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Online Store to Sue Blogger Over Google Ranking?
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wed Dec 13, 2006 12:32 PM
from the all-this-effort-could-have-gone-to-fixing-his-site dept.
from the all-this-effort-could-have-gone-to-fixing-his-site dept.
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."
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Online Store to Sue Blogger Over Google Ranking?
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Ranking.... (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://prometheus.med.utah.edu/~bwjones/ | Last Journal: Friday November 09, @08:01PM)
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....
Re:Ranking.... (Score:4, Insightful)
My resume is better ranked on google than some (minor) online stores.
Re:Ranking.... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.outpimp.com/?x=57020 | Last Journal: Wednesday September 12, @09:15PM)
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.
Re:Ranking.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ranking.... (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.lazylightning.org/)
I routinely outrank local businesses that I write about on my site. Generally these businesses are unknown to Google and if I don't link to their actual site (it may not exist prior to me posting about them and them subsequently finding out that I gave them an unfavorable review).
I have watched local businesses like Divinci's Pizza [lazylightning.org] go in and out of business while trying to gain top Google ranking. I have also had pissed off business owners post to my site trying to prove that they aren't as bad as I said they were.
Why am I ranked higher? Probably because of Slashdot and the various other blogs that link back to me (I'm somewhere around 270 links). Other than that, who the fuck knows.
Re:Ranking.... (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.vintagevolts.com/ | Last Journal: Monday March 27 2006, @12:34PM)
Didn't you hear the warnings about hair growing on the bottom of your mouse if you do that too often?
Re:Ranking.... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://stylus-toolbox.sf.net/ | Last Journal: Tuesday May 15 2007, @11:50AM)
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?
Re:Ranking.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I would imagine that the business owners are attempting to "fool" google's ranking system. They just assume that Dean Hunt is trying and beating them and they're crying foul.
Perhaps they paid someone like a search engine placement company [seop.com] and feel a little angry at being cheated?
Re:Ranking.... (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://stylus-toolbox.sf.net/ | Last Journal: Tuesday May 15 2007, @11:50AM)
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.
THIS IS FAKE, HE MADE THIS UP! PLEASE READ. (Score:5, Interesting)
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!
Mod Parent Up (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Mod Parent DOWN (Score:5, Funny)
How about these?
asshole [deanhunt.com]
shithead [deanhunt.com]
He is in the SEO biz, and this is a viral campaign (Score:5, Informative)
(http://slashdot.org/~Infonaut/journal | Last Journal: Tuesday July 31, @02:22PM)
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 [deanhunt.com].
Re:He is in the SEO biz, and this is a viral campa (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Friday October 26, @01:12AM)
An entry for wicktionary:
deanhunt
It looks like this is turning into a cautionary tale for would-be advertising gurus: just becoming widely known is not enough; you need to very much avoid becoming widely known as a laughingstock.
Here's my secret (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Here's my secret (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Here's my secret (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Get a Clue. (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://clintonhawk.net/)
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.
Re:Ranking.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Perhaps Its the Lawyer (Score:5, Informative)
(http://slashdot.org/~eldavojohn/ | Last Journal: Tuesday October 16, @03:26PM)
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?
Even easier. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Even easier. (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.myspace.com/mypetmachinemusic)
I'd like to meet this Sally.
Re:Even easier. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Even easier. (Score:5, Funny)
(http://brett.jungblut.net/)
No way. Why should I change? He's the one who sucks.
Even the stupidest lawyers aren't stupid enough (Score:5, Insightful)
Cry me a river... (Score:4, Insightful)
Dump him to page 4 (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.totallygeek.com/)
Simple (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The blogger's problem? (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sorry, sir, but we won't be needing you and your fancy rational thinking on the jury. Have a nice day!
Reminds me of.... (Score:5, Funny)
Fighting on the internet is like the Special Olympics. Even if you win, you're still retarded.
While not necessarily the most tactful of quotes, it does ring true.
MY BLOG WAS SUED BY MICROSOFT (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
30 Comments and nobody asking about Mike? (Score:4, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Thursday December 09 2004, @09:25AM)
Laugh. It's funny.
Okay, it isn't. It's tired and overused. And oddly enough, MikeHunt.com is safe for work. Whoddathunkit?
Never underestimate the subtle stuff. (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
My response (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.danslagle.com/)
Since your business [edited].com is doing rather well and top ranking is important to your business. Please transfer $[edited] in U.S. dollars to this [edited] account. When that happens I will gladly remove any and all references to [edited].com.
Thanks and bite me
Not convinced this guy is truthful (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Not convinced this guy is truthful (Score:5, Interesting)
SEO slashvertisement - viral campaign (Score:5, Informative)
He even wrote: I will make a viral campaign!
http://deanhunt.com/category/seo/ [deanhunt.com]
This is it and you have fallen for it. Stupidos.
Tuttle Award nominee (Score:5, Funny)
See Misconfigured Webserver, Threats to Call FBI [slashdot.org].
Re:Tuttle Award nominee (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.gemstate.net/friends | Last Journal: Tuesday September 11, @10:32AM)
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.
SEO Viral Campaign (Score:5, Informative)
fake news, viral marketing (Score:5, Informative)
(Last Journal: Thursday June 19 2003, @10:32AM)
http://deanhunt.com/category/seo/ [deanhunt.com]
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.
Check out how he is doing it! (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://mydoghatestechnology.com/)
this is crazy (Score:4, Informative)
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.
I'm Still Waiting To Be Extorted... (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
"key" words (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is this even on Slashdot? (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.bobpitch.com/)
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.
Dunno if it is a hoax or not (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.gargoyleslanding.com/)
Business should be ranked higher because why?! (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/)
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.
It is real? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:please counter-sue (Score:5, Funny)
Brilliant!
Re:Hoax or not it's damn funny. (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Thursday November 01, @12:01PM)
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.