Joshua Tyler | updated
We had to suspend our daily publishing operations. huge monster robot. This means I have more time on my hands. Most of that time is now focused on our work. youtube channelBut I plan to use the remaining money to help independent publishers.
Not everyone thinks they need help. So the first warning is: They are really trying to save you.
Large media companies take many forms. Some of them are large new media conglomerates owned by hedge funds, buying up independent sites and turning them into zombie content farms. Others are old media monsters that roam the content space like King Kong, destroying everything in their path.
Make no mistake. They see independent publishers as the enemy, and always have been. They will do anything to prevent independent publishers from gaining a foothold in what we see now, after wiping out the original independent publishers who built the Internet as a private domain.
Big media brand competitors have infinite money, infinite employees, and infinite connections. As an independent publisher, they use them in ways you would never imagine and that likely seem unethical. Here are some of the techniques they used to destroy this site: And now they’re using that technology on you.
penetration
Sometimes independent publishers try to form alliances as a way to counter the onslaught of big media companies used to hinder them. Large media companies then send teams to infiltrate and disrupt these groups, usually in subtle ways, but sometimes more blatantly.
Often they position themselves as a friendly force willing to work with independents. As a carrot, they have the idea that they can buy these sites and make the owners rich or invest them in some way. Sometimes they pretend to be so kind and altruistic that they want to help.
That’s hardly true. They are mining you for data and tearing you apart. They know exactly what they are doing.
Create toxic links
Have you ever wondered why there are so many crappy and questionable sites linking to your site even though you haven’t purchased any links? Some of it comes organically from content scrapers who think they can make money by robbing you. But not everything.
Everyday use by large media organizations Negative SEO To maintain a small site. Once they start infringing on keywords they believe belong to them, they will start deliberately paying link buying services to buy harmful links that redirect to your website.
We don’t know how negatively this will affect your search rankings, but it certainly doesn’t help.
Copy content
Most large media content farms run algorithms that determine what to write about. These algos are based on copying what works for your competitors. They analyze what other people are doing and copy it. The algorithm they use assigns titles and topics, and also creates an outline that instructs the writer step-by-step what to write.
So, when an independent publisher starts doing well by writing articles about Best Star Trek Starships, big media algorithms will detect this and start automatically generating copycat articles and assigning them to writers.
They will produce dozens of Best Star Trek Starships articles simultaneously, flooding you with the keywords they are trying to steal. They continue to produce articles through writers who are paid as little as $1 per article in some cases. Until that writer’s content overwrites the original article being copied. It works, and it will eventually steal the traffic and interest momentum that the original article generated.
smear campaign
Independent publishers who start to get a positive response are seen as a threat, so large media companies use their PR teams to pretend to be readers and experts. These fake accounts are used to defame competitors.
These attacks take many forms. Sometimes they create entire Reddit threads with titles like “Site A is a scam.” And since Google prefers Reddit, someone searching for “Site A” will now see it as one of the first search results.
More often than not, trust rating platforms and comments on social media are used. They will regularly disparage your independent brand or advise people to stay away from you because you are a liar. Otherwise you will rip them off.
threats and intimidation
Independent publishers who begin to perform too well will inevitably face threats from employees of large media brands.
These threats take many forms and have different goals. Some people will ask you to delete posts they don’t like. Other times, they’ll demand you hand over their sources because they’re unhappy that you broke a story they believed.
The consequences of refusing to comply will vary. Often they will compromise your PR contacts and threaten to use their powers to restrict your access if you do not comply. In other cases, they threaten smear campaigns by leveraging their superior distribution to write negative articles about the site or using their PR teams to create online smear campaigns disguised as organic hate.
law
In the early 2000s, established media companies began threatening distribution platforms like Facebook and Google with lawsuits if their content did not receive preferential treatment over independent publishers. It worked, and it’s not the only way to use our well-funded legal capabilities.
If an independent publisher makes the mistake of blaming a large media brand for any of the items on this list, they will likely face legal action.
You may think that truth is a solid defense, but defending yourself against this type of lawsuit will cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars, and no matter which lawyer you end up hiring, he or she will probably not be as good as that lawyer. You will have to agree to a smaller amount and a promise to keep your mouth shut.
fake takeover offer
There are legitimate media companies acquiring smaller brands, which will then vacate and dump their AI-generated content. However, some large media brands gain access to data by regularly forging acquisition offers for smaller sites.
Once they have your data, they’ll make you an offer so low that they know you won’t take it, then use that data to improve their own site and steal keywords that might help you win.
Backlink Stacking
Most of the way Google determines whether a publisher is high quality is based on backlinks. Big media brands use their money to generate hundreds of thousands of backlinks to their sites at once.
If you’re looking for evidence, take a look at our backlink analysis for independent publishers acquired by big brands. Immediately after the acquisition is completed, you will see a huge spike in the number of backlinks to your site.
Did people suddenly organically start liking your site more and linking to it more, just because some big company bought it? Not likely to do it.
technological sabotage
When an independent publisher makes something go viral, that success is almost always followed by some kind of DDOS attack that takes down their servers.
Are you trying to create an email newsletter subscription? If thousands of fake users sign up, your newsletter may be immediately reported as spam and banned from being displayed by email services.
Technological sabotage takes many forms and it is impossible to prove where it occurs. But if you do this long enough, you’ll start to notice some very suspicious patterns.
Leverage partnerships with large platforms
At a recent Google Creators Conversation Event with independent publishers, Google seemed to express concerns that placing independent publishers ahead of larger brands might upset the big brands.
Is it a coincidence that every platform seems to give preferential treatment to big brands? Probably not.
Is it a coincidence that Reddit suddenly rose to the top spot in all search results right after Google signed its AI deal? It’s a question worth asking.
Did I miss a dirty trick? Please let us know in the comments below.
