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July 27, 2005
Speaking of Scoundrels...
By QBlog in Blog News
What is it that bugs me most about Quixtar subverting search results to squelch criticism? As I've said before, my main complaint with Quixtar's Web Reputation Task Force is that it essentially flooded the Web with crap intended to bury legitimate sites under a sea of PR pabulum. It was designed to confuse rather than inform.
Besides me there were a couple of other folks who worked to expose Quixtar's WRTF, most notably Dan Hollings. Hollings is a "former top-banana networker, coach and web developer behind big name companys, well known trainers and little known ordinary folk."
He's the guy who originally added Quixtar to the Wikipedia entry for Google Bombing. He set up Eric Schebelier's link-laden Let's Get The Word Out site. He also claims that BWW swindled him out of a lot of cash. And now he's apparently created his own WRTF that does one better than Quixtar's — his makes money.
According to a July 12 press release, Hollings has launched something called Blog-Zilla that promises to post 100 blogs in 100 minutes.
Dan's hands-on experience in web system design and internet marketing all came into play as the Blog-zilla idea was slowly hatched and went into beta testing. As anticipated, the results were monstrous. The first week, Dan posted unique content to 100 blogs, and again the next week, and the next. What used to take 1 hour to write and post to a single blog, now took two hours, but it was posted to 100 blogs.
Let's take a look at some of that "unique" content. Below are links to four separate posts on blogs (chosen at random) linked from the 100 Blogs page.
Read each of those posts. Notice the similarities? It's the same thing posted over and over again with a few changes to appear relevant to the alleged topic. That's not much different than what Quixtar did.
Money
And what about the money? Where Quixtar paid people to run their spam-like campaign, Hollings is making money from his.
Did we say "multiple blogs"? Yes, as an example, Blogger.com allows unlimited blogs under one account and there is no limit on the number of posts you can have! If you can earn $100 a month from one blog, what might you earn from 30 blogs?
...Subscribers to Blogzilla will pay a monthly fee (to be determined) and gain member only access to special trainings by one of the web's top internet marketing consultants.
I'll be honest, as I'm writing this my blood pressure is rising. What a freakin' hypocrite. Hollings lambasts Quixtar for flooding the Web with nonsense and then turns around and uses it as a business model!
There's a simple, four-letter word that describes Blog-Zilla — SPAM! This is not much more than spamming the Web with blogs. Technically, it's not quite spamming since there is some genuine content but I don't know what else to call it. This is similar to the type of exploitation that killed the original search engines with a flood of porn sites.
Problem For Critics
Some Quixtar critics have praised Hollings for working with Eric Scheibeler to distribute his whistleblower book, Merchants of Deception. Sure, I'm glad that such information is available but I hope those same critics won't hesitate to join me in criticizing Hollings and his spam-like ways. I encourage you to email him and let him know how you feel.
Comments
Yeah what an a$$hole. This whole trick is to make money from adsense? Such crap weasels ruin it for every one.
I have a tip for Dan holing: It's web. you can't hide your shady tactics. It's not u r developing BWW sites. It will notice and it will ruin ur reputation. You had blog entry in my blog, and now you have here. Your prospective clients will pull it as a reference every time.
I just do not understand. It seems to me like Dan is coming in the back door to take more money from people who are brainwashed by Quixtar. I just think it is wrong to profit off of other's misfortune.
southerndeb, u r smart. very very smart.
he made money from the BWW, they refused, bam, he joined the 'critics'. if they had paid him well, he would be pimping up WRTF (Quixtar google bombing).
He is not a 'critic' for speaking the truth. He's in it for moola.
Call it chaff. In WWII they called it "window". Then there's ECM (electronic countermeasures) like noise jamming. It's all an effort to make a legitimate signal undetectable by flooding the information environment with false signals or garbage. Like radar trying to find and track incoming hostile aircraft, or web searchers trying to find legitimate information on a subject, we have a harder time trying to pick out what's real. The people that deploy it generally mean us some sort of harm.
Spam is more like trying to approach an infinite number of hooks in the water in the hope that a fish will bite one once in a while. With email, fishing poles are just about free, so you can drop as many hooks as you want. What amazes me more than the idea that someone would think anyone would be stupid enough to buy something that comes in an email with, for example, an incomprehensible subject line, is that there are people out there that ARE that stupid. I blame the customers for spam as much as the spammers.
After all, in both cases, if there wasn't somebody buying what these scrotumnecks are selling they wouldn't keep trying to sell it.
Hello,
I have been a regular reader of this blog and am quite impressed with the site. Some time back I read an article posted by the blog's author, which describes which web-site to sign up and then you can pretty much find criminal information ( like subpoeneas, etc if pending ) against any individual or company, which is basically a free service offered the US government.
Can you let me know which date the blog was posted on.
Critic: you mean PACER?
http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov/
When Dan first launched "Let's Get The Word Out," I thought that it was no big deal to charge people for a word and then link that to a whole area dedicated to communicating people's stories. We all know that putting together a site like LGTWO isn't free.
But Dan has BLOWN IT, Big League. He's taken this one step further, and one step too far.
I'm going to contact him and Eric and see if any answers are forthcoming.
PW
PACER is not free, I owe them like 12 bucks after 4 months, it cost 5 cent per page.
PACER is not easy to use either. Here is the post u are talking about:
http://www.webraw.com/quixtar/archives/2005/03/tod_lawsuit_news.php
>>Technically, it's not quite spamming since there is some genuine content but I don't know what else to call it.
As an old school Usenet junkie, I would agree that this is spam. Originally, the idea behind the term spam was the repetitive nature of posts to usenet (like the Monty Python skit).
True, usually these posts were not good content, but that is beside the point.
Blog-Zilla is spam!
and so is what Quixtar is doing, IMO.
There are many ways people can spam. One is by sending unsolicited emails to recipients by email, another is to flood a blog with unrelated, bogus, or advertisement-like comments; and yet another is to flood the web with non-sense or duplicate content with the intent to skew search results (Google Bombing). However, the most insidious of all forms of spam is when false or misleading content is posted purposely to suggest or assume falsely, information about a person or their business without an attempt to seek out the truth. Such is the case here.
Eric, you have my email (in fact, you've posted it here without my permission), I've extended many kind emails to you in the past, and yet you made no attempt to address this 'concern' you have with me in a direct business manner. I'm ok with your post and your comments because my track record speaks for itself and your derogative comments are more funny than truthful, but none-the-less, your approach is that of spamming; and it's my reputation you've targeted.
Over the years, a few other blogs or sites have attempted to spam the reputation of Dan Hollings and his web development or consulting services, and without exception all such attempts have fallen short. Most such posts were retracted or an apology made public. We'll all see what Mr. Janssen decides to do; but for now, let's take a look at some facts...
First. Multi-blogging is a new phenomena that allows people, entrepreneurs, businesses and organizations to manage multiple blogs each targeted or personalized to a specific readership. The idea was not invented by me, but he has created software to assist legitimate publishers and bloggers multi-blog. It follows the identical logic that a personalized newsletter follows. It is rules based and has capabilities much like common mail merge programs.
The idea grew from my personal challenge in consulting, training, and helping the many people that learn internet marketing strategies from my trainings, conference calls, eBooks, and articles. I started a blog (as it was the "thing" to do - everybody loves blogs) with the intent to post free tips and ideas to help people attempting to make a buck online. I expected to make very little off the blog itself (except the pocket change from ads - just as Eric Janssen's blog does). Rather, it would serve to introduce people to my style of training, in the hopes those that if people learned something from my blog they might later attend one of my seminars, university classes, or use one of the several web-based services I offer. Training and web development is my profession, pure and simple.
I quickly realized that my audiences were often not attracted to my "one-size-fits-all-stretch-pants" blog. Why? Well, I consult and train many diverse audiences: some are entrepreneurs, some are network marketers, some are woman, some men, some site owners, some bloggers etc etc. All different, but ALL seeking internet marketing strategies like I teach.
An Avon consultant would not read my blog if it talked about MLM, a guy would not read my blog if it was focusing on woman in business, and a representative with Shaklee would not read a blog offering tips for Natures Sunshine reps. It was all a challenge of "personalizing" and targeting my training content to my audience.
The solution proved to be a web-based publishing software I created and developed to meet the challenge. I figured if newsletter programs can "personalize" and target a newsletter to the recipient, why not provide similar capability to my blog audience?
To equate this with what Quixtar did in their blatant Google Bombing example is unfounded. Especially from you Eric, you know the details of this better than most. You know my content is not garbage. You know (or should know) it offers value. It educates and entertains by blog audience in a very personalized way.
In fact, I feel that what I've created with Blog-zilla improves my content. It is rather insulting to a blog reader to address them in a 'generic, global, or no-name' fashion when with a bit of effort and creativity on the publisher part, I can be personal, direct and relative. You see Eric, I 'bothered' to be a better blog publisher than the guy next door. That's innovation and it's what has made the web a better place.
You point to a few of my blogs (thank you, by-the-way) as examples of blogs with "similar" content. Well yes, it's somewhat similar, but an analysis with a duplicate content checker shows that my blogs range from 25% to 60% DIFFERENT when compared one against another. That means that I'm teaching similar concepts to different people and that I'm doing a great deal of personalization and targeting at the same time. I invite anyone to read the tips offered, I even provide different tips to each audience, each week I post. Different examples, different pictures, even different bullet points. And I address the blog reader by their named affiliation or profession.
Eric, please, this is NOT what Quixtar did, you know it, I know it, and anyone that bothers to compare will know it.
Next, you seem to have a problem with me earning a living practicing my profession? What gives? Can I not sell software I create and develop to other legitimate publishers, bloggers, writers, entrepreneurs and businesses? Please explain why you feel I should not?
I invite anyone interested to READ the description of Blog-zilla again (http://blog-zilla.com) and note the ANTI-SPAM notice "Spammers Beware" clearly published on the site.
In addition, please review our strict ANTI-DUPLICATION, ANTI-SCRAPE, ANTI-CONTENT STEALING policy. Blog-zilla is NOT a spam or thieving tool. Blog-zilla has ZERO cabability to "harvesting content from various sites"... that is absolutely the OPOSITE of Blog-zilla's philosophy (and capability). Blog-zilla also can NOT be used to create wastelands of blog-farms. Blog-zilla can add an RSS feed to original content to enhance that content, but Blog-zilla users can NOT post RSS only as a substitute for original content. There are systems out there that do all this "evil" stuff. Blog-zilla is not one of them.
All Blog-zilla users go through a qualification survey to eliminate potential spammers. Blog-zilla takes only original content and personalizes that original content for target audiences. Much like a quality email management system personalizes each email to its targeted reader. Blog-zilla hates spammers. All users are also taught how to use the system for honest high quality content purposes. System abusers will be terminated if discovered abusing Blogizilla's capabilities.
Please read Blog-zilla's policy and philosophy in our license agreement and rules.
http://blog-zilla.com/blog-zilla_policy.html
Every user is screened, spammers are eliminated, and Blog-zilla users are taught proper blogging concepts. Original and authorized content only.
A few highlights of the Blog-zilla user policy:
*** You may not use Blog-zilla in any manner which jeopardizes it's functionality or reflects negatively upon it's reputation as a legitimate multi-blogging tool for ORIGINAL or AUTHORIZED content. If someone else holds the content copyright, do not use Blog-zilla to post or manipulate that content without permission.
*** Blog-zilla is not a content scraper, content duplicator, or content stealing system. If any attempt to use Blog-zilla as such is detected, you're history.
*** Blog-zilla may be used in conjunction with contextual ads (like Adsense), paid ads, banners, affiliate programs and other e-commerce endeavors, but only if you follow strictly the policies of the ad or affiliate provider.
*** Blog-zilla can be used to post RSS feeds to multiple blogs, but if you are not also posting other quality content, your account can be terminated.
If you would like to look at the quality of content Blog-zilla is capable of posting, go to:
100 Blogs by Blog-zilla Multi-blogger Dan Hollings
These are quality articles written to sincerely help their target audience:
http://www.blog-zilla.com/100_marketing_tip_blogs.html
Blog-zilla in the news:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/7/prweb260055.php">http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/7/prweb260055.php
Blog-zilla has a long waiting list currently and is screening all subscribers. Screening consists of an indepth survey on what the potential subscriber plans to use Blog-zilla for and where their content is from. Next, if accepted, each subscriber goes into a trial period (cost is $1) and while users evaluate Blog-zilla, Blog-zilla evaluates the subscriber by monitoring their posts and observing their participation in weekly conference call training classes. The classes are key so as to teach people how to use Blog-zilla constructively and how be "good internet citizens" that is, how to give true value and quality targeted content to your audience.
Sorry for such a long post. I only want readers to know, Blog-zilla wears a white hat :-) Spammers, cheats and bottom feeders are NOT welcomed at Blog-zilla.com
Eric? I'd love to hear from you.
Readers? Let Eric and I know what you think? Who's doing the spamming?
Two final notes.
1) I'm under a strict non-disclosure regarding the BWW settlement which ensued after I filed charges of copyright infringement and several other counts several years ago and fought a long hard battle. The story is out there and it takes little effort to do some searches and click some links. You can read it as it is, or read into it like many do. I can say this. I did the honorable thing and I fought for many people that got hurt in that situation. Eric Scheibeler released info about that story back in March of 2005. I cannot say any more.
BWW settlement story: http://prweb.com/releases/2005/3/prweb222106.htm
2) I built LGTWO for a client (Eric Scheibeler) and grew to know and respect Mr Scheibeler a lot. I built the word sponsor system for free in an attempt to help raise funds for victims in similar situations as Eric Scheibeler and his family found themselves after years with Amway/Quixtar.
LGTWO- http://letsgetthewordout.com/
Eric Scheibeler was greatly disappointed that other similar topic sites and like minded people (including Eric Janssen) did not do more to offer support for this effort. Instead, support was lacluster and criticle. In fact, Eric Janssen was given the unique sponsorship of word #1 in Scheibeler's LGTWO "Merchants of Deception" online book, yet not even a thanks was ever received. Guess it was just too "link-laden" as Janssen states. Go figure.
Janssen's #1 word:
http://letsgetthewordout.com/quixtar-amway-ebook/1-theft-by-deception/1-1.html
Mr. Jannssen, I'm sorry about your rising blood pressure, sincerely. But "there's a simple, four-letter word that describes your posted comments — DUMB!
You're spamming my reputation for the benefit of a bit of negative 'spin' and notoriety. You attempt to link my reputation and activities to those like the Google bombing by Quixtar and to porn sites. Give us all a break Mr. Eric; the only garbage I see is the garbage in your post. Who's spamming who?
Idea...
Lets use blogzilla and post this post in 100 blogs.
Mr. Dan Hollings,
If I write a novel, or book, and run some tool and make the same copy of it with just different text (not different language) and sell it to target different audience, what it would be?
I don't read every entry of many blogs, but some times a blog would have an entry that I'd trackback, link, bookmark etc. of that entry.
If I have an entry that I want my 'other' audience to read, I'll link it???
So I don't understand the need of posting same content on 100 blogs other than what Mr. Greyham (QBlog 's last name) is trying to say.
From Dan Hollings.."Readers? Let Eric and I know what you think? Who's doing the spamming?"
Ok, A few Observations from Dan's explanation.
FROM DAN..."Over the years, a few other blogs or sites have attempted to spam the reputation of Dan Hollings and his web development or consulting services, and without exception all such attempts have fallen short. Most such posts were retracted or an apology made public. We'll all see what Mr. Janssen decides to do; but for now, let's take a look at some facts..."
Right away, you lose points for speaking of yourself in third person. Kinda sounds like a Jody Victor or Fred Harties blog in a way...too bad the "Comments" software doesn't allow you to make that name a link; cuz then it would be "spot on".
FROM DAN....."....but none-the-less, your approach is that of spamming; and it's my reputation you've targeted."
As a web developer, this comment kinda shows you may not even be sure what SPAM is...Eric's post was not favorable to you, much like his posts about Quixtar...but it was blog content..not SPAM.
More points lost.
FROM DAN...."It is rules based and has capabilities much like common mail merge programs."
Dan equates the program with mail merge. I equate mail merge with basically sending out junk mail. What is "junk mail? What's the word? Oh yeah, SPAM. Losing more points
FROM DAN..." Much like a quality email management system personalizes each email to its targeted reader."
I'm not sure; but that sounds like ........SPAM
FINALLY FROM DAN.."Blog-zilla can be used to post RSS feeds to multiple blogs, but if you are not also posting other quality content, your account can be terminated."
So you better not post a personal opinion about Dan on YOUR 100 blogs, cause apparently your "content" can be reviewed and account terminated....ahhh yes, that sounds like total blog freedom, doesn't it?
Okay those are my observations. The points seem to point to the negative. There should be an acronym for that...oh yeah..TPIN--The Points IS Negative.
Dave
Dan> Eric Scheibeler was greatly disappointed that other similar topic sites and like minded people (including Eric Janssen) did not do more to offer support for this effort.
Imran> There is a reason. I couldn't read the LGTWO site. It's a mess. I tried to, many times. Can't, and leave the site with the bad taste.
MOD is a nice site. If you did it, good job there. I'm mirroring it. And I see that book ad almost every day here. So QBlog is supporting Eric S there.
Why MOD and why not LGTWO?
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There are few things worse than being a spammer, and one of those things is being a spammer and a hypocrite. How pathetic and how disgusting.
Posted by: Don Incognito | July 27, 2005 2:12 PM