Email has been abused to the edge of destruction, is the web next? Is it really just going to turn into one giant talentless X Factor show?

TFIF

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@Liam, I think if the “outright fraud” was aimed at me it would be a legal issue, but it was aimed at a blog post I wrote and so becomes ambiguous over its legality. I wouldn’t hesitate to take legal action though if I thought it was libelous.

@Marty, of course this post is bait. But that’s oversimplifying what it is, it actually serves many purposes. Of which I have outlined to my students at linkbait coaching, it’s a text book case of what can happen when the attack hook goes wrong. Although you claim that it wasn’t really an attack and that it was in some way satire, I personally don’t believe that and I think your goal was more of causing havoc as I fail to see any business strategy behind what you did.

I think you more than most understand how barbed words can be and how much damage they can cause, which is why I find your apology hollow.

It also leads me not to trust anything you say and so when you say you link to me using the anchor text, “outright fraud”, I just smell bullshit. And the smell is really strong.

I think if the personal attacks had been left out it still would have been interesting to link to as allegedly Matt Cutts was quoted out of context, or misquoted.

But apart from that it mostly contains air, nothing new. Yeah some companies use fake accounts, is that really worth having a conversation about? Surely it’s all been said already. Nothing really new here.

I guess if avatar optimisation is what you want to hear about then yeah, it’s a great conversation to have.

I might say that they are advocating an SEM community dialogue on the subject of sock puppet marketing . . . my question is: would the post be bait worthy if the personal attacks were not included?

I think the topic of avatar use or “sock puppet marketing” is a good one on it’s own. And it would be nice to see some sort of real dialogue on that . . . sans bashing.

But, in my opinion the post referred to stunk so much of bait even the skunks wouldn’t go near it. I call it how I see it.

And I see bait.

Of course in the context of being linkbait it is actually very good, problem is, there is a cost to this kind of post. Now if you don’t mind paying the cost, and some people don’t, all fine and dandy. But nevertheless, as I am telling my linkbaiting students, sometimes the price is too high to pay and should be seen in the overall context of business objectives.