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The top-ranking HTML editor on Google is an SEO scam

(casparwre.de)
1743 points caspii | 3 comments | 07 Jun 21 21:35 UTC | HN request time: 0.437s | source
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ilamont ◴[07 Jun 21 22:47 UTC] No.27428272[source]▶
Same story for various Wordpress plugins and widgety things that live in site footers.

Google has turned into a cesspool. Half the time I find myself having to do ridiculous search contortions to get somewhat useful results - appending site: .edu or .gov to search strings, searching by time periods to eliminate new "articles" that have been SEOed to the hilt, or taking out yelp and other chronic abusers that hijack local business results.

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XorNot ◴[07 Jun 21 23:17 UTC] No.27428594[source]▶
Also phone problems: Google a problem with a phone and the top hit will be a whole bunch of churned out articles with generic copy on the cause (sometimes there are bugs in the software, so reboot your phone).
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duskwuff ◴[07 Jun 21 23:31 UTC] No.27428715[source]▶
Any technical issue, really. There's a ton of autogenerated content out there with low-effort troubleshooting tips. A lot of it is used as lead generation for scammy antivirus/antimalware/"cleaner" software, paid tech support, or outright tech support scams.
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toeget ◴[08 Jun 21 01:45 UTC] No.27429722[source]▶
That's why I append reddit, stackoverflow, superuser when I search for technical solutions. At least those sites are still full of user-generated content with good answers upvoted to the top.
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PoignardAzur ◴[08 Jun 21 01:53 UTC] No.27429774[source]▶
You know, I was joking the last few times the subject came up, but I'm getting seriously worried that the more people mention using that kind of trick on HN, the faster advertisers will catch on and start building reddit-based SEO strategies.

Not sure how we should react :/

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Camillo ◴[08 Jun 21 02:38 UTC] No.27430059[source]▶
Oh, it's no secret. Google's autocomplete will actually suggest appending "reddit" to certain queries. For example, let's take one of the most SEO-spammy queries imaginable, "best mattress 2021". Google will suggest:

- best mattress 2021

- best mattress 2021 consumer reports

- best mattress 2021 reddit

- best mattress 2021 for back pain

- best mattress 2021 wirecutter

etc.

But of course Reddit is already rife with shills. Not sure about CR.

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1. sixothree ◴[08 Jun 21 02:49 UTC] No.27430122[source]▶
I remember in the late 2000's I had a CR account. I had two weeks left on the period I had paid for. But when I cancelled the account... poof. My access was revoked immediately. Very much not consumer friendly. I was done enough with their crap that I didn't even bother with an email.
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2. Gracana ◴[08 Jun 21 03:05 UTC] No.27430200[source]▶
FWIW I signed up for CR recently when I was car shopping, and I canceled my subscription within the first month. They assured me that I would still have access for the remainder of the period. Of course, you're forced to subscribe rather than buy access for a set period, and they sent me a couple dozen emails during the time I was signed up, so they're not completely innocent... but at least that part felt reasonable.
3. abawany ◴[08 Jun 21 05:24 UTC] No.27430914[source]▶
I've been trying to unsubscribe from CR email spam for months now to no avail. Looking at the browser tools, it seems that their api can't handle the fact that I registered with a single letter first/last name so therefore my attempts to unsubscribe silently fail. There also appears to be no way to change my name since the api for that also fails on the single letter first/last name. I wish ungood things to happen to the people who 'designed' this Kafkaesque rubbish and in the meantime, thank GMail's mark-as-spam feature for throwing away their unrelenting pablum to the memory hole. This experience has led to me canceling my print subscription to CR plus my donations to their organization.