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SEL | Doing A Fake Story For Linkbait? Disclose — Or Face The Wrath Of Google
Barry Schwartz has just written a good analysis of the entire ‘linkbait fraud’ situation that unfolded on Sphinn and other SEO forums. Check it out – this is for sure going to make you either laugh, be pissed, or just completely dumbfounded! Enjoy…
Link baiting entered a new area last week when Lyndon Antcliff had success with a fake story being picked up by some mainstream media sites as well as social news sites. Controversy erupted over the tactic, and now it likely will go into a second cycle after Google’s Matt Cutts has suggested that Google might penalize pages that don’t disclose stories are fake.
The story was named 13 Year Old Steals Dad’s Credit Card to Buy Hookers, but it wasn’t true. Nevertheless, several news agencies picked up the story, plus it made it to the front page of Digg and many other social media sites and garnered over 1,500 inbound links in under a week.
Nick Wilsdon highlights how Matt stepped into the discussion, with his comment over at our Sphinn forums:
My quick take is that Google’s webmaster guidelines allow for cases such as this: “Google may respond negatively to other misleading practices not listed here (e.g. tricking users by registering misspellings of well-known websites). It’s not safe to assume that just because a specific deceptive technique isn’t included on this page, Google approves of it.”
There’s not much more deceptive or misleading than a fake story without any disclosure that the story is hoax.
Click the following link to read more from Search Engine Land Doing A Fake Story For Linkbait? Disclose — Or Face The Wrath Of Google
By Jeremy Hermanns | May 22, 2008 | Filed Under Fascinating, SEO Advice
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