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« Sock Puppets Exposed | Main | Improve Your Landing Pages »

Spam: What It Is. What It Aint.

By Kimberly Bock | April 13, 2008

**note: There is more than just Sphinn commentary in this post. The commentary is lengthy, but relevant to the conclusion. Although, I DO address Eli’s post towards the end, if you’d like to breeze past the Sphinn stuff**

There’s been some sensitive discussion in Sphinn commentary that followed my post yesterday.

This is the post by Eli Feldblum that initially made me check out who Sphunn the crapola. hmmmm.


Rob (evilgreenmonkey, mod at Sphinn) Desphunn the post because he said the subject was inappropriately submitted and should have been addressed by way of the contact form.

Prior to his Desphinning it, he had already stated this in the comment area, which I replied by letting him know that in the future, I would do so.

After some words were exchanged in the commentary between a select number of people, the post was promptly deleted.

Without further ado, I managed to salvage all but maybe 4 of the closing comments that existed before we were wiped off Sphinns map:

There Are Sock Puppets (spammers) Among Us Posted By: SpostareDuro

Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://learningseobasics.com)
my network

Sphinn has been invaded by unwanteds..and they are affecting the reputation of people I’d like to think are trustworthy.

Comments

Those were blatant and obvious sock puppets - didn’t bother to take the time to even upload avatars, no submissions of their own, only sphinns are for search engine watch posts.

I hope you don’t mind, I’m stealing “sock puppets” ;)

Looks like Sphinn will have to go the way of IP binding or session cookies to keep people from having multiple accounts. But I think you’re right. Either someone is out to take down SEW, or SEW is getting greedy.

I can confirm that the IP logs show that the user accounts mentioned in your post were connected back to Eli “FeldBum” Feldblum, so the user and his drone accounts have been terminated.

Although SEW has had a rocky past on Sphinn, I do not think that the actions of this SEW Blogger were authorised by the SEW team. It’s most likely that this was simply a crued method of trying to boost the popularity and traffic to his posts, not an endorsed marketing method of SEW.

Please note that blogging about suspected vote rigging is not the best way of resolving the issue. If I didn’t take the time to read the blog post linked to here, the accounts would have continued to stay active. Any violation of Sphinn guidelines or suspicous activity should be reported via the Sphinn contact form, so that it can be dealt with efficiently.

Rob,

Blogging about the blatant vote rigging appears to have resolved the issue, and brought it out into the open. As you note, if you hadn’t read the blog post above, the sockpuppets in question would still be active. Is that what you really want?

I question the association of a couple of the sockpuppets with Eli Feldblum, at least originally.

All of the sockpuppets in question were created in November and December of last year (yes, I took notes), which appears to be from before any articles from Eli Feldblum were published by Search Engine Watch. A couple of them voted for a search engine watch post that was submitted in December 2007, penned by another search engine watch writer other than Eli Feldblum. See: 2007: The Year that Search Grew Up (http://sphinn.com/story/20517) with votes from Jonuts and Avromi, two of the sockpuppets in question.

If this thread disappears like the SEO Spammers one now has, I would be happy to continue the discussion on my own blog. Thanks.

I welcome the discussion about my posts and voting activity, but please bear in mind that these are not sockpuppets. There are the accounts of other people who work at RankAbove–many of whom use Sphinn for various purposes. (One probably could have guessed that by matching up user names in Sphinn with the names listed on our site.) Whenever I put out a new post, I email the staff about it. If it’s, in my opinion, a prticularly good post, I’ll submit it to Sphinn and include the link in the email to the staff. Sometimes they Sphinn it; sometimes they don’t. The team is like that :)

It’s definitely not a SEW thing, just a RankAbove one. I treat it the same way I do most social media. It’s certainly not enough Sphinns to get my submissions popular–or even to the most Sphunn list of the upcoming stories. I don’t expect it to be. Within every social media site, much of what goes on is, well, social. When fellow stumblers send me a link through the toolbar, I’ll stumble it faster because they are friends that had I just come across the page. When a user I like sends me a Digg shout, the same thing happens. When a friend I subscribe to posts a new YouTube video, I’m more likely to rate it higher or leave a nice comment because I know the person and I know what went into it.

I’m pretty sure that’s why these social sites built those sharing features into their products. They expected friends to share. Digg may have put hive-mind protection in place, but they still understand the natural inclination of colleagues (like the so-called sockpuppets above), friends and relatives to vote for each other.

Has everyone here never upmodded a friend or colleague’s story, on Sphinn or elsewhere? Have you never voted for your own company when it was nominated for an award? (And does any company, anywhere, not share IP addresses or an IP block?)

I apologize if anyone was offended, but Sphinn is going to have to realize one day that they are a social media site, albeit a niche one, and friendly behavior is par for the course. Introduce methods to protect hive-mind behavior. Ban me if you want, but don’t block a group of people because they like to vote for their boss.

I think we’ve had this discussion before actually. The key is participation in the community. If everyone in your office signs up to Sphinn, that is to be expected. However if they only ever vote on the same stories, don’t bother to upload an avatar and never comment, it’s going to look like they are gaming the system.

I actually have two of my staff on here but the very first thing I did was encourage them to upload an avatar. It’s social media 101. I also tell them to use Sphinn to find good articles, so they both have a varied voting pattern (i.e. a real voting pattern). If the only stories your staff vote for are the ones with you in them, you can hardly say they are part of the community. They only ever visit when requested to vote.

evilgreenmonkey: I’ll be certain to use the contact form, if these sorts of things evolve in the future.

Eli: Firstly, in essence, you just said that “SEO Spam” is a “RankAbove” thing..since that is the most recent of your posts that you prompted them to Sphinn. Good going..Are your clients are aware of this?

Secondly, I also question the fact that these employees gave no information about themselves as they set up their accounts. They were pictureless, unreachable, unknown. hmmm. It is these types of things that make it difficult for newcomers to get exposure as they are yet unknowns and not many want to put their stamp of approval on a possible risk, such as the ones that you have proven exist.

Thirdly, Sphinn is not soley a social media environment. Even if it were, social media does not entail the type of services that you are engaged in here. A vote is a singular piece of a plural pie. If your company is suggesting this type of service to people that put faith in your ability to produce results, is this really the results they are paying good money for?

You’ve introduced destructive potential to the reputation of two respected search environments.. (Sphinn as well as SEW)

You’ve encouraged, not relationship building, but new ways to manipulate SM environments by sacrificing trust that could have possibly led to one of the most sought after link building strategies implemented in building rank nowadays..

I feel it in poor taste to encourage your employees to place their own personal reputations on the line to promote that which is so damaging. I mean, they want to keep their jobs, so of course they feel pressured to vote, even if they disagree with your submissions.

They haven’t socialized (the SM piece of your SMM campaign) here in Sphinn, in support of your submissions, or any actual commentary..only voted..even when your latest submission was under fire (SEO Spam post) and being Desphunn by many.

“Rankabove”..? Rank above what exactly?

Nick..you must have been submitting your comment as I was yet writing mine..some of the same points made. :-)

Eli,

You may be right if your definition of sockpuppets doesn’t include others though it’s possible that many agree with the broadening of the term as noted in the New York Times article, “The Hand That Controls the Sock Puppet Could Get Slapped.” (http://snurl.com/248b7)

Let’s take what you say at face value, that the term “sock puppet” doesn’t extend outside of a single individual, with a sock puppet on each hand, each puppet agreeing with each other.

There are a couple of other words that may fit, for employees ordered to view a social media site, and anonymously providing support for their employer. One is “shill” and another other is “plant.”

In reponse to Nick and SpostareDuro:

They are employees. My intention, as said above, was not to game Sphinn. I know many of the people behind Sphinn; I spoke at the conference; I have no reason or impetus to mess with their system. Should my employees have set up better accounts and voted on more stories than just what I emailed them? Yes. I know they were avid Sphinn readers, as I heard them mention things they had seen there in company meeting, but if they were only active in the stories I posted, then they should have known better.

I didn’t say that SEO Spam is a RankAbove thing - far from it. If you read the post, my point was SEO Spam (the practice of people leaving comments, adding content or otherwise participating in a site to get a backlink or traffic) could often be a good thing for the growth of that site. I still stand by that statement, and I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from it. I know many are frightened to see the words “SEO” and “Spam” together, and I’m not encouraging spamming. If anything, I think it helps the site being spammed more than the spammer. To be honest, I think the practice of people submitting stories to Sphinn for the backlink and the traffic helped this site grow.

@DannySullivan
– I think there is continue value in the discussion about SEO Spam helping or hurting sites—even if some people are reluctant to discuss it. Can you reinstate that Sphinn? Why not just remove the Sphinns in question and keep those accounts locked.

BTW, the reason I didn’t respond to comments on that post—and the reason myemployees did not as well—is that myself and the ones in question are observant Jews who were celebrating the Sabbath in Israel, which ended a few hours ago.

In all honesty, this was not a strategy to “game” Sphinn, not for SEW nor for RankAbove (after all, it’s not like I’m sending traffic to my site). Having three or four employees Sphinn a post for me doesn’t really do anything. I didn’t tell people to “Sphinn Me” and out of 16 total people on the dist list, maybe a quarter decided to Sphinn the post. If I wanted to try to get to the top of Sphinn, I would have picked a different strategy, and I would be much more active within Sphinn. One of those Sphinns was my partner. I doubt he was worried about losing his job.

@SpostareDuro - 14 out of 15 of your latest posts have been Sphunn by billslawski–even ones with as little as 5 Sphinns. Is he your sockpuppet? @Bill – same stats work in the reverse as well. Sockpuppet? Shill? Plant? Obviously not.

At the end of the day, what happened was that some people who work for me voted for my story. So did a bunch of other people. On social networks like Mixx, where I didn’t post the story, my argument for SEO Spam became popular (http://www.mixx.com/stories/204257/seo_spam_is_good_for_social_media).
The question there, like the one here, is a valid one. And we can discuss them without making wild accusations againt me, my company or SEW.

One last comment on this: “Thirdly, Sphinn is not solely a social media environment. Even if it were, social media does not entail the type of services that you are engaged in here. A vote is a singular piece of a plural pie. If your company is suggesting this type of service to people that put faith in your ability to produce results, is this really the results they are paying good money for?”

I never said this was a “service.” It’s certainly not the strategy of my company, as I don’t think it qualifies as a strategy. I was merely talking about the behavior that goes on within the social media sphere. On Sphinn, on Digg, on SU, on YouTube–everywhere. And everyone knows it happens. It’s one of the advantages of having friends and it’s why sites like Digg have introduced algorithmic behavior to prevent a normal behavior from altering results. When someone you know recommeneds something, you react differently than when a stranger recommends it. That’s not a service; that’s a reality. It’s what Word of Mouth marketing is based on. There seems to be a lot of extraneous and innacurate reading in to what I’m writing. If you’re unsure about something I said, feel free to ask. I’ll answer. It’s part of the social nature of this site.

Eli: 1.To be “avid” suggests “fierce or excesive”..hmm..if so ‘avid’ why is it that they did not bother to vote on anything except SEW posts? No comments? No opinion in favor of? In opposition o? Typically ‘avid’ readers of Sphinn are passionate and opinionated..it has been how I’ve learned whos who and who knows what around here.

2. SEO and spam are two different things. Period. Optimization and marketing are two different things in my opinion as well. Yet you say, it’s “the practice of people leaving comments, adding content or otherwise participating in a site to get a backlink or traffic”

Uh..I hope others disagree with that statement. It’s spam? Really? Didn’t know that. I thought it was teetering on marketing, which also doesnt equal spam…

3. This one really bugs the h*ll out of me for real, “observant Jews who were celebrating the Sabbath in Israel, which ended a few hours ago.”..

Are you implying that Jews are are granted specific spritual allowances to vote but are not allowed to comment during the Sabbath? How bizarre..

I wasn’t aware of that.

hmmm once again.

4. as far as Bill Slawski is concerned, (which was a lame attack while grasping at straws..) he has Sphunn other people that haven’t gone hot either such as demerzel (5 Sphinns) Scott Clark (9 Sphinns) NiclasKunkel (6 Sphinns) and so on..visit his profile.

Another thing about Bill Slawski..He doesn’t always support the most popular but the under credited as well..it’s part of what makes him so cool as far as I am concerned..

5. The social media comment: I was pulling your awareness up on the fact that your clients would be wise to observe your participation here as what NOT to do in SM environments..I wasn’t accusing you of particulars..IF this were SM strategy for you..then even moreso was it poorly administered.

PS: (Your employees were never banned from MY site..maybe they’d like to defend themselves or even passionately desire to defend you, their employer, since they can no longer participate here..just a suggestion.)

One last thing..I am no longer seeing this interaction as accomplishing anything except the reciprocation of flames and phooey. I am done. Thanks.

Eli,

Interesting voting record from your employees and “avid” readers of Sphinn:

Avromi
0 Submissions
3 Sphinns:

SEO Spam is Good - search engine watch
SEO, Social Marketing & Scientology - search engine watch
2007: The Year that Search Grew Up - search engine watch

mayerreich
0 Submissions
2 Sphinns:

SEO Spam is Good - search engine watch
Google, LiveJournal and SEW All RickRolling You Today - search engine watch

Chatch
0 Submissions
3 Sphinns:

SEO Spam is Good - search engine watch
Google, LiveJournal and SEW All RickRolling You Today - search engine
watch
SEO, Social Marketing & Scientology - search engine watch

jonuts
0 Sphinns
4 Sphinns:

SEO Spam is Good - search engine watch
Google, LiveJournal and SEW All RickRolling You Today - search engine
watch
SEO, Social Marketing & Scientology - search engine watch
2007: The Year that Search Grew Up - search engine watch

These employees who are so interested in Sphinn had a remarkable track record. No comments? No submissions? No interest in reading anything other than something posted at search engine watch? No desire to be “social” with the many other community members of Sphinn? No interest in posting avatars. Perhaps they should have known better, as you note. Their participation comes off as if they were sockpuppets or shills of Search Engine Watch

As for the “SEO spam” post and sphinn thread, perhaps it’s in your best interest to have that one given the burial it deserved.

As for my voting record in Sphinn, my history of comments, submissions, and votes, I’m not hiding anything in that record. I am voting for the things I find interesting, intriguing, useful, and that I might think will be interesting to other people. I’m not anonymous, I’m not anyone’s sockpuppet, and I’m not abusing the social network by having my anonymous employees vote up my posts, or search engine watch posts.

As I concluded with both of your voting records - you’re “obviously not” sock puppets or shills, but you do vote on stories on friends. My employees are guilty of not being active members and for voting exclusively on my stories or stories I’ve brought to their attention, but that doesn’t mean they don’t read the stories avidly. It’s called “lurking” and it happens on nearly every site out there. Just because you visit a site doesn’t mean you actively participate. I read cracked.com daily, and I’ve never signed up, never left a comment, never submitted a craption (not a typo - it’s what their caption contest is called). I still consider myself an avid reader of cracked.com. Can you see what stories they read while logged in, or check their IP against what pages were visited? That’ll settle the avid reader bit?

As for the Sabbath - they voted a while before the Sabbath began, but the accusatory comments happened on the Sabbath, so there was nothing they or I could do to defend the post or the story.

I am trying to make my points clear, and–as I said–I’d love to answer questions. Ad hominem attacks made in a public forum are less easy to answer.

SEO Spam is what it sounds like. Unwanted actions in the pursuit of better optimization. I don’t think anyone would argue that what happened on Quamut was SEO spam–similar to old practice of leaving blog comments purely for the backlink.

And “If your company is suggesting this type of service to people that put faith in your ability to produce results, is this really the results they are paying good money for?” seems like an attack to me.

Sphinn has no objection to the post itself being submitted. What we do not tolerate is the use of accounts to manipulate voting. Even if each account belonged to a member of your staff - they were only used to boost votes on your articles.

Your posts will not be re-instated and your old account will remain disabled. I’ll allow you to continue under your new user account, although your future activity will be monitored closely.

I consider this matter closed now.

Really, Eli, it is in your best interest to drop the “SEO Spam” stuff before people start suggesting that you actually learn some SEO, and the differences between it and spam.

*Note: Then came the big desphinn*

There should really be a way to vote on desphinns in Sphinn.

I really do believe that at least on Sphinn, people know the difference between obtaining quality links for someone and adding thoroughly unuseful content to a site like Quamut, just because they forgot to add nofollow to their links. Read the TechCrunch post at http://snurl.com/249uy - is that not SEO Spam? Would you prefer I called it Link Spam?

Would Wikipedia help?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_spam#Using_world-writable_pages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_spam#Link_spam

We all know SEO Spam exists, as much as we like to believe otherwise.

from billslawski

You’re showing your ignorance of what SEO actually is, Eli.

evilgreenmonkey: I submitted a blog post of mine. I thought I had the right to submit posts. This was to let others know of this issue as well..not just Sphinn mods and / or admin. Please clarify why you Desphunn.

**I wasn’t able to recover the last 3 comments before deletion. Bummer.**

What Is Spam? (to address Eli’s post)

There is spam and there are those who implement spam.

There are hot dogs and those who eat hot dogs.
(SEO hot dogs?)

There are health clubs and those who use health club services.
(SEO health club?)

There are Mercedes and those who drive them.
(SEO Mercedes?)

Hello??


photo by light
bilb destroyers

True, there are many SEOs that use certain terminology loosely.

Take advertising for example..

“SEO advertising” can be found in the SERPs 54,500 times (in quotes)

Maybe the reason for this is due to the fact that users are querying such terms to find ways to to improve their sites visibility, ranking, and other professional campaigns.

SEO’s are knowledgeable enough to realize that users are frequently at a disadvantage when it comes to knowing how to properly utilize search queries. SEOs adjust to the users oversight in order to optimize their services visibility.

Why is this relevant?

I feel that Elis post suggests the ‘after effects’ of SEOs having to adapt to loosely defined terminology.

There are advertising services provided by SEOs. This is not SEO advertising..it’s ‘anybody can do it but SEOs know how to do it‘ advertising.

Sadly enough, there are SEOs that also have chosen to provide spamdexing services. This is not ‘SEO spamdexing’ it’s ‘Spamdexing that SEOs know how to do’ services.

If anyone understands the importance of elasticity, it’s an SEO. They stretch, grow, and are programmed to adapt to frequent change at the drop of a hat, this is what makes a good one tick.

I feel it was in poor taste to use terminology that was not only incorrect, but harmful to the reputation of SEOs that make an honest paycheck to feed their families.

Irresponsible.

It was counter-productive, It encouraged spamming, and his commentary only shows his lack of concern for the reputation of his employees as well as his clients and other associates. (note Social Media Panel here..hmmm)

Ah..phooey schmooey.. So is the way of life I guess.

I’m closing on that note. I’m hungry.

Anyone want some SEO quiche?

I’ve made plenty and I like to share.

PS: I initially had an additional subheading, but the matter is being resolved it seems. Those involved are actively pursuing reasonable action.

Topics: Controversy |

9 Responses to “Spam: What It Is. What It Aint.”

  1. Eli Feldblum Says:
    April 13th, 2008 at 2:22 pm

    I still find it kinda amusing that it’s clear that most people who have commented on what I said and what I meant, hadn’t read my article. Spamming for the sake of SEO exists; we all know that. I had a conversation with Craig Newmark from CraigsList today discussing SEO on his site. In his words, ” Sometimes people spam our site for SEO purposes.” Craig like SEO in general, but not the way his site is sometimes treated by SEOs. Is he being irresponsible and hurting the community? No. We have to realize that posts like http://wiki.quamut.com/view/search_for_used_cars_for_sale_on_the_web.html, which is on Quamut, the site that I and TechCrunch were talking about to begin with, are spam. Does it provide any real information about buying used cars online, except for a backlink to one site?

    These are the original posts, both mine and TechCrunch’s. Feel free to disagree with me on my point, which was certainly out there, that this SEO Spam can actually help growing companies. But please don’t insult the intelligence of the global SEO community by pretending spam does not exist.
    http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/080410-102227
    http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/30/barnes-nobles-new-how-to-site-quamut-already-being-link-spammed/

  2. Eli Says:
    April 13th, 2008 at 4:36 pm

    I commented earlier, but I guess it was removed. You did assure me (see above) that I wasn’t banned, so I’m not sure why it was removed. Again, I have to take issue with people commenting about me without actually reading what I’ve wrote–past headlines, that is. My post on SEW was an interesting theory about how SEO Spam can actually help a fledgling site. It wasn’t a how-to post or a bash-SEO-guys post.

    I never accused all SEO of being spam, but I think we can all agree that some SEO techniques used do amount to spam. I think it insults the intelligence and honor of the entire SEO community to assume otherwise. I had the chance to talk to Craig Newmark of CraigsList fame today about SEO and he told me “As long as our guidelines are met, our users provide us with good SEO. But we do have people who spam our site for SEO purposes.” I don’t think he was being “irresponsible” or trying to hurt the SEO community. He was doing what he is well-known for: speaking candidly and truthfully. Some people use Spam for SEO purposes–SEO Spam. Semantics aside, we all know a post like http://wiki.quamut.com/view/search_for_used_cars_for_sale_on_the_web.html is Spam. And it’s on Quamut, the site I and TechCrunch originally wrote about.

    That’s the reality of what goes on in our industry sometimes. I don’t do it (I find it useless as a link generally); I don’t encourage it. I do find it interesting that it can help the site being spammed, so I wrote about it. TechCrunch also wrote about it. I spoke to Roi from TC as well today. Should I have told him he was being irresponsible too?

    Can the truth be frightening and painful sometimes? Of course. It is irresponsible to report it? I sincerely hope not.

  3. Bill Slawski Says:
    April 13th, 2008 at 4:38 pm

    I’ll pass on the quiche, but a large heaping plateful of SEO spam for me, thanks… :)

    There are many SEOs who work inhouse or in their own homes or for search optimization firms who function daily without reading or participating at sites like Search Engine Watch or Search Engine Land, and Sphinn.

    Fortunately, there are a large number of blogs and information sources that people who pratice SEO, or who are curious about SEO can turn to, including your site, Kimberly, which offers search news, humor, and opinion stated with honesty, integrity, and insight. (Thank you!)

    It was really disappointing to read the “SEO Spam” article at Search Engine Watch (SEW), which took a TechCrunch post about Link Spam as an starting point and opportunity to sing praises to the value of spamming social networks and other sites, and how that can supposedly help those sites (not true).

    The author of the SEW post sells SEO services to the public, and the post acts to create the impression that the services that SEOs provide include the kind of link spam described in the TechCrunch article. That is blatantly untrue. It’s impossible to tell from the SEW article whether it was written in that way to create controversy as some kind of link bait (which would be sad to see from Search Engine Watch), or if the article reflects the true beliefs and practices of the author, which would be sad too.

    When the Search Engine Watch post on “SEO Spam” was posted to Sphinn, it received a number of Sphinns from members of the community, including a few from members who hadn’t yet uploaded actual avatars and hadn’t participated too much in Sphinn at all.

    A number of Desphinns started appearing, including yours and mine and around half a dozen more. It was encouraging to see people stand up, and state that they didn’t want their profession being slandered in the manner that was done in the Search Engine Watch article (of all places!)

    Looking at the people who sphunn the article who hadn’t yet uploaded avatars, it was curious that not only had they not entered information into their profiles about themselves, their websites, other networks that they belonged to, and so on, but they also hadn’t done any submissions of their own, hadn’t left any comments anywhere, and had only voted for a very few articles - all from Search Engine Watch, and only Search Engine Watch. It was very odd.

    These anonymous sphinners appeared to be members of Sphinn, existing only to vote for Search Engine Watch articles, including both articles posted by the author of the SEO spam article, and by one of the editors of SEW.

    Your blog post about those seeming sock puppets raised some tough questions that it seems some people didn’t want to be public. If those sock puppets were employees of the SEO article writer, why were they created before he even started writing for SEW? Why did they only vote for SEW articles? Why did a couple of them vote for a search engine watch editor. I don’t want to think bad things about SEW, but this is all really curious.

    Your Sphinn submission on that blog post was starting to generate Sphinns from the community when it was removed from Sphinn with the excuse from an administrator that “abuses of Sphinn should be reported through the Sphinn ‘contact’ page in the name of efficiency.”

    I can understand an administrator wanting to be informed of abuses, but that doesn’t mean that the Sphinn community can’t and shouldn’t also be allowed to talk about those abuses on the site. Efficiency wouldn’t be harmed by talking about the use of sock puppets or shills on a social network like Sphinn, and it’s a topic that can benefit the community by being talked about openly.

    Some odd things came out in the comments for your submission of your post about sockpuppets at Sphinn, including a statement from the author of the “SEO Spam ” post that the anonymous sphinners who had voted for the “SEO Spam” article were his partner and employees and the claim that they weren’t sockpuppets, but rather people whom he had sent links to the post so that they could decide whether to spinn it or not.

    Their participation in Sphinn appears to be indistinquishable from the actions of sockpuppets or shills. He also claimed that their anonyminity was due to the fact that they while they were extremely active readers of Sphinn, they were only lurkers rather than active participants. Odd that the only posts that they voted upon were ones from Search Engine Watch.

    I’m disappointed in seeing an article published at Search Engine Watch that causually describes the link spamming of social networks as “SEO Spam,” described as “beneficial” to those sites, and written by someone who provides SEO services. It’s sad to see a site like SEW that has done so much good for SEO working to destroy the profession’s reputation.

    I’m bothered by seeing anonymous members of Sphinn who appear to have created memberships solely for the purpose of voting up Search Engine Watch articles written by their boss or coworker. You can be an avid reader of Sphinn, and a lurker without creating a membership. When you create a membership, hide your identity, and vote up the articles that your boss or partner sends to you, you’ve become a shill.

    That type of shill voting isn’t SEO. It isn’t “SEO Spam.” It’s just spam.

    It’s good to see that Sphinn has deleted those memberships. Sadly, the person who wrote the article, and directed his employees to it so that they could anonymously vote it up was allowed to start a new membership. I guess the word “banned” has a different meaning than the one commonly referred to in most dictionaries….

    Thank you for your bravery in bringing these issues to light, Kimberly.

  4. Kimberly Bock Says:
    April 13th, 2008 at 5:07 pm

    I am just returning to the PC, haven’t even read your reply yet Eli, all I know is both of your comments were caught in Akismet. How embarrassing huh?

  5. Eli Says:
    April 13th, 2008 at 5:13 pm

    It happens :) I realized after I posted the second one from home. I posted the first as I was running out of the office.

  6. Eli Says:
    April 13th, 2008 at 5:22 pm

    Let’s try to distinguish the article from the controversy surrounding the posting of it to Sphinn. If you have a problem with my employees voting for my stories, I understand that and have apologized for it. I’m not asking for them to be reinstated to Sphinn or anything like that. I’m only trying to make two points.

    1. Lots of people have had issue with me even talking about SEO Spam, preferring–apparently–to pretend it doesn’t exist. It does.
    2. I never advocated link spamming in that post, and my company doesn’t do it. At the very least, because I don’t think it works all that well. My post was in response to TechCrunch’s lament about a site getting spammed by SEO guys. My point was that, sometimes, SEO spam can be helpful. It helped sites like YouTube and Digg get big. It helps small, me-too networks all the time. Eventually, they all get fed up and remove the spam and the features that allowed it.

    To reiterate, just read what I wrote. Please. It will save so much time. I meant to post something interesting and unconventional. Based on the response I’ve seen in the general media, it seems I was successful. It has SEOs talking as well, even if somewhat irrationally, so I’m happy about that too.

  7. Kimberly Bock Says:
    April 13th, 2008 at 5:22 pm

    I just got some coffee and am reading it now. :-)

  8. Bill Says:
    April 13th, 2008 at 5:42 pm

    From Eli’s comment above: “I never accused all SEO of being spam, but I think we can all agree that some SEO techniques used do amount to spam.”

    Spammers can use links and write anchor text, they can write content, they can create link farms, they can create doorway pages, but that doesn’t mean what they are doing is providing professional SEO services, or that the techniques in use are SEO techniques.

    They may be techniques that exhibit an understanding of how search engines work, but to call them “SEO spam” may cause more harm than good to the SEO industry, to people trying to understand what SEO is, and to site owners who have sites that search engines find impossible to index yet will refuse to hire a competent SEO because of articles like “SEO Spam is Good.”

    I’ve read the article. I wouldn’t have commented on it without reading it. That would have been irresponsible and unprofessional. Frankly, when I read something like the following from the article, my impression isn’t favorable:

    “In short, SEO Spammers are helping the internet continue to grow. As each once-spammed site gets big off of the shoulders of spammers, they introduce methods to lock the spammers out, and the spurned SEOs move on to new sites. The cycle continues–and, with it, innovation in the social and user-generated content fields.”

    I could as easily write that:

    “Criminal acts help us become safer and more secure because the police develop new methods to fight crime, and the criminals move to other victims. The cycle continues–and with it, innovation in public safety.”

    The article, as written, encourages the spamming of sites. Your comment here of the intent behind the post, and words that it doesn’t encourage link spamming is nice and fine, but the article itself does. It’s hard not to see that in statements within the article like:

    “Unlike other types of spam, good link spam carries with it a wealth of benefits for the site being spammed:”

    Good link spam?

    Those spammers may spam with some understanding of how search engines work, but that doesn’t make them SEOs - even the ones who might call themselves SEOs.

    Bill’s last blog post..Do Domain Ages Affect Search Rankings?

  9. Nick Wilsdon Says:
    April 13th, 2008 at 7:21 pm

    Hi Eli,

    It was an interesting point of discussion but like Bill, I don’t follow your logic on it.

    I think spammers would evaluate a site on the time/reward basis. They will invest the time to spam it if the rewards, i.e. link or traffic are high enough. You seem to be saying the same, when you suggest they move on, once these rewards are stopped.

    That would mean, rather than being the initial audience and community builders as you suggest, spammers jump on the bandwagon once the site has reached a desirable level. They are not helping sites grow, they are parasites which feed off a site’s success.

    My experience of FaceBook and StumbleUpon would seem to support this argument. FaceBook has recently started to get overun by application spam and the same kind of link dropping that has reached epidemic levels in MySpace. StumbleUpon has been running for years but spam on the system is a relatively recent problem. Again, the system’s own success had made it a target.

    On one level we can agree, the influx of spammers and new registrations must look good to the shareholders. That is the only benefit though. As users rarely cancel their accounts, those increased subscriber numbers tell us little about the health of the platform. In reality the community can be dying.

    Nick Wilsdon’s last blog post..3 Advanced Tips to Optimise Your Blog Feeds

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