Blackmail by SEO.

[glengara]

I'm getting a template upgraded and much to the developers surprise (and somewhat mine) paid him in advance.

I brushed it off as an "incentive" and joked I could always get Thisdevelopersucks to rank.

It's sort of true though, a spurious claim, some SEO know-how, and you could have them by the short & curlies....

[everett sizemor]

I think it happens the other way around most times.

For instance, company A has an angry customer who posts vitriolic statements about them all over the internet forums. Company A pays optimizer to create enough pages about them to drive down all of angry customer's posts to page five or six.

Another example. Guy A breaks up with crazy girlfriend (or visa versa) and crazy girlfriend makes a web page dedicated to talking about what a creep guy A is and how small his... manhood is. Guy A asks his friend the optimizer to push crazy ex-girlfriend's page down to the deepest, darkest corners of cyberspace. Enter phantom forum posts, article directory submissions, bio websites and more.

[David Wallace]

We certainly live in an age where the consumer has a lot of power to voice their opinions. Blogs and forums are a great example of this.

I am currently in a battle with a local body shop who repaired one of my vehicles very poorly. I warned them that they better make it right or I'd fight back. How? Well reporting them to the BBB for one, disputing credit card charges secondly but also write about my bad experience on my blog.

I did the last thing about a week ago and now when you search for their company name, my account of their shoddy work and poor customer service shows up # 1 on Google and MSN and # 3 on Yahoo.

[Hawaii SEO]

Originally Posted by everett sizemor

Guy A breaks up with crazy girlfriend (or visa versa) and crazy girlfriend makes a web page dedicated to talking about what a creep guy A is and how small his... manhood is. Guy A asks his friend the optimizer to push crazy ex-girlfriend's page down to the deepest, darkest corners of cyberspace. Enter phantom forum posts, article directory submissions, bio websites and more.

Hi Everette,

This might be a nice little niche for you. You could try partnering with some Bankruptcy, Civil, Criminal and Divorce attorneys. You could give them a referral fee or a % of the action to help mitigate the bad PR generated from the issues that brought the person to the lawyer in the first place.

Aloha,
Dave.

[everett sizemor]

Aloha HawaiiSEO,

You've known me long enough to spell the name right by now. LOL

I have been doing SEO for personal injury lawyers for a year now and am moving on to other things, namely E-commerce. Trust me though, these guys don't like bad press and if someone else wants to jump on that niche, my advice is to forget optimizing your site for it and work on word-of-mouth. "Hey, I know a guy who can 'take care' of your problem".

Sounds like something you'd hear in a mafia movie.

[eZeB]

I have had a number of clients trying to pay me to do this -- One had a medical operation gone awry who wanted a site with the doctors name and all the details ranked.

We consulted lawyers and they said DON'T because the SEO and the web designerare liable for damages (even if they supply the material) . Even using the words 'reckless' 'neglect' etc. etc. on the same page as the doctors name is very dicey.

After that, I refuse the contract or tell the client I need at legal opinion at their expense.

Much more common is where a company has bad press, opposing views, or a court case years ago and that page is ranking, and they want it knocked off or at least their site ranking above that page.