What is Digg?51 Comments
- bitt3n, on 10/12/2007, -1/+44wtf. I thought we had chemistry.
(call me!) - aahha, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20FTC should really look into merchant circle, i feel like i need a shower after checking them out. they are slimier than the greasy looking guy that tried to hit on me last night.
- sugarrae, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Also interesting EscapedCoder that this is the only post you've ever commented on and you've never dugg anything before. If you're going to defend MC and shift blame onto me, the evil consultant, at least have the balls to do it from a true account - not one you registered this evening simply to shift blame from the shady things going on with MC.
- sugarrae, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15Actually, if you bother to do even more diligence into the "massive research" that I'm just a "shill" for local companies (LOL) you'd have found the RegisterLocal closed down their affiliate program and I actually simply forgot about it and never went back and re-edited the links to be straight links, as I was linking to them soley because I thought they offered a good service, whether or not I made commission on it - thus why I *did* offer full disclosure when I *did* use the affiliate link. If anyone would like to challenge that, I encourage you to contact registerlocal to confirm that they shut it down a few weeks ago.
Sugarrae.com is my site - I do not work with or for any local space companies... I do not make money on any local space companies. As a matter of fact, there is only ONE post on my blog regarding local search prior to this one in over a year of the blog's existence, the one you searched for diligently and took the above sentence from.
>>>Are you a small business? Never trust a SEO consultant.
Wow, nice try on turning the tides. Now if only my rates even made it *possible* for local small businesses to afford me, you might actually have some sembelence of an accusation. But since I don't do local search marketing, nor do I have any relationships with any companies that do, I'm guessing your SOL - try another way of deflecting the true topic at hand. - UGM2099, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8My small company got an email from Merchant Circle about two weeks ago stating we had an "unfavorable rating". The email was from someone named something like Adujenaa Mahajranji so that alone clued me in to the BS.
- binaryspiral, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Wordpress without Wp-Cache enabled on a cheapass host sucks.
His database server has been crushed, which wouldn't even have to work at all had he used wp-cache to maintain static content pages. - futureb, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7this reminds me of a story i heard about the russian mob. their primary means of extortion now involve denial of service attacks followed by a "pay us for protection" message. fascinating. extortion is extortion i guess.
- yongfookathome, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6funniest idea I've heard in a while. props. these guys will either all go to jail or make a million bucks each. then go to jail.
- sugarrae, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9Thanks for the defense, by my history in this industry will be most of the defense I need to sleep tonight.
Since you chose to post your comment here (obviously, you don't know me - I don't delete any comment that offers USER value) I'll do the same with my response to what sounds like canned PR (sorry, being honest):
>>>rewritten that line
>>>You can criticize MerchantCircle all you’d like, but the people we care about are business owners
Nope, sounds like you got the original line right, and simply clarified again, that you don't aim towards the consumer, only the business owner. Which makes you relevant to them and irrelevant to consumers... but in order to GET the businesses, you need to get the search engines, which are aimed at the users.
It is simply a bad business practice, leaves a bad taste, your marketing sounds like scare tactics and your blatant disregard for how a consumer feels about the page their landing on is alarming.
Bottomline, is you would have NO business owners without consumers landing on those pages and "leaving reviews" so it might be smart to your survival to START caring about what we think. - jer2eydevil88, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Kevin's post just proves that MC is a business and they are in this to make money. They aren't building a website to cater to providing consumers with reviews about local business's they are instead providing local business's a way to give customers information about themselves as if they had their own web site.
I don't see what the big deal is. This whole blog spam thing is just trying to spread F.U.D. about a company that comes right out and says they are in this for the other guy. - fkr3, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8You did have chemistry. You just didn't slip enough of it into her drink.
- sugarrae, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@kon27
>>>Extremely misleading article summary, I wonder why sugarrae hasn't bothered to point this out in her posts below...
I don't know why who submitted this decided on the description they did. I made a reference, in the article, to feeling like their whole "communication efforts" to small business owners sounded like a scene from a bad mafia movie, which I'm guessing is in part the reason it got that title and description.
The second reason may be that this is NOT the first time Merchant Circle has been questioned over bad business practices, but the last time they were roasted, it was by the business owners, they so lovingly dedicate themselves to above, for calling them consistently, some reportedly at home, leaving messages that the business owners had bad reviews and should come to the site to check it out and sign up to remove them - but many business owners went to the site to find no reviews - it was simply a bait tactic scaring small business owners.
That image, from what I am told by those contacting me from the local space after seeing this, may be something else that the poster had in mind when posting his synopsis. Maybe I assumed wrong figuring people would read the article before commenting? LOL. - DannyJGA, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Ahh, I see. It is a more blatant version of the Better Business Bureau.
You know, that long standing consumer organisation ( so they say ) that everyone thinks is government owned or at least mandated, but is really just a private company out to make a profit. The good old BBB that charges membership fees for its survival. Buy a membership fee and when someone complains about your business to the BBB, you get a chance to respond, it may be arbitrated, but it is usually labelled groundless after a paid member responds. Business members basically get to delete the bad review before it even makes it to their file.
Of course, if you are not a member business, you are not entitled to respond to complaints or have them arbitrated. They simply go directly to your file. - chaosmachine, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6wordpress sucks.
http://duggmirror.com/ - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The whole site looks like one huge ad with all the little sub-ads giving reach arounds to other ad sites, nobody is going to take its word on whether a pizza joint is 4-stars or 5-stars, and if you decide on which restaurant to eat on based on some dodgy looking, obscure website then you deserve to eat a pizza with a -1 star pubic hair.
- sonk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3yup, this company is known for being shady. i highly doubt their claim of having over 110k users. they've been around for only a year and their market (small businesses - regional - mom & pop) is not an easy one to capture. if it was, google and yahoo would have it figured out by now. a userbase of 110k paying small businesses would make MC very very valuable. lets see how far lies will taken them.
- NewChar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I'm not sure what's going on here so I think I'll just watch this little battle in the comment section.
- umrgregg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I'm right there with you NewChar. I don't know what all the fuss is about, but the comments sure have drama!
- designbyreese, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I take offense to the bong comment. Good lord. Any pothead will hallucinate weed in just about any image.
- foxgnaws, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3A couple of weeks ago I received emails, phone calls and snail mail from this company. A five second look at the website and I had seen enough. Too much "scam" type of behavior for me to be interested.
While I don't believe they are scamming anyone, it seems to me they are taking advantage of naive small business owners. It should net them a few bucks before all the suckers realize how worthless their service is. - jer2eydevil88, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3correction: People need to learn how to better setup wordpress to handle the digg effect.
- chaosium, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3What, like the Better Business Bureau? :}
- KevinMC, on 10/12/2007, -8/+10Oh just stop with the back and forths.... We're not dealing with Ann Coulter here. At least I hope not, because I wouldn't respond at all. I hope sugarrae's original post was a serious effort and not just a malicious front to drive more traffic to her site. I believe it is serious because not all of her blog posts are vindictive. That's why I'm responding. Here's the response, if for some reason she deletes it.
"Hey Rae, I should have rewritten that line because I can see how it could be misconstrued. Let me clarify; there are more than 15 million business listings we've created here at MerchantCircle that can be found high on search engines like Google and Yahoo. What we haven't targeted is for people to come to MerchantCircle.com to find their local businesses, although they can.
Those individual business listings we created ARE consumer facing and we allow business owners to claim them FREE of charge. They can upload pictures, blog, build coupons and YES, DELETE REVIEWS. There's a multitude of online directory sites that allow just customer reviews and a business listing, but we are the only site that gives business owners a say in their content. If you're looking for negative reviews of a business on a MerchantCircle page, you may not find it. But you will find the personality of a business with the pictures they've uploaded and the blogs they've written.
You can criticize MerchantCircle all you'd like, but the people we care about are business owners. I can literally put you in contact with thousands of business owners who use us as their main website - and don't have to pay someone for SEO expertise or to build them a website. I'm glad we can provide them with a forum on the web to have a voice, FREE of charge, and for their listings to be found by customers.
And do you really have to resort to name calling? It may be what your audience demands from you, but my sincerity is legitimate. I'll answer any of your questions in person as well as your readers 650-352-1335 ext515. I encourage you to call." - fkr3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Most businesses are in it for "the other guy". It's only web 2.0 bedroom startups that put 100% of the value on the masses. Which is weird because with such a huge success rate (wikipedia and digg) and such a small failure rate (everything else) I'd definitely put your money on the masses.
- kon27, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Thanks for answering and providing more information on this topic.
- bndocksnt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Zing!!!
- sugarrae, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@bmeshier
A: You're wrong.
B: You're wrong LMAO. I don't know what toolbar you're using, but it isn't the same as anyone else's.
C: Because that is my "business card" on the web. The fact that I produce websites is not a service anyone can get from going to Sugarrae.com. I mention the service I do provide via that site, again, which the about page clearly explains. - sugarrae, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@EscapedCoder
1. I never called anyone a loser, but you're getting close.
2. I'm not elitist, I just know the value of my time. Local small businesses are not clients I take on. Period. There isn't enough ROI in most local markets to justify my fee. You call it elitist, I call it being upfront with potential clients. If I don't think I can help them and I don't think the ROI is there for THEM, I send them somewhere else.
>>>I call your LIE.... "I do not work with or for any local space companies... I do not make money on any local space companies." But what about the 2 links and the ad for http://www.restaurantica.com/ on you site in the same article? Local reviews.... same space?
On what planet does me linking to them prove that I'm lying? I do NOT do any work for restaurantica. I do NOT make any money from restaurantica. EVERY SINGLE company listed in my "bona fides" section are there FREE. I do not receive any money for those banners being there, and you're welcome to contact any single one of those companies to ask them that. Anyone I link to is linked to on my sidebar is linked to because I actually like and use their service. Same goes for my posts - if I link to someone, it is because I like their service or what they have to say. Anyone with some searching ability can easily find out that I have been a happy USER of restaurantica since 2005, before my blog was even in existance. I also linked to Yahoo Local and Google Local... neither of which I work for or make money from for linking to either.
So, on that note, again, I tell you to stop using the same bait strong arm tactics as mentioned in the above article, stick to the topic at hand and stop trying to make me out to be some evil consultant to throw attention off MC. Mmm'kay? - jer2eydevil88, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4I mirrored it to a pdf
http://www.zigzap.com/MC_Content.pdf - foooey, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Exactly! The BBB is nothing more than an extortionist organization
and the myriad of sites like ripoffreport.com (Bad Business Bureau) are no better
"customers" get to accuse companies of anything they want without any kind of proof
it's just a matter of time before those kind of sites are shut down for supporting outright libel - nontaxpayer, on 12/17/2007, -0/+1Merchant circle deleats complaints this is true.
- sugarrae, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@bmeshier
Dude, do some of you wake up and simply talk out of your ass for fun?
A: New pages aren't assigned pagerank upon creation - pagerank that shows in the toolbar is several months behind that of the actual page. Read, oh, about anything to confirm that - hey, how bout Google's own blog.
B: The pagerank on my main site page is a six.
C: I'm a website publisher who does a minor amount of consulting, not a consultant. Thus why I have an about page, so people can learn before they spout.
And lastly, it's a gun. A GUN. Thus the bondesque theme. ROFLMAO. Question is, what have YOU been smoking? - unsolicited, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Isn't this business similar to
http://www.*****.com/
http://www.internalmemos.com/memos/ - kon27, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@ugm2099: Interesting.
Still, nowhere in the article does sugarrae accuse Merchant Circle of extortion , so I wonder why the submitter chose to summarize its content in such a misleading way.
I hate summaries that don't reflect the content of the article, that's why I commented.
If in this case the incorrect summary of the article turns out to be a correct summary of the shady business tactics of Merchant Circle, it's a nice coincidence. - shaun1983, on 03/02/2009, -0/+1Wow, blatant online extortion, it's a branding nightmare. Agree with the earlier comments, let's shut this down.
Shauna | http://www.lookuppage.com - crash128, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Weird coincidence department. Was reading these comments, which includes posts by a sugarrae, and was also listening to a song on the radio (xpn.org) Jerry Garcia - Sugaree. Note to self: add sugar to shopping list today.
- bmeshier, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@sugarrae
A: I was refering to your homepage, not the article.
B: Not even close to six. I feel safe "pulling rank" seeing as my homepage out ranks yours, lol.
C: Your site makes no reference to you being a website publisher. In fact the site title is "Sugarrae SEO Consulting" and the first paragraph is "Sugarrae Internet Consulting is owned by Rae Hoffman and specializes in providing companies who wish to improve their organic search engines ranks with step by step plans to achieve their goals." Thus my confusion as to why someone would think you do seo consulting and not website publishing. - crossers, on 07/21/2008, -0/+0I don't know why but I didn't like site!
http://www.shpe-sac.org
http://www.ocflex.com/
http://www.trgovinca.org
http://www.chasr.org/ - jer2eydevil88, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1No we wake up and listen to you talk out of your ass for fun.
Was it really necessary to insult the guy? Especially over something like how pagerank works? - gostrath, on 09/23/2008, -0/+0I have some information. Merchantcircle is hiding their information, hosting contacts and the like. I did a little research and found that they are hosting with the following firm:
Silicon Valley Colocation, Inc.
PO Box 390804
Mountain View, CA 94039
Phone 4087470724
Phone 408400-0550
email: abuseteam@svcolo.com
info@svcolo.com
support@svcolo.com
These people knew nothing of the trouble and asked that people contact them with complaints. Lets make a difference and shut down a bad company. - polyGone, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1This is the second ***** wordpress this morning..............don't digg wordpress guys.........
- bentley007, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Wow...there's a lot of tension here on Digg today. Why do all the diggers take themselves so seriously? Lighten up, kids.
- EscapedCoder, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0If I wanted to comment on the topic I would have done it on your blog.... This is digg.
- kon27, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2They may be slimy, but not in the way the summary above would make you believe.
If more people would bother to read the actual article before digging or commenting on it, they would realise that sugarraes main concern is mislead customers.
What is Merchant Circle: a place were small business can set up a web presence which will rank high on search engines.
What's bad about it? The way they do it (read the article to find out more). Which bears absoultely no resemblance to extortion.
Extremely misleading article summary, I wonder why sugarrae hasn't bothered to point this out in her posts below... - bmeshier, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Funny that she is a SEO consultant, yet her website has a Google Pagerank of ZERO.
Anyone else think her logo looks like she's smoking a bong? - fkr3, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0I'm too tired for this. Will the real shady please stand up?
- fkr3, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Where can I submit my pubes for rating?
- dinorama1234, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1 "Actually, if you bother to do even more diligence into the "massive research" that I'm just a "shill" for local companies (LOL) you'd have found the RegisterLocal closed down their affiliate program and I actually simply forgot about it and never went back and re-edited the links to be straight links, as I was linking to them soley because I thought they offered a good service, whether or not I made commission on it - thus why I *did* offer full disclosure when I *did* use the affiliate link"
A period every now and again would make your blog and comments much, much, much easier to read. - EscapedCoder, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0@sugarrae
Thanks for clarifying you ability to pick the losers, and letting us know that elitist SEO consultants are too expensive.
I call your LIE.... "I do not work with or for any local space companies... I do not make money on any local space companies."
But what about the 2 links and the ad for http://www.restaurantica.com/ on you site in the same article?
Local reviews.... same space? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -9/+2***** Wordpress!!!
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