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Is this actually news to people? This has been happening for decades. The purpose is largely for SEO / sometimes for actual traffic. Just go google "private b

Is this actually news to people? This has been happening for decades. The purpose is largely for SEO / sometimes for actual traffic. Just go google "private blog networks" (pbn) or "link farm".

troydavis 6y ago
> Is this actually news to people? Good question. The thing that was news to me is that it's happening on very large blogs, not random sites and that it's being sold to and used by well-known startups. Like you, I expect sockpuppet accounts and random linkbuilding garbage, just not at this scale or with this much distribution.
- twmahna 6y ago
  Welcome to the world of black hat services => https://www.blackhatworld.com/forums/seo-packages.206/ https://www.blackhatworld.com/forums/seo-packages.206/
  - w-ll 6y ago
    lol. sus tho I like how this site has a cookie policy overlay.
  - technion 6y ago
    The thing to note there is that despite being on a "black hat" website, most of those ads are from marketing or SEO companies linking to their own legitimate company websites. It's clear most of them just see this as how internet marketing is done. I also note that as a not logged in user, the Twitter just shows me "related tweets" from people actually hiring or offering to sell social media content.
- solumos 6y ago
  Not only very large blogs - the Forbes contributor program is probably the biggest example of "linkbuilding garbage"
chrisweekly 6y ago
There's a big difference between "this happens" and "this is happening now, via these accounts, take a look and see precisely how, as it happens". Also, if the threshold for posting something of potential interest to HN were "exclusive / breaking news" there'd be far too few posts and likely no community here at all for [redacted; aiming to practice civility and kindness] all of us to enjoy.
- twmahna 6y ago
  You seem to be refuting claims I never made. I'm simply perplexed that so many people don't know this market exists (as is indicated/suggested by the number of upvotes).
  - noizejoy 6y ago
    An upvote doesn’t necessarily imply lack of knowledge of this existing.
  - cortesoft 6y ago
    I knew this happens, and I upvoted. Learning details about something I knew about is useful. What makes you think upvotes imply people don’t know this sort of thing exists?
    - mattigames 6y ago
      Maybe he is a bot creator (or a bot account) that tries to discredit the importance of other bot accounts? I mean it would be the natural step for those groups to try to persuade the public (e.g. reddit users) that is not a big deal that those accounts exist.
    - ineedasername 6y ago
      Because Troy Davis, in his tweet, literally said "I didn't know that black-hat content marketing existed" I think his comments here indicate that what he meant was he wasn't aware it exists "at scale" in this way, but taking the content of the linked post at face value, it's easy to come away thinking "How did he now know this existed?". It's precisely what I thought after reading his tweets, but before seeing his detailed comments here.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
gonzo41 6y ago
It's like just recently dawned upon people that criminals and corrupt people also go on the internet and take their shitty behavior with them. color me shocked.
unethical_ban 6y ago
It would be news to millions of Americans, for sure, since millions of people know about "the internet" less than they think, and additionally, many millions don't "think like a criminal" to consider how organizations might try to trick people. And as others have said, even if the behavior weren't surprising, learning about a specific ring of it is.
momokoko 6y ago
This very site denies it happens even though it is often quite obvious. > Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html If you mention this kind of thing at all, dang will pop in and warn you. You can post all kinds of other crazy stuff, but mention astroturfing or vote manipulation and you will almost always get a response. This is because these sites realize the exact opposite. That the percentage of this stuff is absolutely massive and they are terrified what will happen if the public finds out how common it is. Its not that people do not realize it happens. It is that the average person is underestimating it by serveral orders of magnitude.
- dang 6y ago
  That's no denial. That guideline specifically asks people to notify us so we can investigate. We do that every time anyone asks. I've personally spent hundreds (probably thousands) of hours investigating such things, have banned many accounts and sites for it, and have put tons of effort into writing code to combat it. We take it seriously. We just need some evidence. Surely you don't think we should lower the bar below that? If you don't believe me, ask troydavis, who went to all the trouble of investigating the above case and writing the OP, whether we take evidence seriously and ban accounts and sites based on it. Or any of the countless other HN users who spot things and ask us to look into them. They're the ones who actually care enough about the community to help protect it. The problem is that there's another side of the coin: most of the cheap insinuations of astroturfing, shilling, foreign-agenting, spying, botting, and all the rest of it—where by "most" I mean the vast majority—are pulled (begging your pardon) purely out of the insinuator's ass. Internet users just love to make this stuff up as a cheap way of throwing shade on whatever they dislike. That's the dross the guidelines ask HN users to keep out of the threads. This is important because gratuitously accusing others of dishonesty is a fast track to poisoning community, and it's 1000x easier to generate such accusations than it is to answer them. > This is because these sites realize the exact opposite. That the percentage of this stuff is absolutely massive and they are terrified what will happen if the public finds out how common it is. Here is something I can answer definitively—you're talking about what's going on in my mind and I think I can speak with some authority about that. No, that is not what's happening. What's happening is that I worry about the integrity of the community on two sides: protecting it from actual abuse and manipulation on the one hand, and protecting it from toxic fantasy bullshit on the other.
cblconfederate 6y ago
The internet used to be a suspicious, sarcastic, and rather disbelieving crowd, but that has changed for newer generations. I do thing there are many people for whom this is news. There 's just too much fluff feel-good marketing content going around that one forgets the motives behind it. Old style blogs and comments made it obvious that there were tons of spam, nowadays it has gone covert because major distribution platforms remove obvious spam. Unfortunately this means that if you want to promote your side project, there's just no way, most topical subreddits will flag u as spam, and you are left with niches like r/sideproject. Or you do this kind of social media/content marketing

Is this actually news to people? This has been happening for decades. The purpose is largely for SEO / sometimes for actual traffic. Just go google "private blog networks" (pbn) or "link farm".

troydavis 6y ago

> Is this actually news to people? Good question. The thing that was news to me is that it's happening on very large blogs, not random sites and that it's being sold to and used by well-known startups. Like you, I expect sockpuppet accounts and random linkbuilding garbage, just not at this scale or with this much distribution.

twmahna 6y ago
Welcome to the world of black hat services => https://www.blackhatworld.com/forums/seo-packages.206/ https://www.blackhatworld.com/forums/seo-packages.206/
- w-ll 6y ago
  lol. sus tho I like how this site has a cookie policy overlay.
- technion 6y ago
  The thing to note there is that despite being on a "black hat" website, most of those ads are from marketing or SEO companies linking to their own legitimate company websites. It's clear most of them just see this as how internet marketing is done. I also note that as a not logged in user, the Twitter just shows me "related tweets" from people actually hiring or offering to sell social media content.
solumos 6y ago
Not only very large blogs - the Forbes contributor program is probably the biggest example of "linkbuilding garbage"

chrisweekly 6y ago

There's a big difference between "this happens" and "this is happening now, via these accounts, take a look and see precisely how, as it happens". Also, if the threshold for posting something of potential interest to HN were "exclusive / breaking news" there'd be far too few posts and likely no community here at all for [redacted; aiming to practice civility and kindness] all of us to enjoy.

twmahna 6y ago
You seem to be refuting claims I never made. I'm simply perplexed that so many people don't know this market exists (as is indicated/suggested by the number of upvotes).
- noizejoy 6y ago
  An upvote doesn’t necessarily imply lack of knowledge of this existing.
- cortesoft 6y ago
  I knew this happens, and I upvoted. Learning details about something I knew about is useful. What makes you think upvotes imply people don’t know this sort of thing exists?
  - mattigames 6y ago
    Maybe he is a bot creator (or a bot account) that tries to discredit the importance of other bot accounts? I mean it would be the natural step for those groups to try to persuade the public (e.g. reddit users) that is not a big deal that those accounts exist.
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    Because Troy Davis, in his tweet, literally said "I didn't know that black-hat content marketing existed" I think his comments here indicate that what he meant was he wasn't aware it exists "at scale" in this way, but taking the content of the linked post at face value, it's easy to come away thinking "How did he now know this existed?". It's precisely what I thought after reading his tweets, but before seeing his detailed comments here.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

gonzo41 6y ago

It's like just recently dawned upon people that criminals and corrupt people also go on the internet and take their shitty behavior with them. color me shocked.

unethical_ban 6y ago

It would be news to millions of Americans, for sure, since millions of people know about "the internet" less than they think, and additionally, many millions don't "think like a criminal" to consider how organizations might try to trick people. And as others have said, even if the behavior weren't surprising, learning about a specific ring of it is.

momokoko 6y ago

This very site denies it happens even though it is often quite obvious. > Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html If you mention this kind of thing at all, dang will pop in and warn you. You can post all kinds of other crazy stuff, but mention astroturfing or vote manipulation and you will almost always get a response. This is because these sites realize the exact opposite. That the percentage of this stuff is absolutely massive and they are terrified what will happen if the public finds out how common it is. Its not that people do not realize it happens. It is that the average person is underestimating it by serveral orders of magnitude.

dang 6y ago
That's no denial. That guideline specifically asks people to notify us so we can investigate. We do that every time anyone asks. I've personally spent hundreds (probably thousands) of hours investigating such things, have banned many accounts and sites for it, and have put tons of effort into writing code to combat it. We take it seriously. We just need some evidence. Surely you don't think we should lower the bar below that? If you don't believe me, ask troydavis, who went to all the trouble of investigating the above case and writing the OP, whether we take evidence seriously and ban accounts and sites based on it. Or any of the countless other HN users who spot things and ask us to look into them. They're the ones who actually care enough about the community to help protect it. The problem is that there's another side of the coin: most of the cheap insinuations of astroturfing, shilling, foreign-agenting, spying, botting, and all the rest of it—where by "most" I mean the vast majority—are pulled (begging your pardon) purely out of the insinuator's ass. Internet users just love to make this stuff up as a cheap way of throwing shade on whatever they dislike. That's the dross the guidelines ask HN users to keep out of the threads. This is important because gratuitously accusing others of dishonesty is a fast track to poisoning community, and it's 1000x easier to generate such accusations than it is to answer them. > This is because these sites realize the exact opposite. That the percentage of this stuff is absolutely massive and they are terrified what will happen if the public finds out how common it is. Here is something I can answer definitively—you're talking about what's going on in my mind and I think I can speak with some authority about that. No, that is not what's happening. What's happening is that I worry about the integrity of the community on two sides: protecting it from actual abuse and manipulation on the one hand, and protecting it from toxic fantasy bullshit on the other.

cblconfederate 6y ago

The internet used to be a suspicious, sarcastic, and rather disbelieving crowd, but that has changed for newer generations. I do thing there are many people for whom this is news. There 's just too much fluff feel-good marketing content going around that one forgets the motives behind it. Old style blogs and comments made it obvious that there were tons of spam, nowadays it has gone covert because major distribution platforms remove obvious spam. Unfortunately this means that if you want to promote your side project, there's just no way, most topical subreddits will flag u as spam, and you are left with niches like r/sideproject. Or you do this kind of social media/content marketing