I applaud your attitude for those thinking that it is easy to start up a website and build a readership if you have solid content. However, there is a very slimy underbelly of the internet that you are fighting against, so it is not as simple as you might hope it would be.
I was aware of a lot of the shenanigans that go on in the name of building readership and getting more advertising, but some of this seems to be just over the top.
Examples of the slimy underbelly of the internet
- Buying “likes” on Facebook? Why would anyone want to do that? Evidently it helps your readership, but does it do you any good?
- Most of the Twitter world is either a Bot(i.e. automated reposter) or “synthetic” IDs controlled by Social Media companies to build Twitter statistics. My guess is that out of my 2500 followers a large number of them are not actually folks.
- There are “Click Bots” out there, that clicks Adsense ads for you, or better still that clicks your “competition” web site ads, to exhaust their Adwords budgets (and allowing your ads to flourish, without competition). Now that is just slimy, burning your competitors budgets? That is bad.
- How many of the sites you read are really written by them? Scraping bots are out there taking content and rehashing it, to make money on other folks back.
There are countless other Grey Hat and even Black Hat ways to make this all work, but is it worth it? I am still working for slave wages, but at least I am having fun (aren’t I?) and not living in the slimy underbelly of the internet.
Other Articles about Thievery
With the dawn of the AI author, which steals content with impunity it seems, keep this in mind.
- Copyright messages and Scrapers how to embed copyright messages in your articles. This will help find your work as well.
- How to Trap a Scraper a good trap to lay for those nefarious thieves.
- Those Loathsome Scrapers I think you get the point that I am not fond of this.
- Internet and Its Slimy Underbelly the title alone is a good reason to read it.