Heh. That is a belter - but are you saying that legit SEO types also shouldn't bother getting in touch asking for a link as well?
Let's go ARM wrestling with an SEO link spammer
Many times a week we get emails from SEO link spamming bunnies asking us to add links to Reg stories, often many years old. We always say no - and mark as spam. Some get it hilariously wrong: here is an example from today’s mail-bag, inspired by our August 2016 article entitled "Little ARMs pump 2,048-bit muscles in training …
COMMENTS
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Tuesday 10th January 2017 13:17 GMT Anonymous Coward
Wow.
I will now sacrifice my account reputation for the purposes of pop science.
Click thumbs up if you believe that google would associate a link from "el Reg" on ARM processors with biceps and give them a higher page rank.
Click thumbs down if you believe that the google algorithm is smarter than the SEO spammer that wrote the original email.
(Yes I could have reversed the questions and what I suspect the outcome to be, but it's only a forum)
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Tuesday 10th January 2017 14:55 GMT Robert Carnegie
Re: Wow.
No judgment on Google, but the SEO who may have Googled himself onto the Reg's page did also have the "muscle" of the ARM processor, as mentioned, to attract him.
Anyway, isn't there still plenty of room on Reg's pages for proper paid-for advertising?
I say Reg tried the shake-down on Patrick and he didn't go for it.
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Tuesday 10th January 2017 22:49 GMT Anonymous Coward
I'll bet the email the Reg received was automated
If so, it used a search engine to find the article. What's the search engine SEOs target? So I think it is in fact likely that Google's algorithm was dumb enough to find that article, because how else do you think the SEO found it to send the email to the Reg? Certainly they don't have a person reading all the Reg articles looking for ones applicable to their customers.
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Wednesday 11th January 2017 00:48 GMT Mark 85
Re: I'll bet the email the Reg received was automated
Certainly they don't have a person reading all the Reg articles looking for ones applicable to their customers.
Maybe not knowingly... but the site developer might and possible he forwarded it as a gag... or it's just another round of Stupid Human Tricks*.
*Apologies for David Letterman.
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Tuesday 10th January 2017 23:17 GMT Anonymous Coward
Not very bright
I get these every so often, including one which sends a follow up every month or so "in case I'd missed" the previous one. Except that the reply/return address bounces... making the whole SEO-spamming exercise even more pointless, because I couldn't engage even if I was gullible enough to want to.
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Wednesday 11th January 2017 16:42 GMT Mike 16
Targetted ads
Can't say for Google Search (as I use other engines), but I noticed a few years ago that a gmail thread on functional programming was decorated with ads for kilts and bagpipe lessons. I have to assume that some "too clever by half" algorithm at the big G had done
FP -> Haskell -> Glasgow -> Scotland -> Scottish cliches
At least they didn't try to pitch me on Haggis