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The main driver of SEO spam, and online scams in general are countries that have little to no opportunity for economic growth. There are literally millions of I

The main driver of SEO spam, and online scams in general are countries that have little to no opportunity for economic growth. There are literally millions of Internet savvy people who would be able to survive on what we would consider barely anything profit-wise in adsense revenue, which also usually pays out in US dollars. In this currently terrible global economy, desperation turns the most intelligent minds bound into poverty into bootleg SEO engineers, online catfishers, scammers, and ransomware creators, and God bless their creativity... Instead of creating income opportunity and crowdsourcing people in foreign countries for common (more positive) good, companies rarely create opportunities for the people who would normally turn into spammers and scammers, and that's what creates an endless army of people that constantly destroy online communities like Soundcloud, FaceBook, Twitter, and TikTok with stolen content, trend scams, fake news, and spam messages. Google search has been invalidating and subverting their most accurate search results based on abstract SEO rules for quite some time now. It was likely done so that they could implant paid ads first into content, because that makes them the most profit. Doing that has destroyed their reliability and reputation as a search service leader, and they're never going to admit it, but payola is the undertone that is ruining their search results... There is a certain type of corruption that occurs when a company turns away from upholding customer service and value towards a monopolistic "profit-first economic stranglehold" business model... That strategy never ultimately works out well for both companies AND users in the long run. The next leader will likely be a search that avoids the same pitfalls until they themselves become a profit-driven monopoly. There is no algorithm that will usefully and fairly counter spam based on desperation, companies need to realize that creating opportunity for people to operate equally on their platforms is the best move, otherwise, spam will drive any community of rule abiding users away or into madness.

mrkramer 5y ago
>The main driver of SEO spam, and online scams in general are countries that have little to no opportunity for economic growth. Not quite right because cybercrime aka hacking, cracking, spamming etc. originated in US not in East Europe, Russia and third world countries which are dominating hacking and spamming scene today. Main motivation of cybercriminals is quick money and ease of getting away with it since you are not physically committing a crime but digitally/electronically.
- adventured 5y ago
  It is quite right. Those are the main drivers and it's due to lack economic opportunities. Hacking heavily originated in the US because the US practically built the entire modern tech universe from the ground up. The US was far out in front when it came to utilizing the Internet and the Web, so of course unethical people in the US pioneered various types of online crime, the US was the early adopter. If you're an elite engineer in the US, you can make millions of dollars doing legal work for big tech. It helps in a big way to drain the labor pool as it pertains to criminal activity online. You generally can't do that today in the countries that dominate SEO spam, online scams, etc. In those countries elite engineers suffer terrible wages doing legal work compared to what they should be able to earn for their abilities; commonly they can earn a lot more doing illegal work instead, it's a very potent lure. You're an elite engineer in Russia, top ~1%-3% globally. What do you do? Earn several thousand dollars per month doing legit software development in Russia (with either zero or little consequential equity compensation); flee Russia for a more affluent market; or do illegal work where the rewards can be dramatically greater. It would be difficult to resist if you were unable or unwilling to leave Russia.
  - mrkramer 5y ago
    >You're an elite engineer in Russia, top ~1%-3% globally. What do you do? Earn several thousand dollars per month doing legit software development in Russia Become software entrepreneur? And many international software companies have software development teams and presence in Russia.
    - emerongi 5y ago
      > Become software entrepreneur? Exactly. Hacking for hire, making cheats, botnets, SEO farms, selling exploits and hacked social media accounts; practically anything you can think of that US software engineers can't be bothered with, as they already earn a healthy salary. That is entrepreneurism.
      - mrkramer 5y ago

mrkramer 5y ago

>The main driver of SEO spam, and online scams in general are countries that have little to no opportunity for economic growth. Not quite right because cybercrime aka hacking, cracking, spamming etc. originated in US not in East Europe, Russia and third world countries which are dominating hacking and spamming scene today. Main motivation of cybercriminals is quick money and ease of getting away with it since you are not physically committing a crime but digitally/electronically.

adventured 5y ago
It is quite right. Those are the main drivers and it's due to lack economic opportunities. Hacking heavily originated in the US because the US practically built the entire modern tech universe from the ground up. The US was far out in front when it came to utilizing the Internet and the Web, so of course unethical people in the US pioneered various types of online crime, the US was the early adopter. If you're an elite engineer in the US, you can make millions of dollars doing legal work for big tech. It helps in a big way to drain the labor pool as it pertains to criminal activity online. You generally can't do that today in the countries that dominate SEO spam, online scams, etc. In those countries elite engineers suffer terrible wages doing legal work compared to what they should be able to earn for their abilities; commonly they can earn a lot more doing illegal work instead, it's a very potent lure. You're an elite engineer in Russia, top ~1%-3% globally. What do you do? Earn several thousand dollars per month doing legit software development in Russia (with either zero or little consequential equity compensation); flee Russia for a more affluent market; or do illegal work where the rewards can be dramatically greater. It would be difficult to resist if you were unable or unwilling to leave Russia.
- mrkramer 5y ago
  >You're an elite engineer in Russia, top ~1%-3% globally. What do you do? Earn several thousand dollars per month doing legit software development in Russia Become software entrepreneur? And many international software companies have software development teams and presence in Russia.
  - emerongi 5y ago
    > Become software entrepreneur? Exactly. Hacking for hire, making cheats, botnets, SEO farms, selling exploits and hacked social media accounts; practically anything you can think of that US software engineers can't be bothered with, as they already earn a healthy salary. That is entrepreneurism.
    - mrkramer 5y ago