11 replies to this topic

[YOLF]

I was thinking we should have a page with spam offenders listed on it. We don't know who is doing the spam, but we do know the companies that would be benefiting from it. So let's shame them until they offer us remuneration for their advertising methods and selection of advertisers.

Edited by cryonicsculture, 15 April 2014 - 04:47 AM.

[lemonhead]

Sounds good to me, though I wonder about the whole 'any publicity is good publicity' thing.

[YOLF]

Personally, I boycott companies that spam.

[lemonhead]

I would hope everyone does, and the list would discourage people from ever buying from the companies.
I suppose if there are no links, then there would be no worries about somehow increasing search rankings for these companies.
I just wonder about snippets of the list appearing in search results, and that sort of thing. For example if someone does a Google search on 'longecity' and 'weight loss' (I often use Google to search for forum posts) would you be more likely to get ads on the Google results page for one of the offending companies for a weight loss supplement if the company's name has been indexed previously by Google as being on longecity (though not necessarily in the context of the 'weight loss' keyword; obviously the list would not have anything but the company name)? A web marketing expert might know.

Edited by lemonhead, 02 April 2014 - 02:35 PM.

[YOLF]

Yeah, that one I'm not sure of. But if you were searching for impartial reviews not written by the companies themselves and other web communities followed suit, then we'd almost certainly be among the top search results and people would know that they're spamming?

[Mind]

There is probably a "wall of shame" some where already on the internet. Maybe investigate and see if it makes sense/works.

[blood]

Nootriment.com is using the status updates feature as a marketing tool:
http://www.longecity...m/statuses/all/

[YOLF]

Hmmm.... looks like we're getting spammed by way of twitter... I'm sure given the size of twitter that there is noting special about posting every two hours, but we don't have quite as many posters. I'll have to disconnect them from twitter if I can or get more people posting status updates.

[blood]

How are status updates meant to be used?

 

 

[YOLF]

The same as anyplace else, but there aren't many people here who use them. There should be no problem using 3 or less a day. But if you see you're starting to take up the whole page, I'd slow it down.

[Mr Serendipity]

But they are targeting what we want?

I'm just thinking it is a benefit to me knowing there are other suppliers of nootropics and supplements, than just iherb or pure bulk.

[YOLF]

We require that advertisers make an arrangement with us. Most of the spam we deal with is of the junk post sort. They post some blurb of incomprehensible text and a few links for their products or brand and it improves their page rank. We have an option that will supply advertisers with a link on our site that runs $50 (affiliate link) or we have other advertising options including a sponsored thread in our retailers/products forum. LongeCity and other internet forums are paid for by member donations and advertising revenue. Without this, we couldn't operate or make science happen.

 

If our users and members post something as part of discussion, this is organic and is permitted. If they're getting paid for it, we need to get paid our regular rates and it has to fit with our site's policy to protect our mission and user experience.