In 2011, I was approached by a shady online marketing firm that offered to pay me to quietly insert links to their clients' websites in Gawker posts. We imagined that exposing the practice might end it. Not at all! It's happened again.
To briefly reiterate the problematic aspects of the practice: these firms are hired by clients to enhance their Google results and overall SEO. The firms then offer to, essentially, bribe writers at various websites to place links to their clients in editorial content, because Google looks kindly on such links when calculating search rankings. The writers get paid; the links go in quietly; the cash is slipped into Paypal accounts; the news organizations are never informed. It's stealth marketing, and it's designed to deceive both the employer and the reader. It's an unethical scam.
On November 8, I received this unsolicited email (all bolding is ours):
Dear Hamilton,
I would like to compliment you on your great articles that you write! I was wondering if you would be interested in a cooperation. We have many clients that would be interested in having their brand and link
mentioned in the article and would be willing to pay a nice price for it
( no promotional articles of any kind just informational ). If this is
something that would interest you, then let us know.
Kind regards,
Rock
Backlinks.us
Rock's firm, Backlinks.us, touts itself as "an ever expanding SEO company that has been doing search engine optimization for private clients for over 4 years," and offers packages ranging from $119 a month for the "Beginner" link package to well over $1,000 a month for the "Ultimate" SEO enhancement. I replied, "Who are your clients and what is the arrangement?"
Hi Hamilton,
thank you very much for a
quick response. The arrangement would be that we give you a keyword and
URL and then you write an article that is relevant to that keyword and
embed the link inside the article with the keyword we give you. Like I
said, we are not looking for promotional posts, but for high quality
informative posts that have a link back to our specified site. You can
also link out to sites like Wikipedia and similar to make the article
the best it can be. Would that be of interest to you and if so how much
would you charge per such an article?
Kind regards, Rock.
I replied, "Who are the clients we would be linking to?"
We have quite a few, but for example, one link would be this: [Link]
and the keyword would be: garcinia cambogia. But we can check each client with
you if you wish and you can say yes or no to them.. We have that same
arrangement with a few other big sites and with them being in control of what
get's posted and what not, they feel more comfortable with it. In any case, we
would never send you any illegal, porn or anything that you are not comfortable
with.. let me know.
Rock
"I think I'd have to run it by my boss," I replied. "Can you send me some examples of how it looks on the other big sites you refer to?"
We are looking to establish relationships with authors directly. Sure, run it by
your boss, but he will most probably said you can't do it because the company
will want a piece of the pie. That is why we are looking for direct
relationships to authors. : In any case, let us know if you decide to want to work with us. We
would be happy to have you in our team and you would probably also happy with
earnings some more money each month by doing what you are doing.
Regards, Rock.
I asked again for some examples of where it had been done. Rock sent me this link to a contributor's post on AllVoices.com. I asked for more, and he sent me three: This post on Yahoo's "Voices" network by Karine Heyden, a "professional writer/blogger with many happy clients"; this post on Blogcritics.org by "world traveled analyst" Henry Buell; and this news story on Examiner.com by "book marketing specialist" Tamica Bonner.
I asked Rock if there were any examples on larger sites.
Hey Hamilton - thanks for responding. Yes, we are doing this on HuffingtonPost, ChicagoTribune, UTSanDiego and other
such big news sites so the Gawker wouldn't be any different... The compensation
would be $50-$80 per post that you write. How does that sound?
Still, I wavered. He followed up with this:
Hi Hamilton,
Here are 2 HuffingtonPost.com posts that were made for us. The first one is: [Link], here the keyword of our client is freelance writer (which links to our clients site) and the second one is this one: [Link] here the keyword that is linked to our client's site is UppSite.
In
both examples you can see that the posts are non promotional but
actually very informative to the readers of the website and the links to
our clients fit very well into the context of the article. This is what
we are looking for and not for spammy promotional articles with a ton
of links back to our clients. We know that such spammy article could
also harm your position with the website and we don't want that at all.
We are looking for long term relationships with excellent writers. We
want you be happy and us to be happy..
As
for the payment - you are right for smaller sites we pay a bit less
$30-$60 and larger a bit more $50-$80. How much per post would be good
for you?
Regards, Rok.
(I couldn't help but notice that the market value of my bribes had declined by more than half since 2011. Damn.) I tried to drag even more examples out of Rock, but he had hit a wall.
Hi Hamilton,
well I don't know what
to show you any more.. I have shown you
examples on sites bigger than the Gawker and those work great with
us. As for the payment, to see that we are serious, we can send you the
payment for
the first post before you even post it. After that we will send you your
payment
in the next 24 hours after you send us our live link. We pay through
Paypal.com.
No contract needed unless you want one. So let me know if you want to
proceed and give me your Paypal address so that we
send you the payment and if not, also tell me so that we can continue
with our
search for someone to work with on the Gawker.
Regards, Rock.
Considering the fact that most of the examples that Rock sent to me are links inserted in stories that are contributed to sites with extremely low editorial standards, this does not constitute the greatest scandal in journalism history. But everyone should be aware of the fact that the shady and undercover practice of inserting paid links into purportedly "editorial" copy appears to be rampant. Readers (and employers) beware.
You'll never bribe anyone good for $80, Rock.
[Image by Jim Cooke]