No, not this message board, but this web site: “New Hope Madera”
Actually, it’s seems to be a whole class of web pages, with the following characteristics:[ul]
[li]Usually created with WordPress, though not always[/li][li]May or may not have a particular focus (such as freelance writing, or “technology,” etc.)[/li][li]Refer to themselves as “blogs,” but consist entirely of posts which are either boilerplate interviews of seemingly random, obscure people/small businesses, or are short, generic articles like “8 Tips for Writing a Scholarship Essay.”[/li][li]NOBODY comments on the entries – it really seems like nobody is reading these web pages[/li][li]All the entries are attributed to the same person, with a seemingly “real person” name (such as “Andrew Knight,” or “Eric Donald Grey,” yet all of the writing is totally generic and impersonal.[/li][/ul]Here’s another one, and another one.
Something about these web pages just screams out “fake,” but I’m not sure what they’re really accomplishing. I have two ideas:[ul]
[li]They’re just not-so-cleverly concealed advertising for the people/businesses featured in the entries.[/li][li]They’re part of a way for someone to divert attention away from negative internet search results. So if your name is somehow connected to some notorious thing, negative results from a search for your name will be diluted with the hits from pages like this.[/ul]If either of these is true, of course there’s nothing on the web page itself that advertises it as such, so I’m curious how one gets onto these pages. [/li]
Does anyone know anything about this?
Then how are they "affiliate websites,’’ (since there are no ads)? Each of those interviewees must have somehow found their way to the spamming system. How do they do that? How would I get my website into the spam blog?
Each article will have links to other blogs or sites which increases traffic and page views which lead to more ad impressions. Sometimes it’ll send you to buy something directly from their site or an affiliate. The articles themselves are “ads”, or spam depending on how you look at it.
That’s like asking a scam artist to help you get in on the scam. Maybe if you personally know a spam blogger and ask them nicely, they might direct some traffic your way. Otherwise you’ll have to start your own splog. Needless to say, I am not advocating this.
No – What I’m asking is how does any given person/business/enterprise, etc., end up on one of these websites. It’s not like they’re all just friends who are helping each other out. You’ll notice that one particular person, who claims to be a “travel blogger,” is “featured” on all three of these examples, either with an interview, of just a paragraph description of his “business” with a link to the guy’s own web page. I don’t think he just happened to know all three of the spam bloggers.
So how did he end up on these web sites? Is there some kind of clearing house that you can pay that will put you on a bunch of spam blogs? I really doubt that he went to each one separately and got them to “feature” his travel blog “business.” In fact, I don’t think this guy’s travel blog business is legit at all. I think he created it solely to divert attention from web search hits on his name that would produce something he doesn’t want people to see. In this guy’s case, it’s not about advertising, or revenue of some other type. It’s about his search profile. So how did he arrange for this to happen?
OK, I’ll try one more time.
You know how one person can make multiple email addresses and pretend to be a business or whoever they want to be? It’s kind of like that. The same person or network is in charge of all those linked websites and generating clicks and page views for whatever their endeavor is. They’re not taking money from customers to get featured on their website nor would any legitimate business want to. Those pages are there to game the SEO and ad metrics system.
If this still doesn’t make sense to you, you might want to try Reddit’s Explain Like I’m 5. They’re good at breaking things down into really simple terms.