seo - The Art of the Prank

The ferocious and funny Anna Merlan takes an impressively deep dive into the made-up career of Rachel Brewson, the JT LeRoy of womens-interest clickbait.

“The Team of Men Behind Rachel Brewston, the Fake Woman Whose Trump-Fueled Breakup Went Viral”
by Anna Merlan
Jezebel
October 4, 2016

aotp_brewson In December 2015, readers at women”s site xoJane were enthralled and filled with all-caps rage by Rachel Brewson, a self-described “giant liberal” who boldly declared her love for a Republican named Todd. She described, in rapturous terms, how the couple”s political disagreements fueled an ecstatic third-date bipartisan fuck-fest that soon flowered into a real relationship.

Mid-date, they got into a “heated debate” about politics, Brewson wrote. They fought from wherever the date took place (she didn”t say), into the street, and into a cab. The discussion ended when Todd””who, as it turned out, was a gun-loving, Iraq-war-supporting libertarian””manfully invited himself up to her apartment.

“What followed was the best sex of my life up to that point,” Brewson wrote, whose author bio said she was a “dating editor” at a site called Review Weekly. “Somehow the political tension between us had transformed into sexual tension. I was hooked.”

The post was a modest success””it was shared just under 3,000 times on social media, and racked up 1,000 comments on xoJane itself (whose editor-in-chief is Jane Pratt of Sassy fame. The site was purchased by Time. Inc last fall). Many of those comments complained about Rachel”s privileged white-woman version of liberalism, which allowed her to ignore “petty differences”””her term””between her and Todd on issues like immigration.

“He flashed some money your way and you”re ready to label things like rape culture and systematic racism as “˜petty differences,”” one commenter fumed. “You aren”t as liberal as you want to believe you are.”

Three months later, the fairytale was over. Continue reading “An Internet Writer Breaks Up With Her Boyfriend Over Trump… You Won’t Believe What Happens Next!”

How fake sites trick search engines to hit the top
by Jordan Robertson
1010WINS
December 8, 2009

San Francisco (AP) — Even search engines can get suckered by Internet scams.

With a little sleight of hand, con artists can dupe them into giving top billing to fraudulent Web sites that prey on consumers, making unwitting accomplices of companies such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.

Online charlatans typically try to lure people into giving away their personal or financial information by posing as legitimate companies in “phishing” e-mails or through messages in forums such as Twitter and Facebook. But a new study by security researcher Jim Stickley shows how search engines also can turn into funnels for shady schemes. Continue reading “SEO for Fraudsters”