Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I created a fake business and bought it an online reputation

fusion.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 177 posts

Re: I created a fake business and bought it an online reputation

#151

Post by Animats »

I'm very aware of this problem. I set up Sitetruth.com to try to combat it. Here's what Sitetruth has on Launchrock.[1] Is there an street address on the web site? No. Anything we can tie to a list of US businesses? No. Better Business Bureau link? No. SEC filings? No. Rating: Do Not Enter. SiteTruth takes the position, "when in doubt, rate it down".

We'd use D&B data if it wasn't so expensive; this is just the demo version. There's a whole industry out there tracking business info, and the search industry isn't plugged into it. (Why? Google gets about a third of its revenue from AdSense ads on other sites. If Google really cracked down on clickbait sites, Google's own revenue would drop. We once calculated it would drop 14-17%.)

Back in 2011, I wrote "Social is bad for search, and search is bad for social".[2] That's when Google had started using social signals for search ranking, and the black-hat SEO industry had discovered how easy it was to manipulate Google via social. Old-style link farming, setting up lots of fake web sites to create links, is expensive, with servers to run and sites to fill. With social spamming, the social network hosts the spam for you, for free! You can still buy "bulk likes" for Facebook.[3][4] The price has gone up a little, indicating that Facebook is having some success in getting rid of fake accounts, but not much.

[1] http://www.sitetruth.com/rating/freakinawesomekaraoke.launch... [2] http://www.sitetruth.com/doc/socialisbadforsearch09.pdf [3] http://www.buylikesandfollowers.net/buy-facebook-likes-cheap... [4] https://boostlikes.com/

Re: I created a fake business and bought it an online reputation

#152

Post by Someone1234 »

skrebbel wrote: post #31

> A Lincoln could get me a Facebook review, a Google review, an Amazon review, or, less easily, a Yelp review. Mostly off topic, but what's "A Lincoln"?

American writers and journalists are always doing this. Do they really not know it makes the text unintelligible?

Even googling "A Lincoln" or "Lincoln" doesn't make it clear what they're trying to say, or how it applies.

When I read that I initially thought they meant the car company (Lincoln Motor Company), therefore I thought they were trying to say "if you spend car's worth of money you get " except when you read on it is clear they didn't get enough value for that to make sense.

The short is: If you're a professional writer, blogger, journalist, or whatever and have an international audience, just stop it.

Re: I created a fake business and bought it an online reputation

#153

Post by collyw »

pyre wrote: post #116
wanderfowl wrote: post #70

If you're a street musician setting up to play with an open instrument case, it's pretty important to "seed the pot" by throwing a few dollars and some change into the case. Not because you make any money from your own "donation", but because it shows passers-by what the arrangement is, and adds an element of social pressure ("Somebody donated, so I should too!"). I can see this as similar. There's something pathetic…

It's the same thing as posting a "tear off this phone number" page on a bulletin board. You always tear off a tab or two when you first post it, to make it look like people have shown interest.

That must depend on what you are advertising.

Looking for cheap appartmnts near a university, I would always go for the ones that didn't have lots of numbers taken, as it meant there was more chance I would be first to get it.

Re: I created a fake business and bought it an online reputation

#154

Post by digisth »

Animats wrote: post #151

I'm very aware of this problem. I set up Sitetruth.com to try to combat it. Here's what Sitetruth has on Launchrock.[1] Is there an street address on the web site? No. Anything we can tie to a list of US businesses? No. Better Business Bureau link? No. SEC filings? No. Rating: Do Not Enter. SiteTruth takes the position, "when in doubt, rate it down". We'd use D&B data if it wasn't so expensive; this is just the demo…

I really like this idea, but it seems fairly punishing for new / all remote / self-funded businesses. If you're running a company out of your own pocket (no SEC filings), aren't anywhere near big or old enough to have a BBB entry, and are remote (what street address should someone use? their apartment?) I'd like to know what signals you'd recommend bootstrappers use to engender trust for a service like yours, because I don't think "person is known on HN, posts on medium / Twitter about their service" is necessarily amenable to automated analysis.

Re: I created a fake business and bought it an online reputation

#155

Post by Goosey »

roymurdock wrote: post #131

Yelp was the only company that caught us, hiding both of the reviews I bought behind their “not recommended” click wall and not counting them in F.A.K.E.’s rating. It has software that screens out suspicious reviews, not including them in a company’s star-rating. If they see too many of them, they will penalize a business’s page, putting a “consumer alert” on the profile for 90 days warning visitors that they think t…

And with a sense of humor about it in social media followup: https://twitter.com/Yelp/status/644230950159671296 https://twitter.com/Yelp/status/644244909994676226 :)

Re: I created a fake business and bought it an online reputation

#156

Post by Animats »

digisth wrote: post #154
Animats wrote: post #151

I'm very aware of this problem. I set up Sitetruth.com to try to combat it. Here's what Sitetruth has on Launchrock.[1] Is there an street address on the web site? No. Anything we can tie to a list of US businesses? No. Better Business Bureau link? No. SEC filings? No. Rating: Do Not Enter. SiteTruth takes the position, "when in doubt, rate it down". We'd use D&B data if it wasn't so expensive; this is just the demo…

I really like this idea, but it seems fairly punishing for new / all remote / self-funded businesses. If you're running a company out of your own pocket (no SEC filings), aren't anywhere near big or old enough to have a BBB entry, and are remote (what street address should someone use? their apartment?) I'd like to know what signals you'd recommend bootstrappers use to engender trust for a service like yours, because…

"it seems fairly punishing for new / all remote / self-funded businesses."

There's no right to run an anonymous business. It's illegal in the EU, and a criminal offense California if you accept credit cards. The customer needs to be able to find you and, if necessary, haul you into court to get a refund. You can register a D/B/A name and get a post office box to create a legal identity. That's fine. Hiding behind a web site with "private registration" is a scumbag flag.

Read yesterday's article about how Venmo helps scammers by making anonymous payments easy.

Re: I created a fake business and bought it an online reputation

#157

Post by digisth »

Animats wrote: post #156
digisth wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really like this idea, but it seems fairly punishing for new / all remote / self-funded businesses. If you're running a company out of your own pocket (no SEC filings), aren't anywhere near big or old enough to have a BBB entry, and are remote (what street address should someone use? their apartment?) I'd like to know what signals you'd recommend bootstrappers use to engender trust for a service like yours, because…

"it seems fairly punishing for new / all remote / self-funded businesses." There's no right to run an anonymous business. It's illegal in the EU, and a criminal offense California if you accept credit cards. The customer needs to be able to find you and, if necessary, haul you into court to get a refund. You can register a D/B/A name and get a post office box to create a legal identity. That's fine. Hiding behind a w…

I definitely agree with that part. Does your service check WHOIS data, then?

Re: I created a fake business and bought it an online reputation

#159

Post by Animats »

digisth wrote: post #157
Animats wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"it seems fairly punishing for new / all remote / self-funded businesses." There's no right to run an anonymous business. It's illegal in the EU, and a criminal offense California if you accept credit cards. The customer needs to be able to find you and, if necessary, haul you into court to get a refund. You can register a D/B/A name and get a post office box to create a legal identity. That's fine. Hiding behind a w…

I definitely agree with that part. Does your service check WHOIS data, then?

No, WHOIS data is of such low quality that it's useless. SSL cert data is of better quality, for OV (Organization Validated) and EV (Extended validation) certs. Contact addresses found in text on the web site are also useful. Those we match to commercial business directory information.

Re: I created a fake business and bought it an online reputation

#160

Post by digisth »

Animats wrote: post #159
digisth wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely agree with that part. Does your service check WHOIS data, then?

No, WHOIS data is of such low quality that it's useless. SSL cert data is of better quality, for OV (Organization Validated) and EV (Extended validation) certs. Contact addresses found in text on the web site are also useful. Those we match to commercial business directory information.

Considering that many smaller companies use e.g. CloudFlare's SSL, I'm not sure that would help them, but good to know.
Post reply on HN