Welcome to another edition of Legal Monday! Some of you may recall my post from last week, The Anatomy of A RipOff Report Lawsuit, in which I attempted to illuminate the legal issues surrounding the controversial site RipOffReport.com.
I invited Mr. Thomas B. Duffy, one of RipOff Report's attorneys, to contact me regarding last week's post with any corrections, feedback, documents, or missed cases that he thought might be helpful. I am very grateful to him for taking me up on my offer and contacting me last week. The phone call lasted for more than an hour. For today's Legal Monday, I want to summarize five of Mr. Duffy's responses:
RipOff Report has been much discussed lately and some may feel that the topic is tired. Regardless, I felt I would be remiss if I did not share some of RipOff Report's counter-arguments and comments. For those of you who are utterly bored of RipOff Report, I promise to move on next week.
I invited Mr. Thomas B. Duffy, one of RipOff Report's attorneys, to contact me regarding last week's post with any corrections, feedback, documents, or missed cases that he thought might be helpful. I am very grateful to him for taking me up on my offer and contacting me last week. The phone call lasted for more than an hour. For today's Legal Monday, I want to summarize five of Mr. Duffy's responses:
- The Post Contained a Factual Error
- The Titles Appear to Be Keyword Stuffed Because Many People Who Write RipOff Reports Understand SEO
- The Titles Appear to Be Keyword Stuffed Because That is How Uneducated People Write When They Are Really Upset
- RipOff Report's Technical People Indicate That the Site is Not Violating Google's Guidelines
- Ed Magedson Proved His Innocence When He Stated He Could Not Have Authored the RipOff Reports Because He Lives in Arizona and the Alleged Defamatory Reports Have IP Addresses from All Over the Country
RipOff Report has been much discussed lately and some may feel that the topic is tired. Regardless, I felt I would be remiss if I did not share some of RipOff Report's counter-arguments and comments. For those of you who are utterly bored of RipOff Report, I promise to move on next week.
1. The Post Contained a Factual Error
First things first. I want to thank Mr. Duffy for informing me of a factual error in my post. I had inadvertently referred to someone as a former RipOff Report employee. In fact, the person was a former employee of the plaintiff in one of the cases. Immediately after our conversation, I corrected this inaccuracy.
While I strive for complete accuracy, I do make mistakes. I appreciate being corrected and I apologize for facilitating misapprehension.
2. The Titles Appear to Be Keyword Stuffed Because Many People Who Write RipOff Reports Understand SEO
During our conversation, Mr. Duffy spontaneously brought up the issue of keyword-stuffed titles. (For examples of seemingly keyword stuffed title tags, look here and here.) He explained that the reason it appears that the titles have been optimized is because they are, but not by RipOff Report. Instead, Duffy claimed that many people understand SEO and purposefully used SEO techniques in their titles to improve rankings.
I'm not sure what to say about this. Really? Are there hundreds of SEOs completing RipOff Reports? Do we buy this as a community?
3. The Titles Appear to Be Keyword Stuffed Because That is How Uneducated People Write When They Are Really Upset
Before this goes any further, I also want to be clear that none of the Complaints I have seen suggest that RipOff Report employees generate all the reports. In fact, I think it is safe to assume even those who are suing RipOff Report agree that most reports are written by the masses. Thus, there are certainly many, many counter-examples of perfectly reasonable, albeit inarticulately phrased title tags.
And then there are those that repeat the company name and the word "internet." Is this what they're teaching in our public schools? To repeat words for emphasis when angry? To repeat words for emphasis when angry?
(Okay. That was a wee little joke. Couldn't resist.)
4. RipOff Report's Technical People Indicate That the Site is Not Violating Google's Guidelines
I linked to his post last week because Chris Bennett did an excellent job of demonstrating the ways RipOff Report fails to comply with Google's guidelines. In summary, Mr. Bennett points directly to:
There is nothing inviolate about an IP address. I am concerned that Judges and perhaps most attorneys might give this evidence more than its proper weight. Thus, for any non-techies who may be reading, I asked our CTO, Jeff Pollard, to explain to me how IP addresses work and how easy it would be to get an alternate IP address for your home or business computer. Here is Jeff's response:
I am an attorney and not a technologist. That's why I rely on geniuses like Mr. Pollard. You, my readers, are much more tech savvy than I am. Thus, you are more than capable of exercising your independent judgment regarding how effectively the "Not-Our-IP-Address Defense" exonerates RipOff Report.
3. The Titles Appear to Be Keyword Stuffed Because That is How Uneducated People Write When They Are Really Upset
At other points in the conversation and without prompting, Mr. Duffy suggested an alternate explanation for the seemingly keyword stuffed title tags: That is just how uneducated people write when they are very upset. According to Duffy, these "poorly educated" people get so upset that they "can't put a sentence together."While I agree that the U.S. education system has its faults, I can't bring myself to agree with Mr. Duffy here. "Russ Whitey [sic] Education Group Scam Rip Off Fraud Misrepresentation Deceptive trade practices Securities and Exchange Russ Whitney Foreclosure Wealth Intelligence Academy Law Suit/ Focus On Foreclosure Cape Coral Florida" doesn't look to me like a poorly educated person who is so upset they can't form a sentence. "Misrepresentation" is a rather large word for the uneducated masses. Also, I find the different spellings of "Whitney" to be highly suspect.
Before this goes any further, I also want to be clear that none of the Complaints I have seen suggest that RipOff Report employees generate all the reports. In fact, I think it is safe to assume even those who are suing RipOff Report agree that most reports are written by the masses. Thus, there are certainly many, many counter-examples of perfectly reasonable, albeit inarticulately phrased title tags.
And then there are those that repeat the company name and the word "internet." Is this what they're teaching in our public schools? To repeat words for emphasis when angry? To repeat words for emphasis when angry?
(Okay. That was a wee little joke. Couldn't resist.)
4. RipOff Report's Technical People Indicate That the Site is Not Violating Google's Guidelines
Again spontaneously, Mr. Duffy volunteered the fact that RipOff Report's "technical people" had determined that the site was not violating Google's webmaster guidelines. As proof of RipOff Report's compliance, he offers the fact that "We're [RipOff Report] still on top."I am a not an expert in technology. I just work in a community with more than its fair share of technology experts. Is RipOff Report violating Google's Webmaster Guidelines? According to people that I trust about this kind of thing, the answer is "yes."
I linked to his post last week because Chris Bennett did an excellent job of demonstrating the ways RipOff Report fails to comply with Google's guidelines. In summary, Mr. Bennett points directly to:
- the aforementioned use of keyword stuffing
- the site's failure to use robots.txt to prevent crawling of search results pages or other auto-generated pages that don’t add much value for users coming from search engines
- the multiple domains and subdomains (w3.ripoffreport.com and badbusinessbureau.com) with substantially duplicate content
- the pages loaded with irrelevant keywords
- It appears that the URL - www.ripoffreport.com/lists/ - is being cloaked (though it doesn't seem to necessarily be malicious cloaking). Try searching for Rip Off Report at Google and that's the second result, but unless you change your user agent to Googlebot, it forwards you to https://www.ripoffreport.com
/lists/1/default1442.htm (or something similar). - The site also sells paid link advertising and fails to nofollow the links.
- MSN/Live has clearly banned the site and will no longer index it, while Yahoo! has simply severely limited its ranking ability. (When 2/3 engines think a site's spamming, that's a pretty good signal that something's wrong.)
Mr. Duffy stated repeatedly that Mr. Magedson had 'proven' he was not the author of any RipOff Reports, Titles, or Rebuttals. There is a sworn statement, according to Mr. Duffy, in which Mr. Magedson proves he couldn't have authored certain RipOff Reports because the author's IP address was in Texas and Ed lives in Arizona.I did not find a statement by Ed Magedson that said this exactly. I did, however, find a couple statements in which RipOff Report attempts to prove its innocence by revealing the author's IP address and then swearing that it doesn't match the IP addresses belonging to the company or to Mr. Magedson. Ergo, RipOff Report did not author or change the Reports. One is a sworn statement by Ed Magedson. The other is a sworn statement by a long-time technology consultant for RipOff Report, Ben Smith.
There is nothing inviolate about an IP address. I am concerned that Judges and perhaps most attorneys might give this evidence more than its proper weight. Thus, for any non-techies who may be reading, I asked our CTO, Jeff Pollard, to explain to me how IP addresses work and how easy it would be to get an alternate IP address for your home or business computer. Here is Jeff's response:
An IP address identifies a network connection to the internet - but it does not identify a specific computer. For instance, as far as the internet is concerned, all actions taken from our office internet connection - no matter which individual computer did it - are from the same IP address. So, even though Jane's computer could be commenting on SEOmoz and my laptop is browsing cnn.com, both are making requests under the same IP address.
And that isn't to say that IPs can't be changed or spoofed. You can use a proxy or VPN to mask your IP address and make it look like it's coming from somewhere else, or if your ISP assigns you a dynamic IP (like our office currently has) vs a static IP, your IP address changes as often as you restart your router (or if your ISP feels like it).
So, in general, for the casual internet browser, their IP address does an OK job identifying them. But if you want to spoof your IP or just use one not associated with your home or office, it's not that hard at all. It can be as simple as restarting your router, using any number of proxy services, or even just go down to your nearest Tully's and use the free WiFi.
I am an attorney and not a technologist. That's why I rely on geniuses like Mr. Pollard. You, my readers, are much more tech savvy than I am. Thus, you are more than capable of exercising your independent judgment regarding how effectively the "Not-Our-IP-Address Defense" exonerates RipOff Report.
Conclusion
I don't know if Mr. Duffy was representing his own views or RipOff Report's views when he told me these things on the phone. I make no assumptions.
I do know that on several occasions during the course of the phone call, Duffy informed me that Magedson was upset, talking to his "litigators," and thinking about suing the SEO community for "ganging up" on him. While he did not go into detail, Duffy hinted that Magedson may try and bring some kind of antitrust lawsuit against everyone who has participated in the recent online discussions about RipOff Report.
I sincerely hope that this was just bluster. An antitrust suit would be ill conceived and frivolous. The SEO community has not called for a boycott, shared confidential information, refused to deal, or engaged in monopolizing behavior. Most importantly, because SEOs do not compete with RipOff Report, antitrust laws are inapplicable. To the contrary, I suspect that RipOff Report generates a great deal of business for SEOs by creating negative rankings that require reputation management services. Thus, the collective outcry of the community could be viewed as altruism at its finest.
As always, I thank you for your readership. I hope that the threat of a lawsuit will not have a chilling effect on comments.
Very truly yours,
Sarah
I do know that on several occasions during the course of the phone call, Duffy informed me that Magedson was upset, talking to his "litigators," and thinking about suing the SEO community for "ganging up" on him. While he did not go into detail, Duffy hinted that Magedson may try and bring some kind of antitrust lawsuit against everyone who has participated in the recent online discussions about RipOff Report.
I sincerely hope that this was just bluster. An antitrust suit would be ill conceived and frivolous. The SEO community has not called for a boycott, shared confidential information, refused to deal, or engaged in monopolizing behavior. Most importantly, because SEOs do not compete with RipOff Report, antitrust laws are inapplicable. To the contrary, I suspect that RipOff Report generates a great deal of business for SEOs by creating negative rankings that require reputation management services. Thus, the collective outcry of the community could be viewed as altruism at its finest.
As always, I thank you for your readership. I hope that the threat of a lawsuit will not have a chilling effect on comments.
Very truly yours,
Sarah
rip off threat website bad high rankings pay now google scam misrepresentation.
Oh, sorry i got very upset.
too funny
Instead of threatening to sue, how about he pays everyone to stop writing articles about him? Isn't that his MO?
Such a wonderful point! The appropriateness of that solution is so beautiful that it almost hurts.
Thanks Jane - kind of like what goes around.....
hahahhhahah---ownzord
While I have no idea whether or not RipOff report is writing any claims from scratch, the following instructions from their website pertaining to filing a Ripoff Report would certainly explain why they appear to be keyword stuffed.
One of two things is happening. Either Ripoff Report is taking the information and manually creating the individual report titles, or they have an automated script that consolidates the information from four separate sections into a title.
Either way, they are manipulating the process to maximize the optimization of the title around keywords.
The following is Ripoff Report copyrighted material:
Title Your Ripoff Report
The title of your report is divided into four boxes below but will appear as one line after your report is submitted.
The four boxes are:
(a) The name of the Company or Individual you are reporting. (b) Descriptive words explaining what they did to you. (c) The city the Company or Individual is located in. (d) The state the Company or Individual is located in.
A. Enter all the names of the Company or Individual you are reporting
B. Enter Descriptive words to your title... to describe what the Company or Individual did to you.
Be creative when using the example words, it will make your report more interesting.
Please limit to 20 words, you can add several phrases and edit them too
C. Enter the City where the Company or Individual is located
If the Company or Individual is on the Internet and only on-line based, the city may be left blank.
D. Enter the State where the Company or Individual is located
If the Company or Individual is on the Internet and only on-line based, and you have entered a Web address in Step 1, you must enter "Internet" or "Nationwide" in the State box. Additional States may be added.
Notice the statement: "Please limit to twenty words. You can add several phrase and edit them too." So, they not only encourage individual keywords, but also keyword phrases.
You've got to hand it to them, ROR obviously knows exactly what it's doing. I'm impressed. If they do use a script, that would probably prevent them from losing their CDA immunity because they aren't drafting or editing.
Of course, the script would also lead to a lot of irrelevant keywords. Thus, ROR successfully protects its legal interests, but risks its Google rankings. So far, it appears that ROR has negotiated just the right compromise among these competing interests.
Thanks so much for researching this, Sean. It's very informative.
Ahh... those instructions make the title tags a little less nonsensical as "Internet and only on-line based" complaints prompt the following:
City: Internet
State: Internet
Title: Raving lunacy Internet Internet
I'd taken a look at this process too, and I was impressed at how they effectively get users to create the stuffed titles themselves. You'll want to take a look at the meta tags they generate with this information, however...
@Jane - no kidding. It's actually a good lesson on how an SEO can get their prospective customer to come up with a keyword list. In their short form they have covered:
short-tail keywords, long-tail keywords, localized keywords and company/person specific keywords. It's beautiful in its simplicity.
I also love this line they feed:
"Be creative when using the example words, it will make your report more interesting."
In other words - "Generate interesting and commpelling content".
Someone could write a great thesis on this company.
They've taken UGC to a whole new level by getting their users to generate the content that stuffs their pages. I can't imagine that they can play the UGC line to Google with this practice. Sarah, this may be a question for you, but I do not see how a company can justify the fact that their website is manipulating user-submitted content to produce keyword-stuffed pages.
I am essentially re-creating what Sean has provided, but here is a screen cap of what one must give RoR when they're submitting a report. Amazingly clever, really. They tell you that your entries will appear as one line. They do not, however, tell you that your words will end up producing meta information like this. That they don't produce the words themselves surely begins to matter less when one realises that they assertively suggest users provide content that quickly becomes spam.
They provide the mechanism for the stuffed keywords. Their users don't realise that they're being duped into providing the content for a stuffed page.
stunning.
This is ridiculous on so many levels, it's astounding. What RoR seems to overlook in any bluster they throw towards the SEO community is that, in all of the posts that have gone up in the last few weeks, nobody is asking or suggesting that RoR would or should do anything differently: all of the criticism is leveled at GOOGLE!
This isn't about one shady site, it's about the fact that, as SEOs, we're required to play the game within Google's guidelines and operate under a constant fog of fear of penalization, both for known and unknown violations. When we see a site that is BLATANTLY violating ToS on several counts and Google seems to ACTIVELY stick its head in the sand, it's a cause for attention and outrage.
Sure, outing violators of ToS is sometimes frowned upon in order to avoid hurting sites that may be penalized. In this case though, the anger and frustration comes from a clear and inexplicable double standard that's benefiting a site of questionable ethics and relevance.
Thanks Sarah. Good work!
On your last point (about the altruistic nature of all this), on my last post on the subject I wrote something on that. Sorry for repeating here, but I think it's relevant.
I have nothing to gain from them being removed from the search engine results pages.
In fact, companies approach us asking us to carry out reputation management when they get listed in ripoffreport - we would get fewer of these enquiries were ripoffreport to be discredited in the search engines.
My conclusion: to rank high at google, one should target
either SEO savvy people
or very angry people
or both - this makes the best combination...
Nice... I should remember this for further reference....
Lol
I know this was a serious post, but everyone's comments have me laughing hard! No need for the ab workout tonight....
You forgot the apparent need to target uneducated people as well.
Wow
... and ouch!
I'll bet arguing with you is no fun at all Sarah.
This is fantastic SEO journalism at its best btw - a lead, much solid research, a story, response from a panel of industry experts, opportunies for named parties to tell their side of the tale, more solid research based on this, another follow up to the story etc.
You're definately one of SEOmoz's best investments Sarah.
back to work for me... (aka slow burn keyword research)
"...suing the SEO community..."
Pardon me while I engage in a short burst of 14 h4x0r language here, "ROTFLOL WTF!?"
Seriously, he is going to sue the seo community for not liking that we dissagree with him and his company? Wish I could just sue people when I disagree with me, what a wonderful wide world that would make.
Who would he sue? Would he start off with small companies, or would do he try the now-failing john doe lawsuits that the RIAA has attempted in the past.
Mr. baxterseo, lawsuit broke no money liabilitypoor cardboard box home mcdonalds street living ;-)
To quoth the raven, "Never more!"
I have 3 mini-comments wrapped up in this mega comment.
1)
Why does it matter if they violated the google guidlines? They are guidelines, not laws...isn't this what Aaron Wall was just blogging about?
2)
5. Ed Magedson Proved His Innocence When He Stated He Could Not Have Authored the RipOff Reports Because He Lives in Arizona and the Alleged Defamatory Reports Have IP Addresses from All Over the Country
Man that is a weak defense...if the judge has watched 24, he would totally know that that is BS.
3)
Russ Whitey Education group Scam Rip Off Fraud Misrepresentation Deceptive trade practives....On Forclosure Cape Coral Florida
That is the coolest/longest keyword stuffed title ever...I wish I had big enough ***** to do that.
Solid - I think we're all just surprised that Google would allow the violations without taking punitive action, when they're so sensitive to it in other places. The fact that Yahoo! & Live have banished this site to the nether regions of their results and Google has not make this an extremely odd scenario.
And yeah - the IP address defense is ridiculous, as are the crazy keyword stuffed pages.
Remove the site from the index...problem solved :)
Fantastic point no. 1 Solid - I can only speak for myself here, but it may echo the wider view -
There's 3 uncertain aspects to RoR's business model:
1. Violating Google guidelines
You're right, this is totally RoR's risk and it is their perogative. However a lot of grumbling is in the double standards in penalising abusers of these guidelines.
2. The Law
I don't know if RoR's business model is violating any laws, either state, federal, or international. It may step a little too close to libel and blackmail, but only Sarah is qualified to advise on this.
3. Ethics
Yeah I know we all have a different code of ethics depending on many factors, but some things are almost universally accepted to be just plain wrong. There's some big ones like murder of innocents, slavery (and possible DRM :) but they all stem from the same thing... Injustice.
I'll not harp on about ethics; it's a minefield of opinion, but I will say that RoR's way of making money seems to be based on a clever form of indirect blackmail... in the old days an angry mob would have turned up at Megedson's office with pitchforks and torches. RoR is fast becoming a hated entity that severly impacts other businesses - eventually either laws are put in place to protect economy or those who are feeling the effect club together and protect themselves.
So, yeah you're completely right about Google guidelines not being law - you get a thumb from me :) but it's important to recognise this isn't the only problem.
Lindop, you and I are speaking the same language :)The legal infractions are a different from the gg-legal infractions. Although for some people like SEOs, gg guidelines can seem like law...
Regarding what you said about ethics, I totally agree. Due to the law and/or groups of people, all bad ideas will eventually die.
All the best,
Evan Jerkunica
Which is exactly why I've never had to explain my job title to anyone.
Donna can pubicly admit her "mistakes", change her site to adhere to Google's TOS and get nowhere. And RipOff Report was never punished at all?Mr. Magedson proves he couldn't have authored certain RipOff Reports because the author's IP address was in Texas and Ed lives in Arizona.Even before I got into this industry, I'd have picked this one as ridiculous. At best, it's midly insulting that they think we'd buy this. As you said, judges are another matter entirely.
Edited for link.
:-) It does look like Donna is getting some response from Matt Cutts. I do agree that Google does seem to be turning a blind eye. Is that exactly the case? Sure seems like it, but until Google actually says something we won't know for sure.
"if it walks like a duck, it might get a ROR for all the quacking"
Well the SEO part could make sense. If you are an SEO, and you want to knock a competitor out, and you know their site ranks pretty well, there might be some that'll take the opportunity. But that would more likely be a smaller group I'd think.
Mr. XX,
Thanks for your comment. I want to make sure I understand you. What do you mean by "competitor?"
I assume that you mean a person/business who is competing for a top spot in the SERPS. I assume that you do not mean a person/business providing similar services to your business.
Am I misunderstanding? It's an important distinction because one could implicate antitrust issues and the other does likely does not....
Busted! Ripoff report ADMITS to altering and falsifying user submitted reports:
While the body is untouched, report titles may be changed by the editor to enhance your reports ability to be found on search engines. (For example: the name of the reported company may be added if you have left it out. This way someone searching the net for said company will find your report) So go ahead, speak your mind! We will not edit, censor, or manipulate your Rip-Off Report itself in any way. (except title for search engine purposes)
https://web.archive.org/web/20020610132621/ripoffreport.com/FAQ.html
Note to ROR: don't bother suing the internet archive, this has already been attempted by real lawyers, not rent-a-goons. https://blog.copywrite.org/2007/08/17/healthcare-advocates-inc-v-harding-earley-follmer-frailey/
"RipOff Report's technical people had determined that the site was not violating Google's webmaster guidelines."
Their 'technical people' (term used extremely loosely) couldn't spell SEO if they had a 2 letter head start. The advertising heading for 'Ripoff Report Legal Ads' is an image not plain text, something Matt Cutts called out several years ago. This could be considered cloaking. They also have an improperly formatted robots.txt file https://www.ripoffreport.com/robots.txt
"Duffy hinted that Magedson may try and bring some kind of antitrust lawsuit against everyone who has participated in the recent online discussions about RipOff Report."
Sorry, this is extortion and not a part of the US constitution as of today. Rip Off Report obviously cant stand the taste of it's own medicine.
With their counsel's extensive IP, technological and internet case experience this should be of no concern to them https://www.duffylaw.org/Filings.htm
This sounds like the mob: create fake listings, self certify them using in house 'technical experts', falsify them for maximum exposure, then try to extort businesses at a huge profit. I bet 1 million dollars that SEOmoz or other SEO detractors will suddenly have a damaging ripoffreport written about them.
For a list of successful lawsuits against the rip off report and racketeering evidence "The normal cost for [to remove] the amount of Reports you have would be about $9,000 and much more of a monthly monitoring fee..." https://www.rip-off-bad-business.com/
The SEO community should sue ripoffreport.com for giving us a bad name.
Duffy hinted that Magedson may try and bring some kind of antitrust lawsuit against everyone who has participated in the recent online discussions about RipOff Report.
I know it's an ethics violation to file a frivilous suit, but isn't it also an ethics violation for counsel to communicate the threat of a lawsuit that they know to be frivilous? And by hinting that's what his client might do while speaking to a likely defendant of such a suit, isn't that what he was doing?
Sarah,
Absolutely awesome contributions to the blog. I'm really, really glad you're posting here.
'Duffy informed me that Magedson was upset, talking to his "litigators," and thinking about suing the SEO community for "ganging up" on him."
Don't get mad Magedson - get even! File a Ripoff Report!
Crap, on the other hand, if the majority of your customer base is SEO's, maybe that might not be such a good idea afterall. :)
This morning had me wondering what they would do if someone filed a Rip Off Report about ROR on the ROR website...
Give it a go - see whether they are really censored...
The universe would collapse onto itself.
... in a black hole of stuffed keyword tags. Can you imagine? Rip-Off Report Rip Off Rip Off Report Ripped off Rip-Off Report Internet Internet California.
It'll be like when John Malkovich goes into his own head in Being John Malkovich.
Malkovich Malkovich. Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich.
Crazy Kelly...
@ Rebecca - esoteric reference at its finest. You are the Dennis Miller of SEOmoz - albeit without the fanatical delivery. :)
I knew I should have gotten off on the third and a half floor of this thread.
I thought it was the 7 1/2 floor...
I did just that filed a ripoff Report about them on RipOff Report. com........They never posted it....So Ed Lied They do remove things..........Liars and Extortionist scum
Is there anyway to get your name removed from the site?
Let us know if you manage without being extorted.
gl-
I am not an SEO person. Will any of the following work against ROR?
1. Duplicate Contentcopy their pages and post eslewhere. I understand Google sometimes takes down the ORIGINAL.
2. Doorway Pages
can I create spoammy dorrway pages that just repeat a few keywords and point to ROR? Will that hurt their postion? 3. Can I add them to a bad neighborhood link ring or have 1000 bad sites point to them (I will write a check for this) Come on your SEO types, What's the list of things that can be done to these aholes at ROR. Google wont do a thing. Who wants some creative work and billing as the SEO expert who took down ROR?
Hello My Friends And Neighbors,
I am International Country Singer Terry L Sanders and I just had to reply to this Ripoff Report Article. Good Job on the reporting here and thanks for going into details. I am not to smart on the internet either but I do know from reality that Ripoff Report does violate the Google Terms but Google refuses to take care of the issue at hand. I know That Ripoff Report is Extorting people cause they tried Extorting me. I welcome any law suites they would like to file against me because I will be another one that proves them to be the unethical business that they are. I have recently purchased the domain www.ripoffreportscams.com and this site will soon be up and running for the ones that are being scammed by Ed and his bad business. I know it will be big fast and right under or on top of the Ripoff Report Listing will be one From Ripoff Report Scams telling the world that this person is being Scammed by Ripoff Report.com Thank You So Much For Your Help Here and also to the posters........
Hello Friends And Neighbors. I have now the perfect weapons to use against Ripoff Report. We now own the domain and website www.ripoffreportscams.com here we are listed on google right along with them and we tell the complete story of how Ripoff Report is extorting the person. This listing is either right under or right above the persons name.join and help us fight back. Since I posted this and Ed has figured out that I am fighting him now I have 2 more fake post on Ripoff Report.......Lol....... This Site really hurts Ripoff Report And The Way They Extort People. Join Us In The Fight Today!
A friend passed this along to me... Although I doubt any affected businesses will come forward for an interview- for fear of more aggressive retaliation (myself included)- maybe an SEO company or two would be willing to be interviewed for this.
Summary: Rip Off Report
Category: Business & Finance
Name: Keith Yaskin
Email: [email protected]
Title: Reporter
Media Outlet/Publication: Fox Television in Phoenix
Anonymous? No
Specific Geographic Region? No
Region:
Deadline: 6:00 PM MOUNTAIN - August 30
Query:
"I'm working on a story about a controversial website called the
RipOffReport. Some people argue the site allows upset consumers to
fight back against companies. Others argue the site allows unproven
posts that unfairly hurt businesses. I'm looking to interview
someone who is interested in talking about this website. Thank you.
Ok, I am sick of tired of ripoff report.
Here is the solution on how to eliminate this website once and for all.
Ripoff report basically allow anyone to post slander on anyone else , i am no lawyer but i know that when you write something about someone else espcially in cases where the objective is to hurt a business you are liable to what you write.
So here is the thing, Since ripoff report assumes no responsibility on what people write on their website about other companies and do not check if the claims are true or not , lets help them in their own game.
lets start filling up ripoff report with thousands of false claims against large and small companies, any company can be the target of these false claims and the more absurd those claims will be the more it will serve to show how absurd and illegal the ripoff report concept is.
i suggest all webmasters and SEO experts, people who got hurt by ripoff report let us all join together and start pumping ripoff report with absurd ripoff reports.Please each and everyone of you start creating lots and lots of ripoff report against any company or business that comes to mind.
now only will this turn the website to the largest crap slanderous garbage can in the Internet (its already that , we will just help it become what it should be much faster). but it will help raise awareness of large companies and businesses which the slanderous crap will be posted against them on how illegal this concept is from its very conception.
Maybe
Cheers
I am also starting a website soon for a class action/representative lawsuit against ripoff report.com and against "ED" .Basically the idea is to put together a combined legal effort for all the thousands of businesses that ripoff report are refusing to remove the slanderous busyness hurting allegations against them on their site. This comes down to requesting compensation from "ED" for the damages caused to any business by this slander.
I will give more info regarding the second initiative very soon,
regarding the first initiative its already under way and i will soon organize the effort so it will become more affective
Many people will join you for class action against ripoff report. I will be one of them.
Let me know once it is up.
I will join the Law Suite And Pay Half The Attorney Fees to shut that scum down.... He tried getting $20,000 out of me for a right out lie.
Ha ha thats funny. Do judges actually buy that stuff?
Kudos to the SEOMoz legal eagle. I am curious how he would propose to sue the industry :-)
I too have been a victim of Ripp off Report by a former employee who claimed wild accusations. Trying to ruin our reputation, I would like to join any lawsuit there is to sue these people at Ripp Off Report. My shop name is Midtown Auto Service and I am a VERY REPUTABABLE SHOP and seeing this employee comments burns me up. Please contact me at 832-630-9922 or at [email protected]. I am very serious these kind of site are unfair and not right.
I didn't go to a certain auto dealership due to a ROR review......
So the dealership lost out on a new auto sale which is generally pretty traumatic as is....
THE ROR report had a p@@@@d off person complain about something relatively trivial so I didn't go there.
I wonder how many other people have lost sales due to a ROR rant????
I am just glad that despite their lack of education, so many people of experts at SEO. There are times when members of my profession embarrass me by raising really lame arguements. Mr. Duffy you've done it again. Maintaining your credibility as a lawyer should be a higher priority.
I would not be surprized if google buys ROR down the road just like they did youtube. youtube was in violation of many copywrites and trademarks and still are.
I'm not sure what to say about this. Really? Are there hundreds of SEOs completing RipOff Reports? Do we buy this as a community?
I believe the idea that the users are keyword stuffing. The set of people in the SEO community is a subset of the people that have at least a rudimentary knowledge of SEO. It doesn't take an SEO consultant to know that you should use keywords if you want something to be found.
Is there a name for the kind of lawsuit he claims to be looking at? Regardless of the merits, how do you serve a lawsuit on a virtual community?