“You have been Blogjacked” – “No Thank You” part 2

So, I just got off the phone with a very pleasant, yet confused gentleman. Our phone call began “Hi Tony, I need to talk to you about your CUHype.com blog. I am Mark from “The Credit Union”. My blood ran cold.

Had Mark called to unleash a torrent of verbal lashings? I flinched a bit and asked “What can I do for you?”

He politely said, “Well sir, its about your blog. You see, you say that you have canceled your subscription to our blog but, we don’t have a blog.” DUM! DUM! DUM!

I was stunned! Was it possible that I wrote my last entry in a fit of doughnut and rootbeer sugared frenzy at 11:00 last night? Was I hallucinating? No, not possible – I checked my feeds. DOH! I had deleted the feed last night (hence my article). “Mark, let me see if I can find the feed and call you back.” I began to search furiously for the credit unions blog feed from last night. I found links to it everywhere, butnot the actual blog. Then I tried Google’s blog search tool TaaDaa! I knew I wasn’t crazy! But what is this? Each link says it is from Mark’s credit union but the blog link goes to a shopping site, what? This link goes to another internet lending site? What the heck is going on? I called Mark back.

“Mark, I found the links, but I am afraid you have been blog-jacked.”

Some unscrupulous individuals have been creating blog entries under his CU’s name and forwarding the links to their websites in order to either drive traffic, increase their page rank or for some other nefarious purpose.

I subscribed to a blog in his credit unions name – but it was not his credit unions blog. The people managing the blog had linked it to his site, used copy from his site but the links embedded in the copy were going to the various shopping sites. This, my friends, is what we call “Black Hat” SEO tactics. Very nasty tricks

Sometimes site operators need to figure out a way to optimize (SEO = Search Engine Optimization) their sites to get the best search engine results. One way to do that is to add “weight” to their site by having other sites (like blogs) link back to the site that they want promoted. Sometimes using names of prominent credit unions add to the validity of those links giving the site a higher page rank. This means when you search for jewelry, their site is closer to the first page in a Google search.

I apologized to Mark, but let him know that I will help him do what I can to track these guys down or help him get these sites taken down. I edited my original post because it wasn’t fair – it wasn’t their blog burying me in blog posts.

And if anything, I always try to be fair.

So this is a red flag that I am raising to all credit unions. Check the blogoshpere to see if your name is showing up attached to other blogs – especially if you don’t have a blog. If anything, it will help you when a hapless blogger accidentally implicates you in filling his feed box with 600 blog postings.

Thanks Mark!

600 Ways to say “No Thanks”.

I have eliminate the first blog from my subscription feed. We need to go our separate ways. It just wasn’t working out. I am sorry, but you talk too much.

I was conflicted as to if I should tell my friends about you because it looks like your issue is a glitch in your software. But you wouldn’t shut up ford for 6 straight days, there was no way to contact your feed administrator, the content of your feeds were nothing but ads and the links simply went to your website’s news page which had nothing to do with your blog entry headline.

In hopes that someone will help you, I will tell my friends your name… Redacted (see next post for reason)

In 6 days, you have posted over 600 blog entries. most of them are duplicates, some look completely random. All of them link to the same page and none of it is related to the headline of the blog entry. I can’t take it anymore. I fear that this failure to monitor your technology my have erased any benefit that your blog may have had for your membership.

I feel a little guilty calling you out like this. Exposing you at your weakest moment. But I think that you need to fix yourself before we can have a mutually beneficial relationship. You need a little time to grow and mature. I dont think that your are ready for an adult relationship. I hope you understand – it’s not me…

It’s you.