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."
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.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
An undisclosed somebody is threatening to sue a poor little blogger over something. Come on. This is not news. Where are the facts?
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.
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?
My blog
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.
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.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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?
8==8 Bones 8==8
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.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
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.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
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.
great.... "nonsensical" content - no wonder Google is becoming so polluted with crap. I do hope the search engines adapt to this crud.
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.
mr pibb + red vines = crazy delicious
No it isn't. Robots.txt does not include "article.pl" 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.
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
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.
My blog
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.
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.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good