Tacky Spam Comment with Dentist Ad Suggests Businesses Be Careful of SEO Firms

[UPDATE:  I've had a legal threat which I responded to and then a much more rational email concerning this post.  I'll post them soon. [Part 1]  I've decided that the dentist in question had some legitimate points on my stereotypes about large dental practices.  He has said that he was unaware of the SEO firm doing this sort of commenting promotion and that they have contacted the SEO firm to end such practices.  I have decided to take his word on this.  The intent of the post is to alert people to sleazy SEO companies and the specific dentist is irrelevant.  Thus I’ve removed the name of the dental group involved.   So I've removed the name of the dental practice.]


[PART 1:]  Sometimes, posts force their own way onto this blog.  It's Monday Nov. 28 and I have better things to do than this, but I can't help it.

[Note to readers: This is a blogging-behind-the-scenes post.  The stuff in brackets I added after I finished this 'investigation.' This post wrote itself as I got more information.  It started out as a snarky post about a tacky dentist.  Now I'm not sure how tacky the dentist is  or if he just got a sleazy SEO firm to jack up his google position.  Have I lost you yet?  I'll explain SEO down below.  But let's begin at the beginning now.  The parts without brackets, I wrote as it was unfolding.]

Occasionally I get comments on a post that have nothing to do with the post. I've written about 'Kevin' who posted Chinese spam from Taiwan in the comment section for a while. These are spam ads that require a bit of work because someone has to get to my blog, then write something in the comment area, and then get past the Captcha code.  So it generally takes a human being to do this.

Most such comment/ads I get are for companies in China or India, and generally for electronic or industrial products.  Today on a post about planned obsolescence and the Anchorage building code, I got this comment:
[This is a screen shot image, not text, so the links don't work.  Also, I've deleted this comment on the original post.  See Update at top of this post on not identifying the dentist.]

To me, this is pretty bizarre.  And extremely tacky.  Enough so that I called the XXXXXXX Intelligencer which the internet told me was a newspaper that covered Lititz (emphasis, I learned, was on the first syllable, not on the body parts) and talked to a reporter who agreed it was strange, but didn't know anything about the business.  He said he'd check with some dentists he knows nearby.

I also called the XXXXXXXXX Dental Arts office and left a message on their voice mail.  You have to admit it takes a little thought to explain what I wanted for a voice mail.

I did learn while I was listening to their answer recording that they are open from 8:00am to 8:00pm two days a week and shorter hours the other days.  I also learned that they have done some serious internet work - they dominate  the first five pages when you google them.

So, for now here are a couple of tentative explanations:

• They are a tacky, factory dental clinic that will do whatever it takes to get customers.
• They are a dental group that has hired an SEO company to pump up their web presence and they don't know they bought spam comment/ads. 

PART 2:  Beware of sleazy SEO companies.

So, what is SEO?  SEO stands for Search Enhancement [Engine] Optimization.  That's geek speak for doing things to get a higher google rating so that your website shows up in the first two or three pages when people search terms related to your site.

Here's what Ethical SEO says (in part)

Promote your website, getting as many quality backlinks as possible; a backlink is a link posted on somebody else’s website which leads to your website. The backlink should ideally have a good “anchor text”, a text that describes what your website is about. As an example, instead of having a link to my website that says “click here”, I would rather have a link that says ethical seo company [they had this linked in the original, but I've already given them a link above, so I took it out] if I plan to get a good rank for the “ethical seo company” search phrase.

This is called off-page SEO and is by far the most important (and time-consuming) part of the SEO process, being responsible for about 90% of its success. While finding the proper keywords to target and optimizing the web pages is a one-time operation, building backlinks to your website must be an ongoing process, especially if the industry you’re in is profitable. Most (or all) of the companies on the 1st Google page invest in SEO on a monthly basis; othewise, they wouldn’t get these good ranks and sales. [emphasis added]

So, the point is to get backlinks; ideally, links with the name of your website on other websites.  It doesn't even matter if no one uses the link, because the point is to have Google count all these back links - and they are worth more if the site they're on is rated well - so that when people google 'your name'  your site will come up on page one of google.

[I'd also note that I don't invest in SEO, but I still get on page 1 on Google.  My guess is that my frequency of posting and some backlinks have helped.] 

SEO Primer Backlinking Tips

. . . Getting inbound links (backlinks that point to our website) which contain proper anchor text (the keywords we’re interested in) is an art in itself; fortunately, there are several 100% ethical (also called white hat)  methods that allow us to get them. If you have written a good piece of content, for example an interesting article, you can submit it to thousands of article directories and format it in such a way that you will get the desired backlink with proper anchor text. Sure, many article directories will reject your submission, but if your article is really good and you are submitting it to thousands of directories, you will definitely get not only a few hundreds of backlinks to your website, but also traffic (website visitors) from the tens of millions of people that are visiting the article directories each and every day. [So that explains the people who have asked to post guest posts here.]

So I left a message at the Dental Center, but wasn't expecting much.  However, it wasn't long before I got a call back from XXXXXXX [I'm guessing at the spelling].  She said this was the second call about this in one week.  She said she needed to call the SEO person and let him know.  She even found the blog without my telling her the name.  I did leave my name, but not too many people can spell my last name just hearing it on a voice message.

OK, so giving her the benefit of the doubt, she wasn't planning to have spam comments on blogs.  And she was going to change it.

But then I got to thinking, "Not only does she know what SEO is, but that was the first thing she mentioned."  These people are serious about their marketing.  I doubt that my dentist's office manager has heard of SEO.  I wasn't sure if my dentist even had a website.  [I checked and he does, but it's pretty generic. Mine has four dentists just like the one in Pennsylvania.  But the XXXXXXXX one just gives the names and photos of the dentists.  Mine doesn't have photos, but has a lengthy background on each dentist.  And my dentist doesn't have such long hours.  But he probably charges more.  After all, this is Alaska.]

Anyway, I guess there are several lessons to be learned here.

For me:

1. Now I better understand why people are putting  links in spam comments.  It's less about getting people to link to their sites.  It's more about getting lots of links out there to goose their google search ratings.  So, if a blogger left the links because she didn't pay attention or didn't think anyone would use them, the source is still getting a benefit through bogus comments.
2. Don't jump to conclusions.  I still think there are signs of tackiness here on the dentist's part - the long hours, the heavy push on SEO, including a staff member who knows the term, and the multiple offices in the area.  But it could just be a younger dentist with more internet savvy whose SEO specialist used unethical ways to boost the google ratings.  

For businesses with websites:

1. There are lots of SEO companies out there trying to get your business.  I get regular solicitations here myself.   It's probably a good idea to ask them what their ethical standards are and what practices they use and don't use. 
2. Not being careful means, like with this Dental Center, that you can end up with ads that make you look really tacky.  But then maybe that's why the ads were put on an Alaska blog, where XXXXXXXX area patients aren't likely to see them. But the internet is beyond borders, so that doesn't matter. 

If you search "SEO Ethics" and "Finding an Ethical SEO" you can find tips on ways to identify more ethical SEO firms.  I didn't find any specifically good ones so I'm not going to link.  And one of my readers might add some additional comments.

And if you get spam comments on your website, or see such tacky ads, call up the company and let them know what you think. If it's on your website, delete it right away.

[Just in case someone is asking, "What's wrong with the ad?"

1. It's fake.  It was put on the blog, not as a legitimate part of the discussion of the post, but simply to drop a flyer for this company.  
2. It's spam.  It's like internet litter.  Like putting your ad on someone's fence.
3. It tries to game the system.  It distorts the ratings that Google (and others) use to determine who gets on page one of searches.  I'm not saying Google's system doesn't have flaws, but it's like cutting in line, or cheating on a test, in my book. There's a better way to say this.  It's like learning all the tricks of looking good without actually being good.  But when people see through it, it looks tacky, like a bald man wearing a toupee. 

Dental Spam Response Part 2: "I understand you have an opinion, but I am respectfully asking that you . . ."

You can see Part 1 of this here.
The original post about the spam is here.

The first response to the post from the dentist was a threat of legal action. I sent a response to the threat [in Part 1] via email Tuesday night - a week ago.  Wednesday morning there was an 8:04am email waiting for me. 

Steve,
I am proactively looking into why this happened in the first place as I was not aware that the SEO company that we work with was doing this. The internet, though, is a free market and what they did is completely legal. If it was a problem that you didnt want this comment on your log, it would have been as simple as to call my office and request that we take it down or like your website states“Comments will be reviewed, not for content (except ads), but for style. . . Ads disguised as comments, unless closely related to the post and of value to readers(my call) will be deleted.” It seems that you are going completely out of your way to make calls to the local paper and have a reporter check into it and waste your time. The first line of your blog states that "..I have better things to do than this, but I can't help it." but it doesnt seem that way. I appreciate that you are educating people about this matter but I do not want my practice specifically mentioned as your comments about sleezy dentist and XXXXXX Dental Arts can be easily misconstrued by any patient or potential patient of mine. I understand you have an opinion, but I am respectfully asking that you take the  XXXXXXX Dental Arts name out of your blog.

"It started out as a snarky post about a tacky dentist. Now I'm not sure how tacky the dentist is..." -This negative opinion has no baring and is not helpful and doesn't compare at all to your example of diagnosing a cavity
"They are a tacky, factory dental clinic that will do whatever it takes to get customers." -All of this information is deduced from from one comment on one blog?
"I still think there are signs of tackiness here on the dentist's part - the long hours, the heavy push on SEO, including a staff member who knows the term, and the multiple offices in the area." We have long hours as to accommodate patients at all times due to the patient population that we see. We are one of only 3 medicaid providers in the greater XXXXXXX area. There are about 140 dentists in the area that do not take insurance or only take a few of the best insurances. I pride myself and my practice on the ability to see all of these lower middle class and low income families that nobody else wants see because of the very low insurance reimbursement. This is in no way tacky. Also, my marketing team is very familiar with the term SEO as they should be considering that is what their job entails...marketing. And Im not sure what multiple offices in the area means either since this is my only practice.
These are just a few of the things that are offensive and untrue. I do not want them associated with any names at my practice or the name of my practice. Otherwise, say what you want but I hope this is a lesson to you that things aren't always what they seem.

XXXXX  XXXXXXX

I took some time to think about it.  I'd like to think I'm not into win-lose type competition.  Most situations can be imagined in new ways that allow everyone to come out ok, if not well.  What did he want?  What did I want?  Most of what I wanted had already happened.  We'd moved from "Take this down or I'll sue" to "I'm respectfully asking . . ."

But underlying that, and even more important, we went from trying to use power to get one's way to using reason and persuasion to work out an acceptable solution for us both. 

I don't agree with everything said in the email.  I didn't make statements as much as speculate possibilities, for example.  But I don't need to quibble with him about the details. [Readers can read the original post and then Part 1 of this post to see for themselves.] 

And he made some good points.  Do I have an invalid stereotype about chain dentists just being out to make money? I even said "factory dentists."  But if one moves from the professional model of dentistry to the business model, then one moves from the polite to the rough and tumble, including occasional bad reviews.  But dentists always had to run a business as well as care for their patients.  And I certainly think assisting medicaid patients is a good thing but it's not without risks. I heard many tales from my mother who worked in a doctor's office about how medicaid (and medicare) often didn't cover the doctor's expenses and how easy it is to get in trouble over paperwork mistakes.

Am I biased because all my life I've only gone to small private dental offices that got patients through word of mouth, not a marketing team?  Does that mean that there aren't other legitimate models?  I don't need a fight with a  Dental Center in the Eastern time zone.  I made my point that businesses should be careful about hiring sleazy SEO operations.  (BTW, the original post collected two more dental spam comments and I had to delete two comments from an airport taxi service.) There's no real need to have a particular dentist's name in the post. (The one dentist whose spam/comment to this post I left as an example, put his own name there.)

I sent the new email to my attorney and proposed that I would delete references to the specific dentist office and town, but add the follow up emails.  I didn't hear from my attorney. [I just found his quick Wednesday response in my spam folder.] I did see him at the film festival though on Monday.

I told him the dentist had called me that morning (I wish East Coast people would check time zones before calling Alaska.)  We had a pleasant conversation and I spelled out my proposal and he was agreeable as long as his name was left out of things.

So, we each got what we wanted through civil rational discussion.  Neither of us will have to pay for an expensive legal battle.  Both of us are satisfied with the resolution. 

I will quibble on one point.  I simply called a reporter in his area to find out if this dental center had a reputation or not since I had no local connections I could check with.  I wasn't trying to stir up trouble.  

On the blogging side, yes, we have the First Amendment that allows us to say quite a bit.  But just because we have the right doesn't mean we should always use it.  We should be mindful of the unnecessary harm we can cause others.  There should be a good reason for inconveniencing (or worse) others in our exercise of free speech.  And there are also times when we need to hold our ground.  I respect a dentist willing to care for this medically under served population and I have no reason to disbelieve what he says.

Thanks, Dr. XXX for engaging me civilly.  I learned something through this, and I hope that you've  taken something positive from this as well. 

And other bloggers, you might want to consider joining a blogging association if only to get some coverage for unanticipated legal expenses. [I tried getting a link to the Media Bloggers website, but I got "Forbidden" messages.]

Dental Spam Response Part 1: ". . . if nothing is done within 24hrs, I will be forced to take legal action."

Blogging has its hazards.  I put up a post about a spam dental comment on Monday 11/28/11 at 10:52pm.   I got this email [dated 11/29/11 7:52am (Alaska time)]:

To Whom it May Concern,

My name is Dr XXX  XXXXX I am the owner of XXXXX Dental Arts. I was made aware of your blog today and I wanted to know what, exactly, is the purpose of this negativity in your blog? You do not know who I am or what I do in my practice but to say such things is considered defamation of character and is illegal. The way in which I advertise on the internet or increase traffic to my website shouldn't be any concern to yourself. You do not know me, nor do you know anything about me. I ask that you take down your recent post about XXXXXXX Dental Arts. I do not want to escalate this to my attorney but if nothing is done within 24hrs, I will be forced to take legal action.

Thanks,

XXX   XXXX

This happened once before when an attorney for the Alaska International Film Festival sent a longer letter.  In that case, I contacted attorney John McKay who wrote a long response letter.

In this case, this was directly from the dentist, not his attorney.  And he did say, "thanks" at the end.  And he didn't use his title in his signature.  Those are good signs to me.  So I drafted a response and checked with my attorney and then sent it off Tuesday night:

Dr. XXXXXXXXX,

Let me try to address your questions:

1. “I was made aware of your blog today and I wanted to know what, exactly, is the purpose of this negativity in your blog?”

You mention negativity as though talking about something negative is a bad thing.   Surely, when you find that a patient has a cavity, you must raise that negativity with your patient so you can proceed to fix it.

The purpose of the post is to point out the dangers of legitimate businesses hiring SEO firms that use sleazy tactics. Like filling a cavity, I’m trying to help businesses, like your own, protect themselves from sleazy SEO tactics. And like filling a cavity, it might hurt a bit, but I mean you no malice, as you mean your patients no malice.

2. "You do not know who I am or what I do in my practice. . .”

I do not know much about you, nor do you know me. But I do know
something about your marketing practices because an advertisement for your business was posted on my blog. Your SEO came to me, I didn’t go looking for you. My blog has a warning above the comment box that says (in part):

“Comments will be reviewed, not for content (except ads), but for style. . .  Ads disguised as comments, unless closely related to the post and of value to readers (my call) will be deleted.”

Despite this warning, a spam advertisement was left as a comment directing my readers to your dental clinic. The comment had absolutely nothing to do with the content of the blog post. In my mind this is tacky, because it pretends to be a comment, but really is an ad. In this case, there was not even an effort made to find a post about dentistry (I have some) or to even pretend to relate to the post at all. (Some SEO people write things like “This is a very interesting post” before leaving their links. And, in fact, another dentist has left another spam comment, but it talks about dentistry at least on this post which mentions 'dentist' though the main topic is SEO and spam.)

I went to the effort to call your office to check if you knew about the ad. Someone who identified herself as YYYYYY said this must be related to your SEO. I posted that on the blog so that my readers (and you) could see that I had checked  and that your office was not aware.

3. “but to say such things is considered defamation of character and is
illegal.”

I’m a professor emeritus of public administration at the University of Alaska  Anchorage. I write carefully and I try to present different possible interpretations rather than state things as fact. The post speculated different possibilities and provided evidence for the different possibilities. As I review it I see nothing that could be considered defamation.

You have not specifically identified what ‘things’ you consider  defamation of character or how it is illegal. If you can do that, I will share your  comments with my attorney, and consider any edits he advises.

I was threatened with legal action once before. That ended abruptly when my attorney responded to their threat. My attorney has represented news media and others engaged in exercising their First Amendment rights for over three decades, and has taught a university course dealing with these subjects for almost as long.

In conclusion, please identify the specific parts of the post that you consider defamation of character or illegal so I can consider making edits if my attorney agrees with your assessment.

Sincerely,

Steve Aufrecht

This all happened about a week ago.  I'll put this up now and Part 2 which includes the dentist's response and mine.

Here's the resolution in Response Part 2.

Dealing with Spam Comments

I get a fair number of comments that are simply spam, people getting links back to their sites.  SEO companies flooding the internet with links to their clients.  I'm not sure how much good it even does since Google and others take this into account.  And most of these get caught by bloggers spam filter, so they never get posted.  Some slip through. 

I think the last time I posted about this it was the dentist office spam where I actually contacted his office.  Since then, every now and then I copy and paste some spam to think about how I decide what is acceptable and what isn't.


Blatant spam.  Comments have nothing to do with the post.    Just getting their links up on my blog.  Examples (I've gotten rid of their links and left the ones to the posts they commented on):

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Although they all try to flatter the blogger, they are completely generic and make no comment that couldn't be applied to any blog.  The English is better than earlier ones, though some interesting English still slips in now and then.


Do mention something related in your post.

Matching word:  Some go to posts that have words or topics relevant to their client, like this one:

Excel Glass and Granite, Inc. is providing the best service and quality commercial and retail glass related products to their customers.they are focused on their customer’s satisfaction. on Do You See The Employment Glass 92.2% Full Or 7.8% Empty?

Got it?  Glass was in the title of my post.  The next one takes the title and incorporates it into the comment:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Anchorage Crime Map":

I usually do not write a bunch of comments, however i did a few searching and wound up here "Anchorage Crime Map". And I do have a couple of questions for you if you tend not to mind. Could it be simply me or does it look as if like some of the responses look like they are left by brain dead visitors?
:-P And, if you are writing on additional social sites, I would like to follow anything new you have to post.
Could you make a list of all of your community pages like your twitter feed, Facebook page or linkedin profile?
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Engages, barely, the topic:

Finland is in very north on the world overseas do not consider to study there instead UK. High School Diploma on Finnish Education - Focused on High Quality Education For All

I left the Finland comment up.  But not the next one.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012 10:50:00 PM AKDT As noted by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, the ultrasound technician salary in Alaska is one of the highest in the country. Ultrasound Technician Salary in AK 

This was a recent comment on an old post on Alaska Bloggers. The comment has nothing to do with the post.  The only connection is "Alaska." But it does purport to tell the salary of Ultrasound technicians in Anchorage. I could leave it.  But the delete decision was sealed when it abbreviated Alaska as AL. Sorry, we aren't Alabama.


Each comment gets emailed to me.  That way I know about comments on old posts like the last one.  They also show up on the Overview page for the blog.  There they are divided into published and spam.  Sometimes good posts get caught up in the spam filter.  Most of the spam does get caught.

They do take time to remove and I get two or more every day.  It's one of the reasons I leave the sign-in process for comments.  At least the spam has to be put up by a real person who has to sign in and get past the captcha.  But I've had comments from real readers who had trouble posting comments because of all that.  I did read in a forum that some bloggers have opened their comments  and that the Blogger spam filter catches most of their spam.  I've been thinking about experimenting to see what happens if I cut out the security for comments.  We'll see.  Now I have enough to keep me busy.

I'm at LAX now and if all goes well, we'll make it to our Chinese class in Anchorage at 6 tonight. In addition to the vocabulary and dialogues to know, I have to write an email in Chinese.  So I've got things to keep me busy on the flights.