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I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts

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Re: I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts

#101

Post by pathseeker »

troydavis wrote: post #30
warent wrote: post #18

I don't endorse this behavior at all but can it really be said to be black-hat? imho seems more gray to me. From what I understand, content _is_ being generated and there are attempts to boost the SEO, so they're providing a service and it's not outright theft. At worst it just sounds like poor practice and gaming the system. They're not acting maliciously, illegally, and/or destructively, which is how I've always de…

If this isn't black-hat, what is? Specifically, an author not disclosing an affiliation or payment, fake accounts promoting it, and fake accounts commenting on those promotions. In the continuum between white and black, what's left on the black side? :-)

SQL injections, vulnerability exploits, or other hijacking mechanisms to inject links directly. In my mind, using a system as designed without breaking any laws lands in grey-hat territory.

Re: I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts

#103

Post by nitrogen »

calibas wrote: post #58

>I think it would have been less work for them to be legit My neighbor had a brother who was a "black hat" and when he explained to me how he ran his scams, I came to the same conclusion.

>I think it would have been less work for them to be legit

I had the same conclusion when someone told me about the dozens of cheap/used Android devices they and their roommates used to get paid to "watch" ads. Apparently there are apps that will pay you for ads you watch, and you can babysit them pretty easily to make like..... $200/mo.

Re: I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts

#104

Post by higerordermap »

troydavis wrote: post #3

The Twitter thread has a lot more. There's a person or firm who is doing black-hat content marketing at scale. They either approach freelance bloggers to write articles about their clients (to be submitted to Medium-hosted and similar blogs as if written by unaffiliated users), or create Medium profiles for fake names and write the posts themselves. Posts have appeared in Better Programming, DEV.to, FAUN, freeCodeCam…

Funny that I have learned to not click on these sites in Google search. I know that's almost always going to be shallow, SEO content.

Re: I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts

#105

Post by Reebz »

troydavis wrote: post #30
warent wrote: post #18

I don't endorse this behavior at all but can it really be said to be black-hat? imho seems more gray to me. From what I understand, content _is_ being generated and there are attempts to boost the SEO, so they're providing a service and it's not outright theft. At worst it just sounds like poor practice and gaming the system. They're not acting maliciously, illegally, and/or destructively, which is how I've always de…

If this isn't black-hat, what is? Specifically, an author not disclosing an affiliation or payment, fake accounts promoting it, and fake accounts commenting on those promotions. In the continuum between white and black, what's left on the black side? :-)

It is more commonly known as Astroturfing

Re: I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts

#106

Post by higerordermap »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #43
troydavis wrote: post #3

The Twitter thread has a lot more. There's a person or firm who is doing black-hat content marketing at scale. They either approach freelance bloggers to write articles about their clients (to be submitted to Medium-hosted and similar blogs as if written by unaffiliated users), or create Medium profiles for fake names and write the posts themselves. Posts have appeared in Better Programming, DEV.to, FAUN, freeCodeCam…

It would be a good idea to present stronger evidence before saying HN is astroturfable. It has one of the strongest anti astroturf systems I’ve seen, primarily because of how HN works (which, sadly, is hard to discuss openly). I believe you about Reddit, but it’s going to be quite hard to buy your way into HN, no matter how cleverly you do it. I’m not saying it’s impossible. But it’s so easy to believe, and so hard t…

HN / reddit / lobsters whatever programmer link aggregators may be astroturfed. But after a while you will learn to recognise the smell of astroturfing and even otherwise, they are refuted by commenters. More likely that there are fanboys that come with irrational arguments rather than astroturfing in these forums.

The greater harm of these content marketing bullshit is it pollutes Google search results. If you search Google for some mainstream enough technical terms, all you get is shallow information, poorly written, posts on bullshit sites.

I'd like someone to make a search engine for authentic programming related websites and blogs, even if hand aggregated. Instead of surfing through 5 pages of ZDNet, geeksforgeeks, DZone, thenewstack, quora etc.. highly SEO'd sites.

Re: I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts

#107

Post by hardwaresofton »

dev.to and itnext are in the twitter thread thanking the poster for bringing this to light as if the existence of accounts that do this isn't a major boon to their platforms. dev.to and itnext, just like medium and other such sites are essentially content marketing farms. It is possible that they both dislike that activity and benefit from it, but I couldn't read those tweets without some skepticism.

I for one find that most really high quality blog posts I read are not really on medium/dev.to/itnext, unless some large organization has committed to making every employee post there, but rather on small blogs run by people who pay the $5/month or year or whatever to run their own blog. Maybe I just haven't looked around enough.

Re: I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts

#108

Post by sxv »

pathseeker wrote: post #99
marketingPro wrote: post #96

The biggest companies can astroturf and never get caught because they can pay a premium for high value accounts. Anything pro S&P500 should be suspect, especially when the comments are defending bad news. Heck if Aldi astroturfs on reddit Frugal, you bet everyone else has a reputation management team outsourced for plausible deniability.

>Anything pro S&P500 should be suspect, especially when the comments are defending bad news. That's a pretty ridiculous assertion when you consider how many people benefit from these companies' products/services. (Look at how many people like Apple products.) Subsequently, they will defend the companies that they think are getting unfair treatment.

Flagged as suspect. Just kidding. Well, it could be argued that if you are defending S&P500 you are probably a pawn whether knowingly or not.

Re: I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts

#109

Post by tunesmith »

twmahna wrote: post #71
chrisweekly wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a big difference between "this happens" and "this is happening now, via these accounts, take a look and see precisely how, as it happens". Also, if the threshold for posting something of potential interest to HN were "exclusive / breaking news" there'd be far too few posts and likely no community here at all for [redacted; aiming to practice civility and kindness] all of us to enjoy.

You seem to be refuting claims I never made. I'm simply perplexed that so many people don't know this market exists (as is indicated/suggested by the number of upvotes).

I am interested in why you felt the need to make the comment, though? Because it can come across jaded like, "yeah yeah, seen it all before, there's nothing new here", which is sort of like throwing cold water on it, which can reduce the odds of positive change happening.

Re: I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts

#110

Post by gonzo41 »

twmahna wrote: post #31

Is this actually news to people? This has been happening for decades. The purpose is largely for SEO / sometimes for actual traffic. Just go google "private blog networks" (pbn) or "link farm".

It's like just recently dawned upon people that criminals and corrupt people also go on the internet and take their shitty behavior with them.

color me shocked.

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