Its no secret in the SEO (search engine optimisation)community that blogs are structured to do very well in search engines. The centrality of the subject together with the bonding of ever-growing communities means most search engine algorithms spider blogs perfectly.
Consequently, anyone wishing to do well in Search Engine rankings could do worse than get themselves a blog. And so, we finally come to blog spam – the setting up of a blog that is maintained solely to push people towards commercial products.
Its no surprise that a murky subject like Chelation has its practitioners indulging in blog spam. The underhand always find an underhand way of bucking the system.
Let me welcome you to ChelationTherapyTKV. Quite obviously a spam blog due to the fact that is totally dead apart from ‘Sarah’ its alleged owner. This spam blog is relatively new and thus won’t do very well in search engines yet. In another 9 months or so it should be doing very well for its keyphrases. And boy aren’t _they_ obvious? Nearly _one tenth_ of all words on the front page alone were ‘chelation’. And they made sure the ,
and elements were well populated too. Oh and of course, there’s the obligatory AdSense campaign as well.
And tucked away in the in page links – what do we find? Links to very er, reputable companies such as….Energy Patch. Not _too_ sure how this applies to Chelation but hey – they probably were prepared to pay more for the link on the home page of the blog.
They also link to ArticleInsider which appears to be another SEO spam trap. “Click here for a leading Chelation Therapy for Autism resource” screams the page and helpfully links to CardioRenew – a bunch of quacks pushing EDTA for heart patients. Great autism resource. But wait – ArticleInsider has *loads* of helpful links on the left: if you visit every page you get a different Chelationist link everytime – I wonder how much the chelationists paid these spammers to set up the campaign?
Anyway, back to the blog. Yet another ‘article’ stuffed full of keywords and engine-friendly spam links us through to another spammed up landing page (a landing page is exactly what it sounds like – a page specifically set up for spammers to point to which in turn points to lots of different commercial spammers) – welcome to the authoritative Find Articles where no tin of spam is left unturned to aid you in your search for quackery. Google throw pages like this off their index each and every day. But first they have to know about them so I helpfully reported this virtual stew of spammery.
I also came across the caring folk at the Sanoviv clinic. How cool is that? Even big shot clinics pay for spammers to peddle their shit.
And so it seems that Chelation has joined forces with porn peddlers, Viagra hucksters, penis enlargement specialists, Telesales, phishers and other assorted lowlife. Quelle surprise.
Left Brain Right Brain 
Kev,
You forgot the breast enlargement spammers – I get lots of that. Are they trying to tell me something?
Prometheus
The kind of people who respond to spam are just the sort who would fall for quackery. It makes perfect sense.
I wonder if any chelationists are actually the widows of deposed generals and need our help to get money out of escrow and all we have to do is send some money to them in order to get millions back just for helping out…
You know, I never made the connection between “spam responders” and “alternative medicine consumers”, but there is a tremendous similarity. Good show, Bonni!
It’s the same sort of “willing suspension of disbelief” that gets them into spam, “alternative” medicine and sending their bank account information to desperate but honest Generals in Africa. We all have some degree of that ability – otherwise we couldn’t enjoy fiction novels or the cinema. It’s the people who don’t know when to not suspend disbelief who get into trouble.
The paradox is that these same people are so willing – in their suspension of disbelief – to believe scammers who tell them “it’s a government conspiracy” or “the medical establishment doesn’t want you to know this…” or even “don’t believe the people who say I am a fraud”.
If it weren’t for the innocent children being harmed by this nonsense, I’d say, “Let them stew in their own juices!” But I can’t let children be misused and abused in that way without at least making a fuss.
Prometheus.
If it weren’t for the innocent children being harmed by this nonsense, I’d say, “Let them stew in their own juices!â€
I quite agree. I normally just let people believe or do whatever crackpot thing they want, throw their money away or flush it down the toilet, whatever.
I do, however, get upset when someone’s ill-advised decisions and choices negatively affect other people, and particularly when those other people are innocent children.
I don’t even think that the hardcore “believers” are going to change or listen to anything anyone has to say, no matter how logically compelling it may be, but I kinda hope that people who aren’t as inclined to fall for dumb stuff will do a bit of research and decide against undertaking invasive and potentially dangerous courses of action. Perhaps they’ll stumble on this or some other blog dealing with these issues and it’ll help steer them away from invasive and potentially harmful alternative therapies.
That cardio renew page was creepy with the telltale heart up there in the corner and the sort of throbbing ad text, “you are running out of time…” or something.
Is that page an example of ‘astroturf”?
Its an almost textbook definition AD.
Prometheus: lol…I stopped trying to figure out the mindset of medispammers a long time ago. I don’t get Breast Enlargement spam though – maybe my breasts are big enough ;o)
Kev, you have to use the breast cream for at least 18 months to see results :-p Shouldn’t it make your hands larger too?
I ordered the memory enhancement herbs but maybe they shipped the mammary enhancement herbs by mistake. Never mind…for…get…tit
Kev,
I get both breast enlargement and penis enlargement spams. Obviously, both cannot be applicable to the same person.
Or maybe not – I do live in a rather small community. There may be people out in the wider world who would like to have both enlarged.
I never really thought that anyone would do anything other than press the [delete] key in response to spam, but it must work, at least occasionally.
Prometheus.
“I get both breast enlargement and penis enlargement spams. Obviously, both cannot be applicable to the same person.”
Um, unless they think you’re a d*ck-ch*ck, Prometheus…. but some how I don’t have you down as that…
But I get that kind of crap too, and it’s annoying, innit? 😦
Just a quick thought. My name is Mike, I’m responsible for marketing for Sanoviv.
What I can tell you is the content that’s on the blog (http://alternative-medicine-therapies.blogspot.com/) is absolutely real. The fact that we’re using a blog to market Sanoviv is just another means to be “attractive” to the search engines. Nothing more. These days, if you want to be found and noticed, you need to be listed in lots of places. It’s the nature of the web and how it works.
But the fact that you somehow assocciate this content with S_P*A_M is unjustified IMO. If you’d take a few minutes to watch the videos on the blog or site, listen to the content, view the images, read the medical case studies and investigate further, I think you’d find it hard to believe that someone would go through the time to purposely invent any of this material.
I’ve worked with the doctors and the management at this facility for nearly three years now. I’ve shot and edited over 100 testimonials of people with diseases ranging from cancer, MS, diabetes, hepatitis and more.
I’ve personally witnessed dozens of medical miracles. People who were given weeks and sometimes days to live are still very much alive and doing well. And in many of the cases, these people were told by the “traditional medical establishment” that there wasn’t anything they could do.
I’m not here to convince you of anything — that’s for you to decide. Skepticism is useful, especially in a world that’s filled with deception. And unfortunately, there are tons of people who create “fake” content to attract the search engines to their sites.
That “noise” makes it that much more difficult for those of us who wish to play by the rules.
But I urge you to investigate and research before you apply a “blanket generalization” to blogs such as ours.
I personally feel you’re doing yourself a disservice.
Respectfully,
Mike
http://www.MrBz.com
_”The fact that we’re using a blog to market Sanoviv is just another means to be “attractive†to the search engines”_
Thats a textbook definition of search engine spam Mike. The web should be a meritocracy – content stands or falls on its own merits. If you’re using a blogs structure as a marketing device to appeal to an engines algo then thats manipulation. Its not as ‘in your face’ as email spam, granted, but its still presenting a misleading interpretation because you want to be attractive to googlebot or Slurp.
Mike Koenigs wrote: _I’ve personally witnessed dozens of medical miracles. People who were given weeks and sometimes days to live are still very much alive and doing well. And in many of the cases, these people were told by the “traditional medical establishment†that there wasn’t anything they could do._
Hmmm… that is interesting, because I went to http://www.pubmed.gov to check it out. That is a place where journals, paper, letters, opinions, news reports and case histories of how patients have done with many different kind of medical treatments are indexed. It even includes journals of questionable merits, like “Medical Hypotheses” and several homeopathic journals. It is where we found the story of the “Pink Ladies”, http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/168/2/201 .
So I plugged in the word “sanoviv” in the search engine (since any papers from that facility would include its name)… and got this result:
The following term was not found and ignored: sanoviv.
Perhaps we would believe you more if those “miracles” were actually documented.
I found one of your patients. This is a description of his stay at the Sanoviv facility in Mexico in April 2005:
http://www.keepblairalive.com/health.html#33
This is a notice of his death the following July:
http://www.keepblairalive.com/health.html
Don’t you just love it when people make money off of desparation?
oops, wrong page: http://www.keepblairalive.com/index.htm
I simply cannot believe someone who represents Sanoviv would actually post some defense here especially given how ignornant and lame it was.
Kev, can you tell us whether his IP matches or is someone playing a joke?
To Mr. Koenigs (if you’re real) – given your relationship with Sanoviv, would you care to inform the readership why the clinic doesn’t move up north to say, San Diego, CA? The canned/specious answer is here.
I’ll save my Tijuana painted donkey/zebra pictures and funnery until Mr. Koenigs responds.
“What I can tell you is the content that’s on the blog (http://alternative-medicine-therapies.blogspot.com/) is absolutely real.”
Obi Wan: That’s no blog, it’s a space station.
Luke: I got a bad feeling about this.
Han: Yeah, turn it around, Chewie.
And when Obi Wan said space station, he meant loser advertising station.
“Infomercials don’t have to be cheesy or annoying. Anyone can learn the “infomercial formula” and apply to virtually any application. Whether you want to sell a product or service, raise money, educate, inform, demonstrate or entertain, Internet Infomercials will connect with your visitors more effectively than any other marketing tool. ”
– from http://www.mikekoenigs.com/
Some more goodery:
“Since launching the site last year, the client is enjoying tremendous registrations and inquiries that are coming in almost exclusively through the Sanoviv web site. Sanoviv has also started a blog on alternative medicine and alternative therapies at Blogger.com.”
Veneer. Plastic. Transparent.
You know, normally I’m just about getting on the case of the snake oil salesman, but the guy holding the sign outside the tent is at fault too if he knows what’s going on inside.
Kathleen’s lupron story got me riled up. Then the fries / puppy thing got to me and now this. When is the shock of this absolutely unimaginable quackery going to wear off?
HN, just looked at the keepingblairalive site. If it weren’t so sad, I’d ping them and ask why they didn’t take their pets to Sanoviv to cure their cancer too? Maybe the pets didn’t have amalgams. But then how did they develop cancer? Hmmmmmm…
/Romulan sarcasm device disengaged
_”Kev, can you tell us whether his IP matches or is someone playing a joke?”_
From what I can tell, it seems genuine. However, spoofing an IP isn’t too difficult so its hard to say for definite.
Yes, it is sad, plus other sites I found where desparate people were fundraising to sent their sick loved ones to that place.
I find it highly amusing when some loon on Usenet claims that anyone who disagrees with him is a “Pharma Blogger”. For one thing posting on Usenet is not “blogging”, and for another they never say anything about the spammers who post worthless crud.
Speaking of which… The “Dorian” posting before BC is a spammer for some kind of “enlargement” thing. One of the many that post on innocuous message but have a website they are spamming in their web address.
Jess = spammer!!!!