Comments on: The WordPress/HotNacho SEO Debacle

By: Johnny K – WordPress SEO

Johnny K – WordPress SEO — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 19:30:26 +0000

[...] Campbell (who is Mr. Ping-o-matic) has posted his opinion on the topic. He worked closely with Matt so he is in a better position than most to comment on [...]

By: holiday-inclusive-last-minute.bestallinclusive

holiday-inclusive-last-minute.bestallinclusive — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 21:21:06 +0000

[...] ï»¿acknowledge this grandiose story at http://dougal.gunters.org/blog/2005/03/31/the-wordpresshotnacho-seo-debacle about [...] holiday-inclusive-last-minute.bestallinclusive holiday inclusive last minute [...]

By: harpwolf: Showdown over Search Engine Spam

harpwolf: Showdown over Search Engine Spam — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 13:36:55 +0000

[...] Wolf Harper (harpwolf) wrote,@ 2005-03-31 14:23:00 Showdown over Search Engine Spam LiveJournal is kind of a sheltered garden. People on my Friends list talk mostly about personal issues. It’s not that way in the rest of the Blogosphere. There’s a real knock-down, drag-out over WordPress’ loading up their site with doorway pages from hotnacho.com. Why? HotNacho is good at writing pages structured to seem important to search engines (rather than being good articles). They’ve written hundreds of thousands of pages on high-paying subjects like “asbestos litigation”. WordPress.com is a popular, important site, so HotNacho’s pages get better ranked being on WordPress.com instead of some other site. The result is, HotNacho is able to get their pages to rank high in Google, Yahoo etc. But that comes at a price — the top 10 search results only hold 10, so for their page to rank, a presumably better page must be bumped out. Maybe a page you’d rather see! So the debate is forged. Some accuse, One Two Three Some defend; One Two and some demur. One Meanwhile, WordPress’s creator is out of the country on vacation. My take on it? I fight spam for a living and I call it spam, or at least low-rate junk. I can’t imagine what they were thinking. Perhaps they had the typical moral lapse: “I do good things, therefore I am a good person, therefore I don’t do bad things, and even though part of my intuition says this is a bad thing, I’m sure somehow the math will work out that it isn’t, as it always does.” Right.(Post a new comment) Log in now.(Create account, or use OpenID) [...]

By: Refekt’s Journalized » Blog Archive » Matt, WordPress, and Search Engine Gaming

Thu, 23 Jun 2005 21:52:14 +0000

[...] gaining high page rank from Wordpress.orgâ€™s own page rank. Dougal Campbell has written a reasoned response to the story breaking. It is most unfortunate that [...]

By: Many-to-Many

Many-to-Many — Sat, 02 Apr 2005 01:39:20 +0000

techno-ethics (what is “evil”?)

We can all come up with ways to justify even our worst behavior. This is why i’m always a bit wary of “don’t be evil”-esque mantras. Evil on what terms? When i heard about Wordpress’ questionable practices, i couldn’…

By: apophenia

apophenia — Sat, 02 Apr 2005 01:24:05 +0000

techno-ethics (what is “evil”?)

By: John Keyes » WordPress SEO

John Keyes » WordPress SEO — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 20:02:12 +0000

[...] ight have made this discussion moot. Dougal Campbell (who is Mr. Ping-o-matic) has posted his opinion on the topic. He worked closely with Matt so he is in a [...]

By: centripetalforces dot com » If I were a rich man..

centripetalforces dot com » If I were a rich man.. — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 15:25:47 +0000

[...] tried to defray some costs with some sponsored advertising that sadly hasn’t worked to well. What is fascinating to watch is how the WordPress communit [...]

By: Dougal

Dougal — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 14:48:27 +0000

I’m not saying that the HotNacho deal was a good thing to do. But as everyone knows, “hindsight is 20/20″. Matt made a bad decision. Show me one person (well, one mortal person) who never made a bad decision in their life.

Got any examples?

Me neither.

Let’s give Matt a chance to respond, make his apologies, and then let’s all move on with our lives.

By: Larry Ayers

Larry Ayers — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 11:50:52 +0000

This whole affair is just silly. Who cares what Matt does to generate revenue? I tdoesn’t affect me in the least. The WP software isn’t compromised; it works better than ever. That’s all i’m concerned about. Get a life, people!