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i find this very disgusting
by nudiustertian 9y ago
i find this very disgusting
- lamlam 9y agoMay I ask why?
- rublev 9y agoProbably because it's designed to feign organic interest in a niche market to get readers to hand over their money and thus little by little tactics like this erode faith in the web.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- danso 9y agoJust the other day I was looking for a good running-hydration-backpack and Googling for that brought up a bevy of sites that used round-up lists of Amazon affiliate links. The content was relatively well-written, if bland. In the end, these listicles were too bland to be helpful and I ended up adding "site:reddit.com" to my query.
- rhizome 9y agoAKA The Wirecutter/Sweethome Strategy.
- js2 9y agoI don't think that's fair. Wirecutter/Sweethome is quite well researched and what is recommended they review directly.
- yellow_postit 9y agoIt's also marketing to ensure your product is included in their reviews.
- rhizome 9y agoYes, I like them too, but I'm not sure anybody else had really executed on that model before them, and at any rate they are the strategy to be copied nowadays.
- petra 9y agoWell, the incentives of the wirecutter are to recommend you the more expensive products, like any commission based salesman. And it shows.
- pmoriarty 9y agoThis reminds me of how Amazon reviews used to be really helpful, but more and more these days I'm seeing so many obviously fake reviews that are cluttering up the site, especially for "popular" products. It's really watering down the value of the site for me.
- js2 9y agoNathan VaporAir.
- paulcole 9y agoUltimate Direction AK 3.0 :)
- js2 9y agoThat's a huge vest. Mostly I use my handheld so even the VaporAir is more than I need. So different use cases for these two recommendations.
- paulcole 9y agoYeah it definitely is a big pack. During the fall/winter here in the PNW I carry a lot of layers. I'm also Type I Diabetic so I carry some emergency supplies that I (hopefully) never use and most people don't need to bother with. Lately I've been really liking the Jurek Endure. That plus an Amp handheld (squish it up and bungee it to the waist pack when empty) have been great for up to about 15 miles this summer.
- petra 9y agoWhat about sockpuppets when using site:.reddit.com ?
- cctan 9y agoSooner or later the readers will find out the truth. But in the mean time before the market re-adjusts itself, he's raking in 10k per month.
- nudiustertian 9y agobecause sites like that push either totally generic information off as a 'review' tricking people into thinking its the best product or straight up lie about it and make up most of the first page search results
- rhizome 9y agoYes, the writing is 5th Grade book report level. "There are many hydration backpacks on the market and it can be hard to choose. One of them is X, which has [feature list]. Another one that some people like is Y, which has [feature list]..."
- sidlls 9y agoIsn't the average person's reading level not much higher than that?
- dboreham 9y agoPretty good for a Perl script though.
- s0rce 9y agoThere are so many sites with reviews like that. After reading for a while it becomes sadly clear that they didn't actually physically interact with the items in question. They just rehash manufacturer curated information or steal from other review sites. So much useless information.
- rhizome 9y agoI've found that invariably they have wordy and low-density first paragraphs that make it fairly obvious what's going on, and further reading reveals that it's going to be a long slog after which my back button comes out of its holster. Fine, they got a SERP click out of me, but that's as far as it goes.
- nimchimpsky 9y agowhat exactly do you find disgusting.
- xiaoma 9y ago>"what exactly do you find disgusting." Disgust isn't usually that easy to pin down with precision. Do you find a soiled diaper disgusting? If so, "What exactly do you find disgusting?" Do you find a it disgusting if a person is plucking out their eyebrows and eating them? Probably, but what exactly about it is disgusting? Many if not most people would struggle to pin it down "exactly". In the case of this particular affiliate site, I'd say the general incentive structure that leads to this entire category of business is disgusting but it's somewhat difficult to pin it on any one specific actor. The site builder may have the best of motives and simply be rationally exploiting an opportunity that would undoubtedly be done by someone else otherwise.
- sillysaurus3 9y agoSurprisingly interesting comment.
- jermaustin1 9y ago>Do you find a soiled diaper disgusting? If so, "What exactly do you find disgusting?" The "soil"! > Do you find a it disgusting if a person is plucking out their eyebrows and eating them? Probably, but what exactly about it is disgusting? Eating hair! Is it really hard to pin down where your disgust comes from, or are these examples just overly simplistic?
- xiaoma 9y agoIn each case, your answer was essentially, "the disgusting thing in its entirety!" This is equivalent to nudiustertian's reaction toward the affiliate site. The difficulty comes from trying to zoom in to a higher level of precision, as nimchimpsky requested. What exactly do you find disgusting about someone eating an eyebrow, for example? Can you explain it?
- dna_polymerase 9y agoI assume its the tons of dumb 'content' put out there? Congesting Google Searches with nothing but wikipedia curated information with BS added to put Amazon Links in there. At least that's what disgusts me about that.
- nudiustertian 9y agoyep
- shanecleveland 9y agoCase in point: https://flippa.com/8874347-thebestabovegroundpoolsreviews-com https://flippa.com/8874347-thebestabovegroundpoolsreviews-co... I have to image Google eventually figures out how to weed these out altogether. I believe there can be quality, valuable affiliate sites (Amazon and otherwise). Reviewsignal.com is a refreshing take on hosting reviews (interviewed on Indie Hackers recently).
- rnprince 9y agoThis is just another form of marketing, and marketing does create value. It's true that some marketing is dishonest and harmful, but I don't have a reason to think this is one of those cases. This person is providing a service in reviewing products for people making buying decisions. As a result, they waste less time being unsure about their decision, and less money is spent on purchases they regret.
- nudiustertian 9y agothat would be true if they were actually reviewing these products and not doing basic feature overviews ranked often artibrarily. theyre in the business of looking legitimate not being it
- the_cat_kittles 9y agoi really disagree that marketing creates value, at least the current state of things. to me, marketing looks like a big prisoners dilemma that i have to actively ignore and filter in order to make good decisions.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago> i really disagree that marketing creates value Have you never found a product you wouldn't have heard about had it not been for an ad or something like it?
- the_cat_kittles 9y agoi dont dispute that theres value in clearly identifying what your selling. im saying that we are past that point and into lying and manipulative advertising in lots of cases. to put it another way, im fairly sure that "marketing" is making it harder for me to find the things i want rather than easier.
- BoiledCabbage 9y agoIf marketing were really about "product discovery" there would just be a yellow pages for all products and we'd call it a day. It is a zero sum game of trying to get a manipulate a consumer to like your product over another.
- the_cat_kittles 9y agobecause... lo and behold! its not doing anything of value yet someone is getting paid a bunch. in fact, its probably doing more harm than good by spamming a bunch of people and chowdering up google. cue the "you cant know how valuable it is, thats what the market decides" people in 3... 2... 1... dear younger people than me: strive to do something that you would be proud of even if you weren't getting paid. and if you do end up making a bunch of money without a lot of work, give it away! thats my feeling anyway.
- ben_jones 9y agocue a bunch of 20 somethings living with their parents because they didn't go for the money in 3.. 2.. 1..
- the_cat_kittles 9y agointerpreting that charitably as "you need to be realistic about your career choice, and that means looking at how much people in the field make" ...its easy for me to agree with that. im suggesting that you add to that some consideration of the content of the work beyond how much you get paid.
- unimpressive 9y ago>dear younger people than me: strive to do something that you would be proud of even if you weren't getting paid. and if you do end up making a bunch of money without a lot of work, give it away! thats my feeling anyway. Don't be stupid, invest the money and give away some of the fat from your market returns, put the rest back in. Charitable causes need consistent, long term donation more than they need one time cash bonanzas. As a bonus, if you're ever in financial trouble you have a safety net.
- the_cat_kittles 9y agoagree, didnt mean to imply right away...
- lazyasciiart 9y ago
- Mz 9y agoYes, but if you actually just write to add value to the web, good luck monetizing it AT ALL. I am increasingly inclined to go do something like this and see if it pays. Because trying to add value doesn't. It just makes me a chump.
- ryandrake 9y agoI agree. Every time I read about this type of "back-link hustling business" I come away feeling like I need to take a shower. Same with lead generation. I mean, congratulations, you can produce some cheap generic content and then spam it all over the web so my Google searches are 0.001% less relevant and you can suck a few $K a month out of Amazon.
- ivm 9y agoWhat's your plan to rank a good product for relevant keywords without building backlinks?
- ryandrake 9y agoI don't have any plan, since I have no interest in "ranking" somebody's product.
- ivm 9y agoSo if you or your company release something, you'll let it die without visibility because you don't like link building outreach?
- ryandrake 9y agoAnswering that would require speculation, since I own no company and have no current plans to "release something" of my own any time soon. I suppose, should I one day decide to hang my shingle out there and sell a product, I would aim to make it of sufficient quality and usefulness so as to not require scummy "link building" to sell it.
- ivm 9y agoIt's not enough to be "useful", you need to work on visibility (marketing, SEO). You need to reach the owners of the sites where your potential customers are hanging out and ask them to link to your useful product. This way you will get better positions in search results and more traffic to your site. There's nothing "scammy" in this kind of outreach unless you're building links for a scam.
- CM30 9y agoAgreed. Not only is it completely destroying any hope I have of finding useful information in Google, but as someone who tries to create useful content, it makes you wonder why you even bother. Why write interesting articles/create informative YouTube videos when low quality clickbait and affiliate spam seems to make ten times more money? Seeing stuff like this rake in the cash while actual journalists and publications struggle to stay afloat is incredibly depressing.