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I know someone making tens of thousands a month from shilling VPNs. They have site where they "review" and "rate" VPNs. The reality is that the customers of th

I know someone making tens of thousands a month from shilling VPNs. They have site where they "review" and "rate" VPNs. The reality is that the customers of those products barely understand them and are buying into the BS of "stay anonymous" and "be private online". It's an easy market, especially considering you don't even need to develop the VPN software, just run instances on some cloud/VPS provider and do a ton of marketing. The person doing the shilling is marketing himself as a "privacy & crypto expert" and having a masters degree in cybersecurity, reality is dude barely graduated high school. He actually works for a friend of his who runs a whole variety of these sites and is about to clear $10M+ this year alone. What I've learned from this is that if you Google for some popular product, the first 5 pages are going to be SEO-optimized shilling sites. Just skip to page 10.

dorgo 7y ago
> What I've learned from this is that if you Google for some popular product, the first 5 pages are going to be SEO-optimized shilling sites. Just skip to page 10. Is a less SEO-optimized site less likely to be a scam?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- goldenkey 7y ago
  Yes, because knowledge isn't SEO-optimized by default. It takes time to do so. And time is money. And 99% of the time, those who are willing to spend a lot of time to get on the first page of Google are doing it to gain money, not to spread knowledge.
  - ptx 7y ago
    > Yes, because knowledge isn't SEO-optimized by default. Isn't it? I thought Google was trying to optimize their search engine for finding useful information, so if someone were to make an honest website that just tries to provide useful information (anachronistic as that may seem) wouldn't they hypothetically have the full manpower of Google's search team optimizing for finding it?
  - i_cant_speel 7y ago
    I don't disagree with your main point, but spreading knowledge and making money aren't mutually exclusive.
- andreareina 7y ago
  If shilling sites are more likely to be SEO-optimized, yes. One of the implications of Bayes' Theorem is that if observing A makes B more likely, then observing B also makes A more likely. A worked example: Given: P(shill) = P(!shill) = 0.5 P(optimized|shill) = 0.8 P(optimized|!shill) = 0.6 Then: P(optimized) = P(shill) * P(optimized|shill) + P(!shill) * P(optimized|!shill) = 0.4 + 0.3 = 0.7 P(shill|optimized) = P(optimized|shill) * P(shill)/P(optimized) = 0.8 * 0.5/0.7 ≈ 0.57 P(shill|!optimized) = P(!optimized|shill) * P(shill)/P(!optimized) = 0.2 * 0.5/0.3 ≈ 0.33
johnnycab 7y ago
>Just skip to page 10. I thought that was the running joke: Q: Where's the best place to hide a body? A: Page ten of Google. But, joking aside, you can install greasemonkey/tampermonkey and get the googlemonkeyr script to manage your search results to be a bit more effective. https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/31607-googlemonkeyr-fix-jul-2017 https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/31607-googlemonkeyr-fix-ju...
- ASalazarMX 7y ago
  Get out, that script is huge. I could install small convenience scripts that I can audit, but this monster is 3K+ lines. Too risky.
qrbLPHiKpiux 7y ago
> What I've learned from this is that if you Google for some popular product, the first 5 pages are going to be SEO-optimized shilling sites. Just skip to page 10. This is a big problem with Google, today. Say I want to search for something - not to buy it - just some facts. The immediate first pages are all sites on how to buy, costs, online stores. I have to go to 8 or 9 to start seeing what I want. This is today's Google.
- andrepd 7y ago
  I find myself just searching what I want + "reddit", to avoid the seo crap.
  - thehashrocket 7y ago
    Can you trust reddit, though? There's plenty of social media campaigns out there that have people plugging stuff on reddit to promote some company or agenda.
    - trickstra 7y ago
      the per-community moderation makes marketing spam much harder
      - acdha 7y ago
        Blatant spam, yes, but if it’s like what’s being discussed here I’d be hesitant that it goes much better than amazon reviews. It’s just too easy to create fake accounts and you don’t need to be that smart to avoid telegraphing this.
        theturtletalks 7y ago
        Yes but at least Reddit has downvoting. I still take the results with a grain of salt, but most times the Reddit user points you in the right direction.
    - 7y ago
auslander 7y ago
> Just skip to page 10 Results not from top 1M (1K, 10K, 100K) sites: https://millionshort.com/ https://millionshort.com/
vbezhenar 7y ago
Is it really easy market? I thought about running a VPN service, but how do I deal with abuses? People would use VPN for all kinds of things including bad ones. And investigators will come at me.
- 76 7y ago
  How do other companies deal with it?
- krageon 7y ago
  They will come at you, and you will help them or go to prison. That is the be-all end-all of running a VPN. If that bothers you, don't run one.
chemmail 7y ago
In all honesty, i have friends with masters in cybersec who don't know what sha256 is. This guy probably knows way more. That said all hosting/vpn are all circlejerks of the same 3-4 companies.

dorgo 7y ago

> What I've learned from this is that if you Google for some popular product, the first 5 pages are going to be SEO-optimized shilling sites. Just skip to page 10. Is a less SEO-optimized site less likely to be a scam?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
goldenkey 7y ago
Yes, because knowledge isn't SEO-optimized by default. It takes time to do so. And time is money. And 99% of the time, those who are willing to spend a lot of time to get on the first page of Google are doing it to gain money, not to spread knowledge.
- ptx 7y ago
  > Yes, because knowledge isn't SEO-optimized by default. Isn't it? I thought Google was trying to optimize their search engine for finding useful information, so if someone were to make an honest website that just tries to provide useful information (anachronistic as that may seem) wouldn't they hypothetically have the full manpower of Google's search team optimizing for finding it?
- i_cant_speel 7y ago
  I don't disagree with your main point, but spreading knowledge and making money aren't mutually exclusive.
andreareina 7y ago
If shilling sites are more likely to be SEO-optimized, yes. One of the implications of Bayes' Theorem is that if observing A makes B more likely, then observing B also makes A more likely. A worked example: Given: P(shill) = P(!shill) = 0.5 P(optimized|shill) = 0.8 P(optimized|!shill) = 0.6 Then: P(optimized) = P(shill) * P(optimized|shill) + P(!shill) * P(optimized|!shill) = 0.4 + 0.3 = 0.7 P(shill|optimized) = P(optimized|shill) * P(shill)/P(optimized) = 0.8 * 0.5/0.7 ≈ 0.57 P(shill|!optimized) = P(!optimized|shill) * P(shill)/P(!optimized) = 0.2 * 0.5/0.3 ≈ 0.33

johnnycab 7y ago

>Just skip to page 10. I thought that was the running joke: Q: Where's the best place to hide a body? A: Page ten of Google. But, joking aside, you can install greasemonkey/tampermonkey and get the googlemonkeyr script to manage your search results to be a bit more effective. https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/31607-googlemonkeyr-fix-jul-2017 https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/31607-googlemonkeyr-fix-ju...

ASalazarMX 7y ago
Get out, that script is huge. I could install small convenience scripts that I can audit, but this monster is 3K+ lines. Too risky.

qrbLPHiKpiux 7y ago

> What I've learned from this is that if you Google for some popular product, the first 5 pages are going to be SEO-optimized shilling sites. Just skip to page 10. This is a big problem with Google, today. Say I want to search for something - not to buy it - just some facts. The immediate first pages are all sites on how to buy, costs, online stores. I have to go to 8 or 9 to start seeing what I want. This is today's Google.

andrepd 7y ago
I find myself just searching what I want + "reddit", to avoid the seo crap.
- thehashrocket 7y ago
  Can you trust reddit, though? There's plenty of social media campaigns out there that have people plugging stuff on reddit to promote some company or agenda.
  - trickstra 7y ago
    the per-community moderation makes marketing spam much harder
    - acdha 7y ago
      Blatant spam, yes, but if it’s like what’s being discussed here I’d be hesitant that it goes much better than amazon reviews. It’s just too easy to create fake accounts and you don’t need to be that smart to avoid telegraphing this.
      - theturtletalks 7y ago
        Yes but at least Reddit has downvoting. I still take the results with a grain of salt, but most times the Reddit user points you in the right direction.
  - 7y ago

auslander 7y ago

> Just skip to page 10 Results not from top 1M (1K, 10K, 100K) sites: https://millionshort.com/ https://millionshort.com/

vbezhenar 7y ago

Is it really easy market? I thought about running a VPN service, but how do I deal with abuses? People would use VPN for all kinds of things including bad ones. And investigators will come at me.

76 7y ago
How do other companies deal with it?
krageon 7y ago
They will come at you, and you will help them or go to prison. That is the be-all end-all of running a VPN. If that bothers you, don't run one.

chemmail 7y ago

In all honesty, i have friends with masters in cybersec who don't know what sha256 is. This guy probably knows way more. That said all hosting/vpn are all circlejerks of the same 3-4 companies.