Comments on: Reader Discussion: Fake LinkBait

By: Kyle Baczynski

Kyle Baczynski — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 20:12:29 +0000

I think that while this is an extremely clever strategy to generate traffic, it’s not really a moral way to do it.

First of all, people tend to trust what they see on the internet. Yeah, they shouldn’t, but they do it anyway. He’s taking advantage of that, and if he caused a major news agency to pick it up, that’s even worse.

I agree with Ned, as well, that he lost a lot of credibility for what he did.

By: Ned Carey

Ned Carey — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 06:03:52 +0000

Yes it is clever marketing but he traded short term success for a long term loss of credibility. I wouldn’t trust him and might read his blog a lot less. What goes around comes around.

Now I agree other new reports should have checked their facts.

By: Stephanie |The Deal Is

Stephanie |The Deal Is — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 06:57:44 +0000

I think it was very smart on his part, as it did accomplish the goal of scoring massive links but I don’t think it was very ethical. The fact is folks, you can’t believe everything you read on the net or anywhere else for that matter, and just because the news says it’s so doesn’t mean it really is or that it is in the same context that they displayed it to be.

You have to take everything with a grain of salt these days and really consider the source, the good thing about this I guess is that no one got “hurt” by it. If it was a joke, or scam where someone’s well being was in jeopardy or where lot’s of money loss was at stake that would be a different story.

By: canmexdave

canmexdave — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:19:52 +0000

Man you don’t even know how long I’ve waited for this since disabling my own Movable Type widget (that doesn’t work since Haloscan bypasses that code).

By: Danny Cooper

Danny Cooper — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 13:30:52 +0000

I don’t see any problem with link baiting, but when you lie in order to perform a link bait I think it goes past the line.

By: Mike Huang

Mike Huang — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 04:43:34 +0000

Lol, I don’t even know what to say about this. To congratulate the success or to pity him…

-Mike

By: Lyndon Antcliff

Lyndon Antcliff — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 07:13:22 +0000

To me, it’s only a lie if you say it’s something that it isn’t. I never said it was true, I merely announced to the world, this is what I wrote. I never asked anyone to believe it was true, it was up to the individual.

The article was crafted to specifically go mental though, but this was the only one that dripped into the traditional media, and the fooled themselves and then revealed it as fake.

Well duh, it wasn’t meant to be taken seriously. To me it’s irrelevant if people believe it’s true or not, what is important is that it gets links. That it causes a big noise.

There is a formula to this stuff and once you crack the code, once you “get it”, links are never a problem again.

“Dire consequences”? Gimme a break, it’s a funny story selling nothing, claiming nothing, it’s entertainment intended to be passed around.

You would be amazed at the stuff I have gotten away with that you do not know about.

By: Stephen Lee

Stephen Lee — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 04:20:03 +0000

Marketing genius he may be but such an act is not without dire consequences – kids have a habit of picking up on such an act and sensationalized it even more each time, putting themselves in harms way. If it’s your kid that is involved, would you still hail him as a marketing genius ? I’m not too sure about that.

By: Keywords Anchor and Do-Follow Blog

Keywords Anchor and Do-Follow Blog — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 01:37:55 +0000

I think it probably backfired, because the readers that found out that it was false, were they lost to him after that? Also, this is a story he stole from an old Law and Order episode

By: Creating passive income online

Creating passive income online — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 23:49:27 +0000

Defamation is where I draw the line, however, if anyone builds adsense sights or affiliate sites, is link-baiting not common practice? building pages with just too little an amount of information is a prime strategy for getting clicks on your ads right? or building a page, getting links, then changing it later to an affiliate squeeze is rather typical from what i have seen.

i don’t see harm in this practice, so long as it doesn’t fall into the defamation category.