53 replies to this topic

[Jill]

Orpheus, not sure your facts on the Orson Welles thing are quite accurate. What he did (not purposely) actually made it illegal thereafter to not disclose that something was fake.

Which is exactly why today's media, according to the laws, have to publicly disclose such things. Thanks to our friend, Orson Welles.

Jonathan Crossfield has been providing some great facts and summaries of this situation. You may want to read #4 of this post where he eloquently explains why the Orson Welles thing is certainly no support for the people who think that writing fake content is a good way to get links.

In fact, I'll paste it here as well:

Orson Welles Mercury Theatre radio dramatisation of "The War of the Worlds" has been mentioned a few times in the last few days as one of the most famous hoaxes of all. Michael Gray uses the Welles play on his blog to illustrate how effective and valuable hoaxes can be.

Orson Welles never planned the dramatisation as a hoax. He never intended for the audience to believe the radio broadcast was real and was horrified when he heard of the mass hysteria it caused. Welles used the news announcer format purely as a dramatic device for only the first half of the play, before switching to a traditional dramatic style that clearly revealed the fictional origins. Sadly, many listeners had already fled their homes by this point and were unaware how the play resolved.

People armed themselves. Farm silos and water towers were shot at. Panic was widespread. Are these things to be considered valuable or lamentable?

The backlash to the play was massive and overwhelmingly negative. CBS forever changed its dramatic guidelines to prevent such a thing reoccurring. Welles narrowly avoided punishment but was still censured for his involvement.

If this is to be held up as an example of how hoax news stories have value�, then it quite clearly indicates the opposite.

[incrediblehelp]

money.co.uk is now (finally) saying it's a fake, and also apologizing. Funny how it took them 2 weeks (or so) to finally say it was fake. They're also saying that the marketer that did it is no longer involved with the company, which was also interesting.

So why havent they pulled the story from their website? LOL I can guess why.

[Jill]

Well, I should think a nice big fat 301-redirect to their home page from the false story could come in handy, actually.

[Orpheus Descending]

I'm not sure which facts you find in question, but they are true, you can look them up.

I'm not going to debate what Well's intent was or was not - he is the only person that will ever know that for sure, and what he said about the program and what he meant changed over time depending on what phase of his life he was in when he wrote or spoke about what he did or did not intend.

Did Wells expect the level of hysteria, probably not, but the show itself was meant to keep the audience engaged as though it was a real newscast - that was the point - it was why they adapted the narrative as flawlessly as they they did, and why they went to such lengths to make sure it sounded like a real newscast - that the audience went nuts is another matter. That radio was a relatively young medium and that all the ethical kinks hadn't been worked out yet is part of the issue (I think radio broadcasting had been around since the early 1920's and that aired in 1938. How old is SEO?)

That CBS had to write guidelines to ensure that malicious duping of the public would not be a part of its programing is part of the point I'm trying to make (although some of the commercials on SNL used to make me wonder...). Most professions have codes of ethics and guidelines, some even require licenses. If we rely on people just to have good judgment within a system that can be easily manipulated, well then I think we are just looking for trouble. And when people are able to commit unethical acts that are then rewarded by a system that doesn't make the distinction, isn't it the system that needs to be looked at?

Maybe someone should start an American Society of Ethical SEO Management (it could be called ASESMent) which would provide licenses, so that when something like this happens, that guy's license would just be revoked or his society membership would be canceled, like they do with Real Estate Agents, and doctors, and even talent agents.

[mcanerin]

I think the search engines need us more than we need links,

I agree, but enough website owners don't believe that to make an attempt to unilaterally stop linking a waste of time. It would take an organized movement, and most of the people who are the kind who could actually organize are also the type to already have links. I'm also not sure that the results of searches would be any better (probably worse).

Maybe someone should start an American Society of Ethical SEO Management (it could be called ASESMent) which would provide licenses, so that when something like this happens, that guy's license would just be revoked or his society membership would be canceled, like they do with Real Estate Agents, and doctors, and even talent agents.

Based on my experiences just trying to get SEO's to agree on the definition of "SEO", I doubt that idea is going to happen anytime soon!

Currently, the 2 big hammers in our industry are 1) for Google to do something to the site in question, followed by 2) public censure, usually in the blogosphere. Currently, they are effective for large public issues, but not so effective for smaller or hidden ones.

Ian

[Orpheus Descending]

There is also the Karma factor. This guy has some bad mojo coming his way. I'd bet links on it.

[ScottSalwolke]

I'm not going to debate what Well's intent was or was not - he is the only person that will ever know that for sure, and what he said about the program and what he meant changed over time depending on what phase of his life he was in when he wrote or spoke about what he did or did not intend.

It doesn't matter what Welles said later. The facts are simple. His show was a fictional show that adapted famous works of literature each week. And at the beginning of the broadcast the announcer tells us its an adaptation.

The focus here is a news outlet that presented a piece of fiction as real. There is no similarity in the intent at all.

[projectphp]

http://www.abc.net.a...awatch/vodcast/ - mediawatch video online now

[Jill]

In case anyone missed the newsletter, I wrote about this there as well...with a bit of a different spin on it:

Will Linkbait Ruin the Internet?

[oskar]

Well, the guy still takes pride of the "exploit", I will not take traffic there with a link but It can easily be tracked down by checking the blog.

As a SEO practitioner in UK I feel pretty embarrassed to say the least and this discredits us all. I am still battling prospect clients through education to make them understand that the changes and tactics we suggest make logical sense and will be benefitial for engines and people alike. Fortunately this kind of events don't usually reach the mainstream so it will probably not be too harmful for the industry.

[Randy]

I am still battling prospect clients through education to make them understand that the changes and tactics we suggest make logical sense and will be benefitial for engines and people alike.

That's exactly the reason I think Google etal should make an example out of money.co.uk, oskar.

When they do it makes it considerably easier for legitimate SEO's who use tried and trusted methods in their everyday endeavors on the behalf of clients to make the point that everyone really needs to tell the idiot and scammer SEOs out there to take a hike.

If there's no negative consequence, making such an argument becomes exponentially more difficult for real SEOs.

[Jill]

That's exactly the reason I think Google etal should make an example out of money.co.uk, oskar.

They may very well have already.

I don't know what their toolbar PR was before this fiasco, but currently I only see a 3 on their home page and nothing on the inner ones. Yet 12,500 pages are indexed according to a Google site: command.

[Randy]

I hope they do, and hit 'em where it hurts. Rankings.

Then make it very public like they did when BMW stepped across the line in the sand awhile back.

[ScottSalwolke]

I don't know what their toolbar PR was before this fiasco, but currently I only see a 3 on their home page and nothing on the inner ones. Yet 12,500 pages are indexed according to a Google site: command.

Would it really show up that fast on the toolbar? I could see them lowering their ranking, but it seems pretty quick for it to appear on the toolbar.

[Jill]

Would it really show up that fast on the toolbar? I could see them lowering their ranking, but it seems pretty quick for it to appear on the toolbar.

Yes, because it would just all be for show. If they did indeed penalize for this, it's probably just in toolbar PR only, and not effecting anything else.

Which means it's useless, but some proud people don't like their toolbar PR to look bad for some reason.

Then make it very public like they did when BMW stepped across the line in the sand awhile back.

Don't know about that, Randy. That was more of a joke. Like a 2 day penalty or something. Pretty useless, imo.