Sitelynx

Over the past few months there’s been hot discussion among the online marketing community. It has to do with link baiting, the process of creating online content with the purpose of amassing inbound links.

The latest controversy started when Lyndon Antcliff posted a satirical story on Money.co.uk (his client’s site), which ended up being followed on a number of mainstream news channels around the world. Antcliff wrote and posted a fake article titled “13 Year Old Steals Dad’s Credit Card to Buy Hookers” and distributed the story through major social networking sites like Digg. He did not however, put any disclaimers saying that the story is fake (such a disclaimer was displayed later when the hoax was revealed).

The story seemed to be interesting enough and was picked up by major news sites in the UK and abroad, with hundreds of news sites linking back to the original article on money.co.uk. Antcliff says that the article got over 1500 inbound links in a week. At the moment this hoax story has over 6000 links. Not bad, right? Money.co.uk got an extra 6000+ links, many from highly authoritative domains.

Everything was working until it became clear that the story was a fake and produced for the sole purpose of getting these ‘almighty’ inbound links. Rightly, readers of news sites, Digg users and others felt angry and fouled. On Digg alone the article had gotten 2506 diggs and 364 comments . The media sites probably had the biggest hangover from the stunt. They published online and printed on paper a story which was a hoax made-up by some guy in the UK. The author of the prank did not feel sorry at all saying:

“I didn’t dupe the media, the idiots duped themselves, they are responsible for what they print not me.”

This linkbait has the potential to become a classic. It was big enough for Google’s Matt Cutts to take a stand and say in Spinn’s discussion:

“My quick take is that Google’s webmaster guidelines allow for cases such as this: ‘Google may respond negatively to other misleading practices not listed here (e.g. tricking users by registering misspellings of well-known websites). It’s not safe to assume that just because a specific deceptive technique isn’t included on this page, Google approves of it.’
There’s not much more deceptive or misleading than a fake story without any disclosure that the story is a hoax. “

Who is to blame? The creative copywriter? The journalists who failed in researching the source of the story? Is link baiting in this form online marketing?

On many occasions Matt Cutts has said that there is nothing wrong with link baiting in principle. First of all the concept of attracting people’s attention was not invented with link baiting. Printed magazines and books were (and are) using the same techniques which are now transplanted into online copywriting (think headlines like: “Aliens Stole My Mom’s Car” or any other catchy headlines with controversial images on the covers and so on). There are legitimate ways to create great content and get people to link to your pages. Some of the ways:

• Be creative. Our all time favourite WillitBlend or this Dutch site (give it time to load)
• Be controversial like Google Watch
• Create useful information or gather interesting data :Engadget’s Blu ray vs. HD DVD
• Create online tools, tests: DNS Report, Energy Fiend
• Also, an example of an interesting off-topic link bait.

Above are examples of successful link baits. These pages attracted thousands of links and increased brand awareness. Going back to the money.co.uk example, it’s unclear what effect the whole campaign will have on the money.co.uk brand.

Brand

But this bait may also have undesired effects for money.co.uk. They could develop a reputation for dishonesty and this could damage sales of their products and financial services. Users and news editors will hesitate to take seriously the next news or press release published on money.co.uk. The site’s management has realized quickly the danger of long term damage to their brand perception, apologising for the whole accident and stating that “money.co.uk considers itself a trustworthy and reputable source of information on financial news and information”

Journalists

What about the media? Should we blame them for publishing a fake story? Surely journalists should be more careful with how they pick stories online. However many will claim that it is impossible to fact check every story and there is no guarantee that everything published is 100% true. Digg, and other social network sites allow journalists to find interesting leads for stories. But a key characteristic of social media sites is that they rely on anonymity of the individuals who submit content, thereby making fact checking very difficult.

If these difficulties with fact checking online news continue, readers will likely become more suspicious of the latest revelations published by the main stream media. If the readers go somewhere else for their news, the advertisers will follow.

Google

Another problem for money.co.uk could be with Google. The search engine is not particularly happy with fake stories in its index. Google explain that they do not want their users to be misled at any point and may choose to block link bait hoaxes. This seems a fair point, but this policing will have an impact on the creativeness and openness of the web. Whether you like or do not like what Antcliff did, an open web means that he has a right to publish whatever he wants.

It is no secret that inbound links are crucial for successful ranking on Google. To succeed, webmasters more and more are driven to the gray area of search marketing. Bought links and hoax stories are just the latest controversies which further blur the fine line between white hat and black hat. In the past Google has penalised sites for what they view is unethical link baiting. When Matthew Inman built links to a dating site using widgets as bait, Google banned the site on the basis that Inman was cross promoting other websites with his widgets.

Did Google take the same stance in the case of hoax stories purposely produced as link bait? The article is not ranking for its title but was not delisted from Google’s index. The rest of the site seems to be doing fine. Clearly a sign of ‘human review’.

While it was easy to manually apply a penalty on money.co.uk in this instance, it would be very difficult for Google to identify and penalise all ‘hoax stories.’ What criteria would Google use, and how would they remain objective?

Judging by Matt Cutts’ comments, it’s likely that Google will take an approach similar to the one used in detecting ‘paid links’:

“I really don’t view Google’s role as judging the truthiness of the web. That is, after all, what Stephen Colbert is for. But if someone is sloppy enough to get caught (or to admit!) making up a fake story, I don’t think Google has to blindly trust those links, either. My takeaway from this brouhaha: There are plenty of ways to market a site creatively without deceiving anyone. Don’t burn your credibility by using fake stories. It’s a short-term tactic and makes people trust you less in the future.”

The danger is that Google will get it wrong at some point, and lose its objectiveness and push itself further toward the unpopular role as “censor” of the web.