Slashdot Mirror
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."
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
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?
My work here is dung.
"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?
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/
This is it and you have fallen for it. Stupidos.
This seems *very* suspicious. Parent quotes from this post.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
Is this not in fact the Viral Campaign 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.
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.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
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/
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.
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.
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.
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.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
If you've got FF, get the customizegoogle extension. Does a bunch of useful things.. including filter out certain domains from search results, with the intended purpose being that you can stop getting links from comparison sites.
Those terms would also be common in non-store results. It's a good idea though; maybe stuff like -"add to cart" -"shopping cart"...
Procrastination -- because good things come to those who wait.