Jul 19 2009

Chris Rempel and the Army of Spam

armyEveryone’s focused, niche sites in place. Maybe a little confusion as to how to get some good backlinks. But there is an understanding that ‘work’ and a ‘quality site’ are required, and there is a little money being made, and a light up a head.

Followers are anticipating another slice of that no bullshit cake served up with a dollop of down-to-earth cream but unbeknown to them a dark veil is about to be cast.

“For a long time now I have always held Chris Rempel up on a pedestal, his ebook “Confessions of a Lazy Super-Affiliate” is still one of my highest recommendations. I guess that’s why he just fell off, maybe we/I hold ‘online money makers’ up to high.”

July 14th was a dark day for a large number of innocent bloggers. Imagine you have built up a strong readership and a PageRank 5+ blog and in one foul swoop you get invaded (bombarded) with an army of spammers that are somehow convinced that they are doing no harm!

That’s the day Chris Rempel released his long awaited, free link building software. Here is how it was built up!

In a few days I’ll be releasing a software program that sniffs out
a LEGITIMATE, white-hat “exploit” that literally thousands of
authority sites and established blogs use on their site.

Which means that securing a one-way, “dofollow” link from those sites
is as easy as pie.

Many of which have a Google Pagerank of 5 or higher…

Yes, this is an “exploit”, but it is totally legitimate if done
correctly. It is not illegal OR unethical in any way.

Chris Rempel Scam?

The tool is nothing more than an Search Engine Filter, it goes and does laborious searches for you and returns the results with an extra 2 columns of data; PageRank and the presence of NoFollow tags on certain links.

In fact this something you can do manually and there is nothing wrong with the ‘Authority Loophole‘ tool if you uncheck the built in search strings and use your own (as I have been doing manually for years). The free tool is simple and excellent.

The problem is that this tool came packaged with a video, demonstrating a so-called Grey Hat tactic and frankly …I have never seen a hat so black.

Remember: “It is not illegal OR unethical in any way.” [cough]

I let you decide whether this is ethical or not…

  1. Perform a search engine query that sniffs out Wordpress blogs with a ‘Top Commenters” plugin.
    Example: http://redlegnation.com/ (PageRank=7)
    “Sorry Chad, but I know your already getting hit pretty hard over there”.
  2. Post a comment using the exact name of a top commenter
    Example: Kurt Frost
    (Kurt is a respected member of the RedLegNation community and his blog http://www.bigredmachineblog.com/ is a known amongst a larger community of Cincinnati Red Blogs).
  3. Your website now overwrites (undermines) his dofollow link, on the ‘Top Commenters” list.

That’s the Loophole/Exploit:

A. You can overwrite a top commenters link
B. The links in the ‘Top Commenter’ widget are DoFollow

Don’t kid yourself…

  • This is Unethical
  • This is Identity Theft
  • This is Spam
  • This is a Impersonation
  • This is not grey hat, its a dark, dirty, muddy, stinking mess.

And importantly… It is a complete waste of time!

Exploits and cheats only last as long as they are kept secret and when you use Chris Rempel’s Tool as demonstrated - no matter what keyword you add to diversify the search - the same ‘High PR Sites’ will always be targeted. This means these same sites will quickly adapt, by removing links from commenters that don’t match up with the genuine member of their community. Plus all your fellow spammers will overwrite you effort or the commenter your pretending to be will repost with no link.

Thousands of people trust because of his no bullcrap style and from the comments on the Chris Rempel blog, they truly believe they are doing no harm… Just being a little bit grey hat!

Sure Chris goes on to offer up a so-called white hat alternative.

Which is simply a matter of earning your own place on a high PR site’s ‘Top Commenters” list using your own real name.

The problem with this… The massive overuse of the ‘black hat tactic’ will render this useless and fickle. You could spend one day a month climbing your way to the top only to have the widget hacked/fixed with a nofollow, widget renamed or quite simply removed.

Second problem… You still smell all spammy! If your only reason for being involved with a blog is to get a friggen link. There are better, more valuable things you can be doing with your time!

  • Get some Integrity
  • Respect others
  • Create high quality content and products
  • Create resources worth linking to
  • Network with others

One of my favorite blogs is DotSauce.com when I comment there I don’t use keywords as my name and I would still comment without leaving a link url. Why? because Mark Fulton inspires me and I want to thank him personally and get involved in the conversation.

I have to wonder if Chris Rempel was either desperate or super super lazy? Just 5 blog posts in the last three months and relying now on his email list to flog a new product 4-5 times a year?

Yes this was a launch for an upsell product, Dave Kelly’s ‘Profit Loophole’. A product that basically tells you how crap the ‘Building Mini-Sites’ (The Lazy Super Affiliate Model) is and how much better his Website Flipping Model is. A product that teaches you how to build sites using an advanced mini-site model (sites that they admit WONT make a lot of money) and then sell them off to someone else before they go inevitable bad.

Build something you can be proud of people. Learn some ethics from a guy like Darren Rowse (aka ProBlogger). Don’t get desperate and loose your sight of your soul. Start with one or two websites/businesses online that you can manage and would never risk using spam to promote. Keep at it, each effort building on the previous for exponential results. Don’t give up or give way to exploits and cheats.

Keep your integrity,
it will be the most valuable tool
you will ever wield in life!

TAGS:
  • Wow, being new to this, that is putting content online instead of just reading it. I gotta say I have been a little naive. I just found out about dofollow, keywordluv, etc. and now I wonder if I should have bothered. I feel like I am in a den of vipers!

    I do not know if I have gotten comments from people using what Chris Rempel is promoting but I think my very first comment received might have been from something like this. The comment was pretty generic and I never understood what the site was for.

    Frank's comment was accurate enough. "They are the most half baked under-developed websites imaginable"

    I will delete it after reading this. I also just installed commentwarning.


  • JD
    Yeah Mark, It's amazes me how many spam comments I get across all my sites. Lots of generic responses that don't make sense!!! On some of them I have actually hacked the code and removed the link and ability to enter a website into comments.
  • Nice1
    Wow, JD, please keep up the great honest work.
  • I keep a very close eye on all comments on my blogs and make it very clear that anything that doesnt add value will not be accepted. The only way that comments on blogs that provide backlinks are win-win for both parties (the blog owner and the commenter) are if the comment is a quality and relevant post - otherwise forget about it. Like Mark, I havent heard of Chris Rempel, and it doesnt really surprise me. Only legit tactics work for long term success.
  • Chris Remple Scam (sorry Spam)

    I have seen the software that Chris Remple is training his army of spammer with and he genuinely seems to think he is doing everyone on his list a great favor.

    What's even uglier is that I have seen some of the websites that these scam and spam enthusiasts are stealing links to point to.

    They are the most half baked under-developed websites imaginable, when visitors do arrive they are going to spend about 3 seconds their tops. I think this reinforces John's description of them... LAZY.

    Chris Rempel taught them all how to create websites, he should take a long hard look at the work his army is producing before moving them on to something like link building.
  • JD,

    First of all, thanks for informing us all about this new tactic. Over on OneMansBlog.com I've seen just about everything. Akismet alone has caught over 377,000 spams, plus I employ other measures, and finally I ruthlessly moderate any comment that looks like spam. (Keyword names, links to MFA sites, etc.)

    What I really don't understand is this... I, like most other bloggers with high traffic sites, welcome community participation. I love comments as much as the next person, and I will respond to them as well. I put the Top Commenters plugin on my site because I enjoy getting to know the folks who are regulars, and they enjoy getting to know one another. Which brings us to the big question: if someone wants a backlink so bad, why don't they just participate in the conversation?

    But in reality, I know why. It's because spammers are lazy. They have no intention of adding any value, they only wish to suck some away. These folks might as well be stealing and scheming on the street.

    As you've rightfully pointed out people are much better served spending their time building a quality site and investing in their content. These short term hacks do them no good when all it takes is a single "delete" on the bloggers end to undo all of their work.

    Cheers,

    John P.
  • That is extremely shady tactic, I don't know why it's not being called what it is... link hijacking. And this guy is promoting it to the public? I've never heard of Chris Rempel and after reading this I am not surprised.

    Sadly, some scummy people are always going to do these black hat techniques, but in the end they will always get shot in the foot.

    Let your site grow organically over time and the result will be much better.

    Thanks for your kind words about my blog, I always enjoy your comments and posts as well.
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