EARTH BITES: HIJACKING YOUR NAME IN CYBERSPACE...THE DARK SIDE OF GEEK WORLD
As a demographically middle of the pack baby boomer I came late to the Internet game...in 1998. Like most of the uninitiated, I thought that this world was simple but honest- full of geeks and "slaying dragons" video games.
Sure I'd heard about the copious amounts of porn on the net but generally I never thought about the cutthroat side of e-commerce.
Until the mystarcollectorcar.com name was hijacked by predatory marketing.
The first thing you learn in this world is simple-move up on Google search. That's the biggest factor in the Internet world-the Holy Grail is number 1 ranking on the page and we achieve that regularly.
Last year at this time August 2009 we couldn't be found in the first 50 pages under our target search 'collector car' or 'collector cars'.
Now we are consistently at the top of the first page under 'collector car', and consistently in the top ten under 'collector cars', thanks to a lot of hard work and no "optimized" search engine help. In other words, we didn't pay some slime-ball to move up the food chain.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that you become a target as you become more popular - a lot like Brad Pitt on a much smaller scale without the Hollywood babes,but the bottom line is that your valuable placement on Google gets hijacked.
It works this way-you find us in Google search, click on our name and get taken to any number of other business sites-none have any affiliation with MSCC.
It's a lot like walking in the front door of a Wal-Mart and ending up in a K-Mart.
It's sleazy, it's cheap, and clearly it's done everyday in this world of geeks, porn, lightweight opinions and occasionally useful information. Amateurs aren't doing this and, in this case, some of the names involved are big players in the game. In fact, one of the sites you'll be taken to via the MSCC hijacked-link is a major clearing-house for some of the biggest automotive magazines in the world.
I've taken the time to contact the big players in this sordid game and 90% of them get back to me right away because they realize how underhanded the "hijacking the link" game is-it's just not good PR for anybody.
Most of them offer the same advice-note the time it happens,send the link to them and send a screen shot if possible. I've done that-it's a bit of work but so far the problem keeps occurring. I applaud their sincerity even if it seems like a pat answer format.
But I know that at least once a week somebody is going to click on my site name, get taken on a cyber joyride to somebody else's site and get solicited to buy somebody else's automotive magazine or a used car or car lease or tires.
It's a mugging with a cyber handgun.
None of this is fun-but until somebody actually dumps an online marketer based on their role in this kind of underhanded, conscience-free marketing, you will be taken to somebody else's site...when you think you're headed to mystarcollectorcar.com.
My apologies
Jerry Sutherland @mystarcollectorcar.com
