Several odious personages, actually. I scanned some of the comments, and they are all ethically challenged:
- - - comment from article - - - Comment by Melanie Phung http://www.all-about-content.com/ - 2008-11-06 12:19:37
I’ll take that one step further. Start by spamming the crap out of the Wikipedia page in question with internal Wiki links — add links to as many Wikipedia pages as quickly as you can, they should be barely relevant.
In my experience, adding a huge volume of internal links all at once can trip a Google filter and make the page disappear from the SERP (at least for a little while).
Then in a day or so you can go back (obviously from a different IP/account) and remove all those links PLUS many of the original legit links in the name of cleaning up after “the spammer”. Just make sure you don’t look too obvious.
This accomplishes two things: 1) you might succeed in knocking the page off Google’s front page for appearing to have gained a spammy link profile and 2) it gives you a legit looking reason to remove existing links on powerful Wiki pages.
- - - end comment from article - - -
Notice the stated aim is not to be ethical at all, the aim is to have a legit "looking" reason. The only concerns raised at all were either "But how do you prevent being caught?" and one very weak comment that "That's why this is blue hat, not white hat".
Meh.
David Gerard wrote:
http://www.bluehatseo.com/how-to-overthrow-a-wikipedia-result/
What an odious person.
- d.
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We're playing directly into their hands with the "Combat overlinking!" campaign that is today's rage. There is even a pat edit summary I've been seeing a lot, that ends with "You can help too! See [[I forget what page]]".
Nathan
On 11/26/08, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
We're playing directly into their hands with the "Combat overlinking!" campaign that is today's rage. There is even a pat edit summary I've been seeing a lot, that ends with "You can help too! See [[I forget what page]]".
Yes, anyone operating a site dedicated to indexing "what happened on this day" would benefit from this...
...as would any site consisting primarily of "common terms". Hmm... now I'm curious. Has anyone yet googled for something and found the "simple english" Wikipedia at top of the results?
/me feels <s>serendipitous</s>...err I mean... "very lucky".
—C.W.
2008/11/26 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
http://www.bluehatseo.com/how-to-overthrow-a-wikipedia-result/
What an odious person.
...remove *internal* links? Well, that's somewhat surreal.
(I am now tempted to ensure every single incidence of the phrase "mesothelioma" is wikilinked)
On Thu, Nov 27, 2008 at 2:18 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
http://www.bluehatseo.com/how-to-overthrow-a-wikipedia-result/
What an odious person.
- d.
Well, it depends on your viewpoint. From his point of view, the idea is to rank a Wikipedia page down so a given page rises above it, and he provides tactics on how to do this. The fact that this damages Wikipedia is irrelevant.
In fact, within Wikipedia you get a lot of similar activity from POV-warriors. Their aim is to present polemic rather than information. A minor example of this can be found at Alex Jones (radio host). The guy's a nut of the first order, but he's got a string of defenders, often anons, who remove any criticism of their hero. Of course Wikipedia is part of the conspiracy to discredit him and these guys are just setting the record strait.
I'm sure everyone on this list has their own favorite example article, where POV ducklings nibble away at objectivity, hoping to remain under the radar.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Skyring" skyring@gmail.com To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2008 9:07 AM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] How to sabotage Wikipedia, for SEO spammers
On Thu, Nov 27, 2008 at 2:18 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
http://www.bluehatseo.com/how-to-overthrow-a-wikipedia-result/
What an odious person.
- d.
Well, it depends on your viewpoint. From his point of view, the idea is to rank a Wikipedia page down so a given page rises above it, and he provides tactics on how to do this. The fact that this damages Wikipedia is irrelevant.
I'm glad they're not manipulating the ratings themselves. I'm more than happy to put a project's rating template in and give it the best of my judgement, and I've never argued with someone else's rating, except upward. I did not add the CompSci template to [[gossip protocol]], and I am not finished with it, either. It won't get a high rating for importance, because it is only theory.
In fact, within Wikipedia you get a lot of similar activity from POV-warriors. Their aim is to present polemic rather than information. A minor example of this can be found at Alex Jones (radio host). The guy's a nut of the first order, but he's got a string of defenders, often anons, who remove any criticism of their hero. Of course Wikipedia is part of the conspiracy to discredit him and these guys are just setting the record strait.
There is so much of a record in a radio host that won't matter in two years that I wouldn't pay much attention. Shock jock, newscaster, opinion columnist -- don't care. That guy who does "The Rest of The Story" will persist beyond his death.
I'm sure everyone on this list has their own favorite example article, where POV ducklings nibble away at objectivity, hoping to remain under the radar.
Weasel words [[ad populum]] and other stilts (clues about POV) go in and out of [[prion]], and there does not seem to be much to know about prions. A great many people can conceive of self-modification with only protein. I cannot, and it is out of my field, so I do not really know. Maybe I should get Brown's book. I wonder if it's in the library. I got into wikipedia, because of [[prion]] in the Oxford dictionary of Phrase and Fable. I want to take out every mention of "hypothesis" from [[prion]], except ones in a section header.
2008/11/26 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
http://www.bluehatseo.com/how-to-overthrow-a-wikipedia-result/
What an odious person.
- d.
Standard SEO.
The attack line has been talked about for at least a year but so far no dirrect evidence that it works. In theory it should as long as you assume that google treats wikis like other websites. Due to their unusually high levels of inline linking in wikis this is questionable.
On 11/26/08, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
In theory it should as long as you assume that google treats wikis like other websites. Due to their unusually high levels of inline linking in wikis this is questionable.
In proportion to the number of distinct pages available on *large* wikis the amount of internal linking is unusually low. But yeah, whatever way this and other factors are measured one would be a fool to assume Wikipedia isn't a special case in determining them.
—C.W.
On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 12:27 PM, Charlotte Webb <charlottethewebb@gmail.com
wrote:
On 11/26/08, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
In theory it should as long as you assume that google treats wikis like other websites. Due to their unusually high levels of inline linking in wikis this is questionable.
In proportion to the number of distinct pages available on *large* wikis the amount of internal linking is unusually low. But yeah, whatever way this and other factors are measured one would be a fool to assume Wikipedia isn't a special case in determining them.
Google way overvalues internal linking anyway. Why else would Wikipedia and Investopedia, with their useless three sentence answers, rank so high for searches like http://www.google.com/search?q=debtor+in+possession+financing
Google way overvalues internal linking anyway. Why else would Wikipedia and Investopedia, with their useless three sentence answers, rank so high for searches like http://www.google.com/search?q=debtor+in+possession+financing
Domain authority. Lots of people link to Wikipedia from lots of reputable sites which benefits all Wikipedia pages, not just those linked to. The same applies to Investopedia, although to a lesser extent.