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."
Yeah, well there are lots of blogs that do better than a number of businesses and organizations for whatever reasons Google assigns ranking. I get a number of amused emails from people that find Google ranks my blog higher than their dedicated sites for a shocking number of items. They want to know how I've engineered it, and I have to say I honestly don't know. But if they want to pay Google to increase their ranking above mine, go for it.
I suspect part of the reason is my selective use of links in articles I post to supplement the content I post with targeted information, as well as my hosting it from my office in an educational institution. Occasionally getting linked from places like Slashdot, BoingBoing and Digg can't hurt either....
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
It would be funny to duplicate the content and massively interlink sites to drop the business page ranking even worse. Does anyone know if this approach has been successfully attempted in the past?
Click here or here.
FRCP 12(b)(6) the thing. Plaintiff has not stated a claim upon which relief can be granted. Then you're done.
I made a website for a local business owner and helped him promote it, even getting several number 1 spots on relevant google searches. One month his PageRank went down a notch, so he immediately calls me to ask what he can do about it. I explained the basics of how it works and why there is nothing he can do about it aside from getting more links.
.)
So he tries to phone google to ask them to change it back. I'm not kidding. You can guess where that went...
He tells me about this, upset, and I explain it to him again. All he can do is try and get more sites on the web to link to his page. Still desperate for a better rating, he makes a final proposition. My wife has a site with her resume and some articles on it, with a PR two steps higher than his. Could he put his site on that domain instead? (Not going to list the site, but the url is HER NAME, think www.janedoe.com
The point is, some people just don't get it.
I am totally serious. My blog was SUED BY MICRO$OFT because I made some software that was so much more awesome then theirs. I even have the letters they sent me to prove it!!11!!! Now, if the Slashdot editors will kindly accept my claim without any sort of validation and post me on a Slashdot front page...
Seriously. Show an ounce of journalistic integrity and don't give a podium to utterly baseless claims. He doesn't even say what company is suing him so we can't even bother to ask that company if this is real. Any idiot could have made this up for the singular purpose of driving up hits. I am not saying that the guy is liar (he very well could be telling the truth), just he shouldn't get a free stage to advertise until there is at least the semblance of a claim that can be fact checked.
Wouldn't every body here want to see a blog by Mike Hunt?
Laugh. It's funny.
Okay, it isn't. It's tired and overused. And oddly enough, MikeHunt.com is safe for work. Whoddathunkit?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
On a site I run, I've got articles I've written about other businesses (typically complimentary) that invariably rank higher than the businesses' own web sites, especially on slightly odd-ball searches, but often on something as simple as the business's name. And the only thing I'm doing is using better grammar, and generally carrying on in a more conservative way. Google seems to reward restraint. Breathless promotional material always seems to take a back seat to lucid, well-constructed information.
Sure, Google ranks plenty of blatant trash higher than it sometimes should, but it's not always that way. My own experience is that actual, real content remains king. Small businesses frequently don't take the time to actually write any real meat for their own web sites. Hell, a lot my older stuff still isn't even all that standards-compliant (I swear I'll get around that CSS stuff one of these days), but it usually exceeds the sites about which I'm writing. And, of course, it's a feedback loop. The more credible some of my pages appear, the higher the new ones rank, too. No witchcraft, no magic sauce: just careful writing and resisting the urge to run content from the slimier ad engines.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Do Texans tell you to "expect a letter in the post"? That doesn't sound like a Texan to me.
I saw a link to this on his website: http://www.deanhunt.com/services/index.html
It raises some suspicion as this guy's business seems to be googlebombing. Perhaps he fabricated this story in order to get his website up in PageRank by people linking to him.
can Bob sue Jim because Mary said Jim was a better lover? Of course not.
You would be wrong. Can they win? I sure hope not. Would it get thrown out really fast? I sure hope so. But can he sue? Yes.
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
No, offer him advertising space on your website, and threaten to add more websites above him on Google if he doesn't! Dean should tell him that he intends to play hardball, and will have Google strike his entry entirely if necessary.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
There is NO evidence this guy is telling the truth, but there is ALOT of evidence this guy is lying his ass off. Don't believe this Slashdot readers!
And I'll share it for free:
A rich internal link structure.
Blog software creates this by default, but you can do it manually. A recent website I was hired to optimize will illustrate this. The site is customSiliconeBracelets.com. When I was hired they were on the 30th page for their two desired phrases: Silicone Bracelets & Custom Silicone Bracelets. Now, they're number 1 in both of those.
To accomplish this, I did two main things:
1. Add a bunch of text. It's mostly nonsensical. It's not meant for human consumption. It's there for keyword density.
2. Add a shitload of intra-site links. Every keyword in that nonsensical text is linked to other pages in the site. If you tried to navigate the site by following such links (instead of using the sites navigation) you'd go in circles for hours. Which, when you look at the logs, is essentially what Googlebot does.
Of course, there was all the "standard" stuff like page titles, H tags, links with titles, alt text on images, etc. But those only get you so far. The real beef is in the link structures, friends.
...is that slashdot and many of it's readers are replying to this seriously.
This story has no merit. If it were real, why not post the real name of the site that this person sending this email? Why not at least post the keywords that supposedly are being used?
Surely there is no expectation of privacy or confidentiality from sending a non-solicited email.
I call bullshit.
Karma means nothing to me, so suck it...
but the same thing has happened to me (not the suing part though) my blog rating is higher than the actual resturaunt I was reviewing
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Because it's business? That says more than I ever could about the "royal" mentality that many people seem to have. And in all this time, I has presumed a certain level of snobbery was all in my imagination! You know, that "Us vs. Them" feeling we all get? I'm definitely on the "less successful" side of the "Us vs. Them" fence.
But for this business professional to actually come out and SAY what I had always suspected they believe is just... I don't know the word for it... unsettling in a way. I guess it's because I also believe there is a lot more that goes unsaid. So like cockroaches, if you see one, there's probably thousands. If they'll say this and believe it, there's probably a LOT worse going on in his head.
I commented that maybe he made it up and linked to his own blog entry. My comment was waiting for moderation for a few minutes before dissapearing. looks like it really is made up.
I think it's HILARIOUS that you equate SEO with stealing, fraud, price fixing, insider trading and war profiteering. It says a lot to me about your personal values system and your judgment.
I have many thoughts on this.
1)
You're not deriding the entire software development profession just because some people create spyware, are you? Of course not. You pay your bills writing software. You think it 'contributes to the overall happiness of mankind' or some such thing.
But you're quick to judge the entire SEO industry because of the part of that industry that does things like spam your forum.
Do you see the hypocrisy there?
2)
The only harm you've listed is inconvenience to you. You have to clean up spam in an online message board. You have to read thru "SEO Gibberish" Excuse me if I don't cry a river for you. An inconvenience does not a "detriment to society" make. Commericals are inconvenient but are you going around telling producers that you hate them?
What's more, these are things you CHOSE to do. You chose to operate a website open to the public. Further, you chose to clean up spam as it happens. You chose not to implement heuristic or Bayesian filtering of comments (you're a developer after all. bayesian filtering is easy.), You chose not to implement a Captcha during sign-up or login. You chose to actually read "SEO Giberish" instead of just moving to the next site on the list. Your choices. Your hand is not being forced.
3)
There's a phrase you may or may not be familer with. If you aren't, look it up: "there is no universal truth"
4)
Getting 'bad search results' is Googles fault, Not website owners.
5)
When a business closes one branch and opens another in the big economic center of a city--as in my mall example--this isn't considered 'gaming the system.' It's considered GOOD BUSINESS. Similarily, optimizing your site for it's location is not "gaming" anything. It's playing inside the rules, and it's GOOD BUSINESS.
6)
If you think that this world is one of moral absolutes, where things are "Net Good" or "Net Bad" is silly and immature. It just is. I'm not trying to attack you personally, I'm just being honest. Capitalism, for all its ugliness, is the reason that America is what it is today. Capitalism is *good*. How about this for your moral relativism: By doing SEO, I'm making a business more profitable. This in turn means that they're hiring more people. Paying more wages. Those wages are feeding children and putting braces on their teeth and clothes on their backs.
7)
SEO is only necessary because of the power of Google. They are creating a search monopoly. They are becomming one of the most poweful corporations on the planet. Yet you fail to wax poetic about the moral and ethical implications of what Google is doing. They can change their algo and a businesses sales can plummet. People get laid off. People go hungry. They cry. They stay up late worrying. They are harmed. Where is your crusade against that? Where is your crusade against the growing power of Google?
8)
Google lays out a list of rules. If you play inside those rules you're not doing anything wrong. Period.
9)
People that spam their links are stupid because that really doesn't boost your ranking. In fact, it can seriously harm your ranking. If backlinks fluctuate too wildly, your site is penalized.
10)
What is your "total contribution to the happiness of mankind?" How would you begin to measure that? Do you know what? The website I linked to in the beginning--just one of many that's hired me--sells mostly to non profits. They raised hundreds of thousands--possibly millions--of dollars for victims of Hurricane Katrina and the Boxing Day Tsunami. Schools and non-profits all over the country have funded things like school camp and toys for tots and make-a-wish thru products purchased thru the SEO'd website. How do you measure that?
The honest truth is that you cannot. You have a black and white mind in a gray world.
Before I complete any SEO contract I submit the site to Googles review team. If it gets banned, I do what I need to do to fix it. Usually it's just a 30 or 90 day ban at first and they'll unban you if you fix the problem that caused the ban.
If it doesn't get banned within 45 days after submission, they pay the remaining part of the contract and it's considered complete.
So far, 15-or-so websites later, I've *never* has a website banned.
All you need to do is follow their webmaster guidelines, as I've already said.
All this talk of "gaming the system" by people who seem to not understand the "rules of the game."
Here's a post by Dean on WebmasterWorld from back in May:
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum44/2127.htm
Dean seems morally-challenged. Here's another goodie from WMW:
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum10/11401.htmAnd, finally, one more:
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum103/667.htmLooks like Dean's been toying with various scammy concepts for a while.
In any case, he's looking like more of a sleeze by the minute.