No Press Is Bad Press Even Online

otter42 writes "The NYTimes has an 8-page exposé on how an online business is thriving because of giant amounts of negative reviews. It seems that if you directly google the company you have no problem discerning the true nature; but if you instead only google the brand names it sells, the company is at the top of the rankings. Turns out that all the negative advertisement he generates from reputable sites gives him countless links that inflate his pagerank."

Comments

Hyperlinks and Pagerank 101

[Haedrian]

This shows the failure of how hyperlinks works and how the page rank algorithm works.

The Page rank algorithm determines how useful a site is based on the amount of hyperlinks TO the website. Each count is multiplied by how reputable a website is - so if its a huge website which brings in millions of users - then its more likely to be reputable than a website on a free host which gets 10 hits a year.

Now the problem with hyperlinks is that there is no semantic information attached to them - if you place a link on a page - there is no way to mark it as "This is a dangerous page" for example, or "This guy is an idiot, someone shut him up" or "This is an adverstiment, they have nothing to do with us". So the crawler notices a reputable website is linking on another site - and gives points accordingly.

The best solution is to add semantic information to hyperlinks - but that's not supported yet...

Re:Hyperlinks and Pagerank 101

[Haedrian]

Natural Language processing is one of the hardest problems there are in ICT.

If only Search Engines could actually understand the Natural Language we type our websites in - then we wouldn't even need to research anything, just ask the Search Engine and get the correct answer - already pre-filtered and understood.

Won't be happening very soon - because there are tons of ways of saying the same thing.

"The following website gives irreputable medical advice - which could be dangerous for health. [Link]"
"[Link], [Link2], and [Link3] - one of the three scam sites which were detected by [Reputable site]"

The second one is a very interesting problems, how do you mark it? Without marking reputable site as well?

Re:Hyperlinks and Pagerank 101

[datapharmer]

sure there is, use rel="nofollow" if you don't want to share link love.

Re:Hyperlinks and Pagerank 101

[Moryath]

No, how about the regulatory agencies responsible for handling business licensing, fraud, and criminal prosecutions actually get off their ass and do something about this guy?

It should be easy enough to set up a sting on him. Buy a pair of glasses, check if they're fakes, attempt to return them, see what he does in return and record any messages he leaves along with any other interactions with a "honeypot" credit card account.

The problem is that law enforcement agencies in the US aren't interested in doing their jobs when it comes to criminals like Borker.

Re:Hyperlinks and Pagerank 101

[rtfa-troll]

This shows the failure of how hyperlinks works and how the page rank algorithm works.

In fact what this shows is the failure of the current idea that people don't need to be educated about computers. In this case, the question the person has asked is "which is the most 'interesting' link related to Lafont eyglasses". And "interesting" is defined as something like "most discussed". The person thinks they have asked "magically tell me where is the most interesting Lafont link for me".

Page rank is doing exactly what it's meant to do. Now people have to understand what that is. Once they do that, they have to work out how to get what they want (e.g. look for "Lafont shopping comparison" then track through different comparison sites).

Google can add tools which help people understand results. A direct link to shopping ratings for example, but people still need to be willing to do the work to understand what the computer is doing for them.

Re:Hyperlinks and Pagerank 101

[Anonymous Coward]

Hamlet prequel?

What a piece of work, this A.C.? How funny in posting,
How comedic in faculties, in form and typing,
I would express admiration by action to this Anon Cow, sans apprehension,
But I'm not Mod!

Re:Hyperlinks and Pagerank 101

[Calydor]

And how exactly do you suggest doing that on, say, a consumer forum using very limited BBcode? The moment you don't have control over the code generated on the page you may as well give up on being fancy.

No need to RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks to the NYT's valiant efforts, you can be spared from reading TFA: just check out the comic instead.

Nofollow?

[WPIDalamar]

Perhaps review sites should add nofollow attributes to their external links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nofollow

Maybe just for negative reviews?

Re:Nofollow?

[janek78]

Or maybe not use hyperlinks? I mean, if I want to warn people about www.crazyscammer.com, why would I need to make it into a clickable link? I don't. Now he gets linked from NYTimes. Well done.

Re:Nofollow?

[plover]

How about combining the worst with the worst? Add "nofollow" to any links in negative reviews, and copy negative reviews to a shadow site that's filled with links to sites known for porn, pedophilia, viruses and malware.

Re:Nofollow?

[mounthood]

rel="nofollow" isn't new and it's useful for large websites with user submitted content. Slashdot, for example, adds it to outbound links to remove any incentive to increase page rank by spamming links. All the major search engines respect it AFAIK.

Re:The kneejerk reactions

[Blue Stone]

Let's not forget CitiBank who apparently didn't give a shit that someone fraudulently closed the woman's disputed charge.

I have an account run by CitiBank, and this has made me decide to close it - before I get subjected to their don't care approach.

Blaming Google?

[MDMurphy]

Reading the article I had to shake my head at the complaints that "Google should do something". Do they think the phone book people should boot him out or circle his name in red too?

I've seen people complain in online forums about ads or intrusive product placement in TV shows and movies. And what do they do? They mention the product or company 3-4 times in their rant. On threads where I've commented I've tried to encourage people not to name the specific product or company in their rant, but too many clueless people out there. You hate the placement but remember it well enough to bitch about it online. Advertiser searches for online comments and finds many, so the campaign was successful.

Heck, the Times article just boosted the guy's profile even more! There wasn't just one mention of the company, but many, increasing the rank. Of course the company name is still likely to just show up in a search for the company not the brand names.

So the guy is an ass, but all the clueless people who want to blame someone else ( Google ) and not do research on a company but just buy whatever is claimed to be the cheapest. They may not be getting what they deserve, but they did contribute to their problems by their lack of due diligence. "Too good to be true" is still a true statement. If you find something online where everyone has it for about the same price but someone magically has it much lower you're asking for trouble. That's when you really need to check on the reputation of the seller.

4Chan assemble

[frap]

I wouldn't wish 4Chan's wrath on my worst enemy but it sounds like this guy needs a taste of his own medicine to me.

Re:4Chan assemble

[M4DP4RROT]

Unfortunately, TFA makes this guy sound like someone 4chan would worship, actually: a man who's made internet trolling into a successful business model! If anything, 4chan users are more likely to emulate than emasculate.

Short-sighted?

[jfengel]

It may be that the guy is raking in cash today, but he's not just being a jackass: he's committing crimes. It's fiendishly difficult to prosecute some kinds of online crimes, especially when routed through overseas sites, but this guy does not seem to be protecting himself.

It's always wise to be suspicious of "trend" stories, since newspapers love to spot a single instance, call it a "trend", and get everybody yapping. But even if there is a "trend" here, it'll get cut right short if this guy gets arrested.

Which may be the real purpose behind the piece: take an injustice that is too small for authorities to take notice, raise its profile, and take some satisfaction when the police step in.

There may well be a marketing tactic to be had in providing rotten customer service and benefiting from the links provided by sites too dumb to use "nofollow". But there's a line between "rotten service" and "outright fraud", and this guy is well over it.

Re:Short-sighted?

[sampas]

The guy in the story is taking advantage of the fact that the authorities (who we're paying for via tax dollars) will do absolutely nothing for months and months until more and more complaints pile up. Most police reports are now online so that crime victims don't waste officers' time reporting crimes. The victim in the story reported the crime to numerous authorities, who responded by doing nothing for a long time. Likewise, the bank did nothing. It would be cool if Google did something about it, but it's not their problem. Our tax dollars pay the salaries of those who are supposed to protect us. It's a fairly simple case of fraud, harassment, and threat of violence. If you ever thought the your bank would protect you in case of fraud or identity theft, they won't. The only thing the banks protect is their own money. Maybe you've noticed the news about mortgage fraud? Not many convictions there, either. On the upside, though, they did manage to catch Bernie Madoff eventually....

Re:The kneejerk reactions

[Sponge Bath]

...terrible service from the costumers bank.

The funny masks should have tipped her off.

I do not doubt the ranking

[epseps]

But I do doubt that it is good for his business.

He claims that using google maps to stalk angry customers combined with harassing phone calls threatening rape helps his business with Search Engine Optimization from generating negative reviews.

His techniques match those of Brooklyn based discount camera and electronics retailers of a few years ago, with the object of the personal phone calls being to get a few $100 more out of suckers who think they are getting the best price on something. These camera scammers used to have multiple websites, cheap cameras listed and they would call and threaten customers using "Italian" names. Then complaints would mount and they would leave and move on to the next website, but I do not think they earned much money by doing this.

One reason I doubt Borker (hilarious name) is making loads of cash on this is because he handles the phone calls himself, that means there are not many calls (he answers "Eyewear" in the same way the camera guys used to answer the phone "Photography" or "Cameras") but I do believe he is making money off of something. Perhaps it is his other company that is referenced in older whois lookups of his websites called AOSI, which appeared to be a search engine optimization company. I am not sure the company has the same name now, but that might explain why he was happy to be interviewed about his crappy businesses.

Oh, and I really doubt his Wall Street story too. He used to have an office at 305 Madison Avenue which is a temporary office / mobile office rental address. He formed "OpticGenius.com" and ran it from there. I do not know too many "Wall Street" people who give up their jobs and devote themselves to running scams from home or temporary offices as a better source of income.

Are People Really Reading the Results?

[oDDmON oUT]

Sure, Google DecorM****s.com and the top five hits are all for that company, followed by a link to Resellerratings.com where the company has a stunning 1.39 lifetime rating out of 10.

Googling Lafont (with multiple suffixes), designer glasses or designer frames brings up a number of vendors, DecorMy... not being one of them.

Seems to me people need to hone their search skills and *always* search for ratings on vendors when ever they make a purchase, particularly when using them for the first time.

[Please note, I munged the company name, just to insure he gets no wuffie from this post]

Re:ORLY?

[oDDmON oUT]

Google: Christian Audigier glasses

DME is #6 on that results page, what's your point?

A smart shopper would click here, and quickly find that DME is *not* a low price leader for any style of frame from that designer, pictured on the results page.

Not to mention that lower priced vendors on that page are associated with e-tailers that have standards and pull...or is Amazon not "all that" anymore?

Do your homework on the vendor you intend to buy from, don't take links blindly, and you'll be fine.