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Avatar Went Hot: March 3, 2008 - 12:33 pm
Posted By: SlightlyShadySEO 142 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.slightlyshadyseo.com)
Category: News Sites
Recently, SEO.com attempted to manipulate sphinn.com votes in an effort to get publicity. This is a breakdown of what they tried, how they got caught, and why it didn't work.
This article is the result of a poll I ran on whether they should be outted.
15 Comments     

Comments

from Doubleohd 142 days ago #
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Wow...You have to really go out of your way to not think about all of these factors.  Kudos on catching them and calling them out on it.

from rishilakhani 142 days ago #
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umm... like wow? ?!!!!!!!
Sphunn!

from Shogun 142 days ago #
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Good on you protecting the place Shady... :)

from Gamermk 142 days ago #
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As I commented on your site, this was kinda unnecessary imo. Sphinn is really good about banning accounts that do this.

from SlightlyShadySEO 142 days ago #
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@Doubleohd/rishilakhani/shogun: Thank you very much!
@GamerMk: Yes, I reported here and it got removed. I wasn't sure if I wanted to post about it, so I left it up to the readers in a poll. The results were SO in favor of posting the article, that there was little question.

from ffnstuff 142 days ago #
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sphunn... pretty basic stuff. ANother one would be dont make accounts like  SEO1man SEO2man  SEO3man.

thats asking for it. Ive seen it ;)

from Gamermk 142 days ago #
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Ya I guess you gotta give your audience what they want. I'll sphinn it under that perspective.

from SlightlyShadySEO 142 days ago #
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Yeah sorry it was so basic. They just made a lot of REALLY basic mistakes.

from Gamermk 142 days ago #
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Nothing wrong with the basic aspect of it. It would have been kinda cool to list ideas of how they could improve their manipulation, but then you'd basically be sticking it to Sphinn in the process which is kinda crummy :(

from JamesDuthie 142 days ago #
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Only problem Shady is you've now given them clues on how not to game the system... Guess your detective work doesn't end here... :)

Shady = Sphinn police.

from SpostareDuro 142 days ago #
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Yea, nothing wrong with the basics Shady..Nice job...*-)

from planetc1 142 days ago #
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Suprised I din't se it until the evening. Great stuff.

A good example of how this post differs from what's discussed in your topic is to view the "Who Sphunn This" tab. Currently, there is a single default (green) avatar, along with many sphinns from active community members, and mix of different user groups. Good indication of a pure post. :)

from Eavesy 142 days ago #
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If you can't get a submission on the frontpage of sphinn you have problems.

from cw360 141 days ago #
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Nice post. My Green Wheel is going to disapear tonight, just had not got around to it yet.

General Comment: I learn a lot from Shady's blog. Nice to read about what black hats are up to.

from Mugambo 140 days ago #
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Social media manipulation can be quite an involved process...well at least if you want to go about it with some modicum of success. You need different IP addresses, also as pointed out by SlightlyShadySEO you obviously also have to vote for posts/articles other than your own and it wouldn't hurt if you left the odd meaningful comment every now and then.

Also to forego red flags popping up you should conduct your manipulation campaign over a period of time not, as evident in the above scenario, all in the same day!

All told a one-man-manipulation could easily rack up a lot of hours with respect to the time involved...which begs the question why bother? Why not do the right thing? Besides even if you have IP morphers several of the larger sites have counter measures!


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