is important to your business. Please transfer $[edited] in U.S. dollars to this [edited] account. When that happens I will gladly remove any and all references to [edited].com.

Thanks and bite me

Not convinced this guy is truthful

[Sir Homer]

I saw a link to this on his website: http://www.deanhunt.com/services/index.html [deanhunt.com]

It raises some suspicion as this guy's business seems to be googlebombing. Perhaps he fabricated this story in order to get his website up in PageRank by people linking to him.

Re:Not convinced this guy is truthful

[Sir Homer]

Not true. From his his website he seems to really want people to blog about it. He thanks people for blogging about it and puts "easy to blog" links. He says on website before this "event" occurs that he will attempt a "viral campaign".

Over the coming weeks I am going to be attempting my very first viral campaign. A viral campaign is something that has interested me for a long time, and if done properly it can be one of the most powerful tools any webmaster has.

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.

One Last Email

[fm6]

What's frustrating here is that Dean has not thought to ask the question I'd really liked answered: why does this bozo believe that he has a legal claim to the top Google hit for a particular search term? Dean, how about it? At the very least it will probably shut the guy up.

Re:

[jfengel]

As best I can tell, he thinks that Dean's site is not about whatever-[edited]-is at all, so he deserves it more than Dean does. He's probably reasoning by analogy to domain names, where you can (sometimes) have a domain name taken from you if the name is your trademark and your site isn't using it for the purpose.

It's designed to prevent cybersquatting, but it doesn't do much good at that, and a lawsuit there is only intermittently successful. Either way it only applies to domain names, not Google search ke

Tuttle Award nominee

[DrJimbo]

I nominate the anonymous businessman for the first annual Tuttle Award.

See Misconfigured Webserver, Threats to Call FBI [slashdot.org].

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.

The numbers don't lie

[spyrochaete]

This reminds me of a similar occurrance last year when Dave Redl, owner of the "Familypants" brand, wrote a cease and desist letter to a website. This website had a discussion forum and one of the forum users named himself "Familypants". Message posts by that user appeared higher on Google than the Familypants website.

If anyone cares, I wrote a rather opinionated, juvenile, and scathing blog entry [demodulated.com] on this topic. The next day I felt bad about being such a meanie to Dave Redl so I wrote a follow-up arti [demodulated.com]

WIFM!

[www.sorehands.com]

Whats In it For Me!
A key marketing term. People only go to a web site when there is something in it for them.

If you just put advertising for your service or product, people will only go when they want your service or product -- if they make it through all your competitors. People generally do not send others to a sales pitch. If you put up information related to your product, but also to educate them and turn it into more of a destination then to buy, you get people going there before they want to buy so wh

Could it be?

[DaveJay]

Could it be? I mean, truly, really possibly, actually? That a web site talking about, and providing information about, something is considered more relevant than a site selling something? I know that when I search for a specific product, 99 times out of 100 I'm not looking for a place to buy it, but for a place to get information and reviews about it. Under those circumstances, I find the sales sites to be annoying noise. Perhaps Google is finally doing something about this.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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.

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.

Check out how he is doing it!

[sr. taquito]

Oh my, if you hover over the people's names who have submitted responses, seems like each person's web site that the name links to is a business. I tried to submit a response, but it was rejected! He's a sneaky devil. That is how those sites are getting higher rankings, his blog links to their sites through the fake comments.

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.

I'm Still Waiting To Be Extorted...

[Bones3D_mac]

My online identity of nearly 10 years (Bones3D) is probably starting to look awfully tasty to some enterprising 3D modeling/animation software developer, since it sounds like it'd be a high end inverse kinematics system of some sort. In my case though, it's more of an amalgam of a high school nickname and the field I was trained in several years later. So the two parts are virtually unrelated.

Another fun one, would be my real name itself (James Meade), which actually is a popular clothing manufacturer out in the U.K., similar to what Levi Strauss is here in the U.S. I'm not real worried about them though, since I rarely use my real name online more than I have to.

At any rate, it helps to be aware of how your identity could be taken out of it's original context and used for commercial purposes.

Needless to say, it does bring up an important question... how much is your online identity worth to you? And on what terms would you be willing to part with it?

"key" words

[Joebert]

I've grown to learn that when people make a point to let you know they're "honestly" doing somthing, or "genuinely" feeling some way, they're full of shit.

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:

[antispam_ben]

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.

Presuming Mr. [edited] actually contacted Google as he said he did, he has admitted to Google that he DOES want to fiddle with his ratings. And thus I'm sure Google will give Mr. [edited] the exact amount of attention he deserves.

Dunno if it is a hoax or not

[night_flyer]

but the same thing has happened to me (not the suing part though) my blog rating is higher than the actual resturaunt I was reviewing

Business should be ranked higher because why?!

[erroneus]

Because it's business? That says more than I ever could about the "royal" mentality that many people seem to have. And in all this time, I has presumed a certain level of snobbery was all in my imagination! You know, that "Us vs. Them" feeling we all get? I'm definitely on the "less successful" side of the "Us vs. Them" fence.

But for this business professional to actually come out and SAY what I had always suspected they believe is just... I don't know the word for it... unsettling in a way. I guess it's because I also believe there is a lot more that goes unsaid. So like cockroaches, if you see one, there's probably thousands. If they'll say this and believe it, there's probably a LOT worse going on in his head.

It is real?

[microbee]

Could there be a remote possibility that bloggers now start inventing stories to attract more clicks?

Re:

[fractalus]

...and of course somehow I managed to post the same link twice... ...oops...

Re:please counter-sue

[LurkerXXX]

The lawsuit isn't needed anymore. By posting the story to /. as an anonymous coward, the store owner just blasted the bloggers website off the net. Now google'ers will bypass the downed blog website, and go on to the store.

Brilliant!

Re:The blogger's problem?

[ScentCone]

What's the point of suing the blogger? If Google is the one that creates the page rankings, and is the reason why that blog is ranked higher than his website, how is it the blogger's fault?

I'm sorry, sir, but we won't be needing you and your fancy rational thinking on the jury. Have a nice day!

Re:

[Apocalypse111]

Not that I advocate taking them seriously, but conservative radio talk show hosts seem to pay a lot of attention to what various bloggers have to say. And lets be honest now, there isn't one unbiased news source out there anymore. If you're alive, then you have an opinion, and your opinion will color whatever it is you're trying to write about.

Re:

[__aaclcg7560]

No, "truthiness" was this year's winner. Unless "slashdotted" cripples the next presidential election by jamming all those voting machines, I don't expect to see that word in any dictionary.

Re:

[Overzeetop]

No, offer him advertising space on your website, and threaten to add more websites above him on Google if he doesn't! Dean should tell him that he intends to play hardball, and will have Google strike his entry entirely if necessary.

Re:Hoax or not it's damn funny.

[Reality Master 101]

This newly-created account is Dean Hunt!! Read his posts. They're subtle attempts to get people to link to the story, as well as convince them it's not a hoax. Another Slashdotter figured this out, and I completely agree.

You, sir, are a scum-bag loser.