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April 27, 2005
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"Most alarmingly, the spammers may have also left malicious keywords in 4 out of 13 of the targeted posts; its suspected the intent was to use Google's keyword stuffing detectors to censor them. According to my sources, as of 4/27/05 CNN denies that they had anything to do with this," added Lewis.
The visitor appeared to agree with Lewis's opinion, but asked if he had seen Headline News Prime Time or Showbiz Tonight.
This struck Lewis as odd.
Under the post was left a block of repeated keywords "CNN", "Blogs", "headline news".
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| Source: SmartCampaigns.com |
"Having literally grown up on the Internet, I knew immediately what I was looking at: it was an old search engine optimization tactic called keyword stuffing. At one time (late 1990's) people figured out that they could stuff a page with keywords, and the search engines would rank their pages as more relevant. However, all search engines now have filters to detect this strategy. When search engines detect keyword stuffing, they respond by punishing the page. Usually, the punishment comes in the form of a heavy penalty on the pagerank, or – in some cases – removing the page entirely from their index," explained Lewis.
"I decided to set a trap. My guess was that if CNN was smart enough to use guerrilla & viral marketing tactics, they'd also be search savy enough to use Technorati to monitor it. I posted a blog post with the words 'CNN' and 'Spam' in the title, and sure enough the next morning I got 13 hits from a Technorati search for 'CNN' and 'Spam'."
"Below, I have listed every address that I've found that contains the spam. Note that some of the sites deleted the spam after receiving trafic from my previous investigation:"
http://log.hugoschotman.com/hugo/2004/12/cnn_blog_no_1_w.html
http://desperatehousewives.blog.com/160358/
http://robert.aitchison.org/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=36
http://crankygreg.blogs.com/crank_gregs_view/2005/03/cranky_greg_is_.html#comments
http://bigjuicybrains.net/moody/2005/03/ladies-and-gentlemen-of-jury-of-court.html
http://treyjackson.typepad.com/junction/2005/04/video_cnn_blog_.html
http://thepoint.typepad.com/the_point/2005/03/do_you_watch_na.html#comments
http://www.thesakeofargument.com/archives/001084.html
http://stupidevilbastard.com/index/seb/comments/5143/#c30100
http://www.pontifexexmachina.com/archives/296#comment-8163
http://jenrae.typepad.com/index/2005/01/headline_news__2.html
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00000937.htm
"We are not very friendly to the idea of marketers using our blogs in guerrilla campaigns designed to generate buzz. I hope I won't be alone in taking an early stand against a world where we no longer know whether the person in our comment box is a real person, or a guerrilla marketer attempting to take advantage of us," concluded Lewis.
Spam text:
| CNN Headline News Ruins its own Brand Image - NANCY GRACE...Are you kidding me? I used to be the biggest fan of CNN Headline News. It WAS great. I used to tune in a couple of times a night…at least before they butchered the show. Their new format is shameful. Have any of you seen Headline News Prime Time or Showbiz Tonight? No these are not new CNN channels, instead they have turned a once respectable CNN Headline News into a pretty much gossip news station at night…it is just awful. Basically, rather than having real news, they have this night-time format that focuses on entertainment news and gossip. It is awful...worse than FoxNews...Actually it is more like The Enquirer meets FoxNews. I refuse to watch this garbage. They have even given NANCY GRACE (talk about trashy, she is the queen of trash) a legal show to ramble on about Hollywood trials and everything else that you would read in a Hollywood Gossip column. She is about as news worthy as page 6 in the New York Post. This is the opposite of real news. Remember when CNN Headline News focused on the economy, politics and international affairs? This was when they used to focus 95% on real news on only about 5% on fluff. How can they think that people will now tune in to CNN to see only 5% real news and the rest gossip about entertainment or celebrity trials. And what in the World were they thinking of giving Nancy Grace her own hour long show. There are so many great anchors at CNN and they give Nancy Grace a show straight out of Court TV or the Enquirer or the Gossip Channel or wherever she crawled out of. CNN Headline News used to be a channel that I could see being left on in the press room of the White House, but you think they would leave it on this channel now...hell no people would think they were watching Entertainment Tonight. Please, if you have not yet seen prime time tonight...check it out tonight. It is usually on later in the evening. After you have seen this garbage, try telling me that I am wrong. The fact that Larry King has Nancy Grace on his show and that CNN Headline News gave her an hour-lonng show has really tarnished the CNN brand image for me. |
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