Hoaxes, Widgets and Other Fringe LinkBait

[AussieWebmaster]

The story about the recent news hoax discussed here has had many comments for either side... what is your views.

[MattUK]

I followed that story from start to finish, I'll freely admit that I was taken in when being sent the link by a friend, and then saw Lyndomans posts on the subject after the events played out.

While I don't morally object (I have very few left ) I think it's rather short sighted to rely on 'fake' linkbait as a long-term tactic for a 'serious' site like money.co.uk

In the same way that a tablod newspaper loses a large degree of credibility when it is found to knowingly or unknowingly (i.e. the UK Daily Mirror Iraq abuse faked photos) publish faked news stories, I don't see why online properties should be any different. Getting a reputation for crying wolf and a site may well lose a loyal readership that it has worked hard for many years to gain.

People have said that Lyndomans only mistake was to own up to the story in public, however the facts would have been easy to check, so it wouldn't have been difficult to establish as incorrect - in fact, thinking about it, it could have been a nice bit of reverse linkbait for a competitor to have called them out on it in public, which would have further harmed their reputation.

I'm not quite sure what I'm rambling on about here, I don't blame Lyndoman for giving it a try, but on a property like money.co.uk it was a high risk strategy that backfired.