Sunday 12 December 2010

WTF book promo

We can only hope Sun Media's London Free Press has nothing to do with this deceptive online book promotion that uses the Tori Stafford story as a draw:

tori stafford london free press | The 77 Secrets
By The London Free Press VIDEO: Premier Dalton McGuinty was in London Friday where he visited the food bank and discussed a number of issues including the . ...
the77secrets.com/77/tori-stafford-london-free-press/

First impression is "The 77 Secrets" in the tagline are facts about the murder case that are now known after a publication was partially lifted.

But the link is to a promo for a book called The 77 Secrets, which has nothing to do with Tori's abduction and murder, nor the aftermath.

If the London Free Press has anything to do with this shameful book promotion, it is a new low for the paper.

If it is an individual using the paper's name - and the murder case - to deceive people into viewing details about the book, the Free Press should immediately put a stop to the deception.

Here's another secret for those responsible: Going to the bottom of the barrel for recognition is a sure way to never see daylight.

2 comments:

  1. Has nothing to do with the LFP. These scam sites have been around since last century.

    The newer scam sites can be 100% automated. In some cases, you just buy your own web hosting space and another company will run the entire process for you. Of course, that company takes a chunk of any money you make.

    Such a site will automatically search the web for *any* remotely-related content and then will link to that content. These sites can even auto-embed youtube videos, etc.

    The point to these links/embeds is to attract search engines and, of course, to mislead web viewers searching for "real" information.

    These sites usually run on blog software (i.e. Wordpress) and their purpose is to make money from advertising and/or by selling some crappy e-book. These sites are often called "flogs", and they litter the web.

    Flogs will ping as many legit blogs as possible, hoping to attract some traffic from those legit sites. Some will even auto-post messages on forums, also hoping to attract traffic.

    There are also many scam sites that use look-alike domain names in hopes of attracting web visitors who have slightly misspelled the real domain name.

    On the Web, there are snake oil salesmen on every corner. Web-proof yourself the same way you street-proof your kids. Or, be like a journalist: believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see. Especially on the Web.

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  2. I think there are websites the mine copy from other sites and regurgitate it in an attempt to game Google and generate some traffic for whatever shody product they are hocking. I don't think a person is even involved, there are just computer programs that spew this stuff out

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