June 04, 2005
Manipulating Search Results with "Google Bomb Blogs"
As blogs continue to enter into the Internet mainstream, this article from Online Journalism Review highlights one of the darker aspects of this growing awareness of blogs. Quixtar, "a revamped online version of Amway", has been using blogs to try and squelch online criticism of its brand:
To put it simply, Quixtar enlisted various people to help create dozens of Weblogs that linked to each other and were filled with positive stories and key words. The idea is to help put these newer blogs at the top of search results for phrases such as "Quixtar success" and "Quixtar opportunity," while more critical sites such as Quixtar Blog and Amquix.info would drop down.
Read more at Companies subvert search results to squelch criticism
Posted by BJ at June 4, 2005 05:58 AM