Link Swapping Is A Scam

Along with learning about blogging and self publishing, I’ve been learning how the Internet works. In order to do the things I want to do I’ve had to learn how to employ the technology, but I am by no means a “natural.”

One of the most important lessons is to share what you learn with others. I have learned so much from what others have shared with me, that it’s only natural to return the favour. Because I have several web sites and blogs, I’ll often get the same spam for different sites. The one that’s prompted this blog post is the following verbatim reprint of a particular spam email I get periodically for my various blogs and websites. If you get one like this, my advice is:

Don’t do it.

Although I’ve redacted the names to protect the guilty, the rest of the email is reproduced word for word here:

Hello,

Let’s do a 3-way link swap with your website http://russwurm.org. I’ll give you two links in exchange for one from
you.

3-way linking is a very effective link building strategy. Since you’re getting the links from third party websites, they appear totally natural to search engines. Such inbound links help your website rank higher in Google and other
search engines.

Visit [redacted] to submit your website.

Thanks,
[redacted]

Founder & CEO, {redacted]

This is a scam.

I’ve blogged about this before, but I’m still getting this email, so I’ll try again.

The tip off is that these links “appear totally natural.” It appears to be a way to scam the search engines, but what it really wants to do is scam us out of our good reputations.

When you start creating web content like blogs or websites, you often hear about rumoured — almost magic — ways of getting your website noticed by search engines. Search terms. Meta data. Tags. SEO. Categories. Search Engine Optimization. Everyone wants our web page to be on the top of the Google search, because that will brings readers.

Search engines have a variety of ways to decide how to rank web pages, and one of them is based on how many incoming links you have. As long as there has been an Internet there have been ways people have tried to scam the search engines. The reason for this is simple.

If someone types “costumes” in the search bar, if your costume blog is at the top of the list the search engine returns you will get a lot more visitors. If it first appears on page fifty, well, not so much.

The thing to remember is that any search engine is trying to provide every web searcher with the correct website or information they want, as quickly as possible. So search engines are not happy with fake results. I’ve heard tell that Google refuses to index bad actors who do things like salting their web pages with invisible words in hopes of gaming the search engine. If you’re a fly-by-night operator, maybe how you get page hits doesn’t matter. If you are looking for a quick buck and are willing to change domain names more often than underwear, maybe that’s okay. If Google black lists you, you just get a new five dollar domain name from godaddy.

No thanks

When I was starting out, the advice I got was to build solid content. You will get readership if the content is there. If people want to read what you write, they will find you. But it takes time, and a lot of effort.

Murray works at distracting me.

That’s what I have tried to do, because I’m here for the long haul. Web credibility is important. If anything, your online reputation might even be more important than your real life reputation on the Internet. What you put online is the basis of what you are judged for online.

If I were to trade links with this organization, I might get traffic, but is it traffic that will do me any good? Would it be people who actually want to find my blog?

I have worked hard on all of my blogs. So I don’t want people being directed here in error — long enough to discover that they have been deliberately sent to the wrong place. If you trick people to come to your site, even if they might find your content interesting, or even of use, they will be annoyed at having been misdirected, which very likely will not result in a regular readers. That’s important to me; I want people to actually read what I write.

After all, would I really want to direct my readers to web pages that aren’t good enough to attract readers legitimately?

I don’t think so.

Worse, do I want to squander my hard earned web credibility on some scammer?  No way.

Like most good con jobs, this seems to cost nothing, but in fact it comes very dear.  Like many things, quite often anything that sounds too good to be true, is.

The essential backyard writer workstation (cats are optional)
LEFT: Fair Trade Coffee CENTER: Netbook (red tape obscures camera lens). RIGHT: mouse on futuristic mousepad

Dear Wikipedia: The Death of Mark Duggan is Notable

I frequently use Wikipedia as a reference, particularly for breaking news. As a blogger, I link to supporting articles, because linked information adds depth.

broken links

I hate broken links, so I try to avoid linking to The Globe and Mail, for instance, because they started locking older articles behind a paywall. That deliberately breaks links that work when I post the article [unless the reader pays ransom].

I am quite certain that I’ve linked to Wikipedia more than any other website, and so I worry because deleted Wikipedia articles will result in broken links.

Broken links are bad for blogs, and while online news outlets often don’t understand this, Wikipedia ought to. As a blogger, when I link to something, I expect it to stay there. As an Internet user, it is annoying to follow a link to get more information, only to discover that the original article has been removed. The only time any Wikipedia entry should be deleted is if it is fraudulent.

The Wikipedia page Death of Mark Duggan is flagged for deletion. There is a huge argument raging about whether or not Mark Duggan’s death is notable.

I’ve never been to the UK, never met Mark Duggan in life.

Yet over here in Canada, I know Mark Duggan’s name, the tragic circumstances of his death, and the aftermath precipitated by it. People I talk to online are directly affected. It strikes me as absolutely ludicrous that this Wikipedia page might be deleted.

Wikipedia is “self-correcting;” which means if a contributor gets something wrong, other interested folks will step in and correct it. This has resulted in some surprisingly high levels of accuracy. Wikipedia is a creation of volunteers, so it isn’t perfect. It depends on co-operation. And unfortunately, as with any volunteer organization, internal politics exist. Which is why many perfectly good articles are deleted — because someone deems them unimportant.

And so the Death of Mark Duggan article is flagged for deletion: apparently, some Wikipedians claim it is not “notable.”

Call me crazy, but any event that precipitates days of rioting in a democracy seems worthy of note.

notable searches

The Google front page (citing: About 7,100,000 results (0.16 seconds) of a “Mark Duggan” search today turned up results starting with Tottenham & Wood Green Journal: ‘Why I clash with police’ by man who grew up with Mark Duggan and ends with the American ABC Television: What Happened to Mark Duggan, The Man Who Sparked the London Riots? This, in spite of the fact that the name, and page is also shared by a number of “established” people named Mark Duggan:

• Mark Duggan: Professor of Economics,
• Mark Duggan: Percussionist,
• Mark Duggan award winning artist
• Mark Duggan Photography,
• or the other Photographer named Mark Duggan
• and all the professionals named Mark Duggan listed in LinkedIn.

The Wikipedia article Death of Mark Duggan is the fifth listing, in itself an indication of “notability.”

A Bing/Yahoo search (citing “3,810,000 results”) results generates a page of search results entirely devoted to the dead young Tottenham man, with the “notable” Wikipedia article Death of Mark Duggan placing eighth.

limits

Back in the days when encyclopedia space was limited by the physical constraints of paper and ink and binding, notions of “notability” would have helped to determine what subjects to exclude. Not because the information was bad, but because the encyclopedia needed to appeal to enough people to be able to generate funds to pay for itself. Because what was considered notable to residents of one geographical area was not necessarily notable to others, different encyclopedias grew up in different countries.

Is the problem one of space? Is Wikipedia so close to capacity? The Wikipedia article Death of mark Duggan runs 1053 words, and the argument on the Wikipedia Wikipedia Articles for deletion: August 8th: Death of Mark Duggan runs 7425 as I write this. The argument for deletion takes up seven times as much space as the article flagged for deletion. This suggests any limitation based on space restrictions in today’s world of low cost digital storage would be artificial.

deletionism

There’s a page about the controversy Deletionism and inclusionism in Wikipedia. What it boils down to is some people want to limit the contents of Wikipedia based on the purely subjective basis of “notability.”

I know a few very active Wikipedians, but so far have only contributed a single Wikipedia page (relatively uncontroversial. largely untouched), which entitled me to attend a Wikipedia meeting at Toronto’s Linux Caffe that sought to determine interest in a possible Toronto Chapter. There was a lively discussion about “deletionists,” the consensus was opposed to wanton deletion, and many had stories about expert contributors who have ceased to contribute because of the deletion frenzy.

Writing a Wikipedia entry was hard work for me, not least because I had to learn the rules and the physical format.

It seems to me that anything that triggers the creation of a Wikipedia entry is “notable” to the contributor. Knowing that the hard work I might invest in future contributions could be deleted because someone else deems it not “notable” is a huge deterrent. Why should I bother? If I have information to share, I can blog it, because then I know it will still be available when someone needs the information a year from now. I don’t know that about Wikipedia. Investing time and energy in contributing to Wikipedia is one thing; having to spend time arguing why it shouldn’t be deleted is likely to drive away potential contributors. Destruction is always easier than creation.

censorship

Deletionism is a form of censorship exercised by some people who choose to impose their priorities on others.

While I defend your right to decide what is notable to you; I categorically reject your attempt to define what is notable or important to me. Is Wikipedia in the business of sharing information or censoring it?

If a Wikipedian doesn’t like an article, they needn’t visit it. However, if they manage to have articles deleted, others seeking the deleted information — people who would find it notable — will forever after be deprived of accessing the information.

I suggest that power struggles and bullying should have no place in Wikipedia.

subjective or objective?

I had the idea that Wikipedia aspires to be what I always imagined Asimov‘s Encyclopedia Galactica to be, a reference storehouse “containing all the knowledge accumulated” – which means including every fact.

Facts are facts. They are not good or bad, notable or not, until we apply our subjective biases.

In order to be a truly objective and comprehensive reference, Wikipedia must cease trying to decide what is important, because importance is variable.

If Wikipedia is to become a truly universal resource, it needs to dispense with any possibility of this kind of editorial censorship. History may be written by the victors, the bullies or the ruling class; but an encyclopedia should never be.

If it is true, if it exists, if it happened, it should be included in Wikipedia. What isn’t important today, might be tomorrow. Or next week.

A week ago, Mark Duggan was still alive. Today, his death has shaken the world.

“Inconstant Moon” update ~ final proof has been shipped!

CreateSpace

Ubuntu

I got the email from CreateSpace yesterday that the proof has been shipped. Unfortunately an actual real human being from create space had to process my order because it wouldn’t work for me online. This did happen with the last one as well. I suspect it’s a Windows XP conflict. Yes, I am still mired in XP.

When I ran into the font problem I tried to go back to Ubuntu (my desktop machine is set up to dual boot) but it won’t boot at all.

Even though the computer science students in my novel are devoted Ubuntu users, at this point I myself am seriously considering switching to Trisquel, because I am not the only person I know that is having Ubuntu problems. I suspect it’s a case of the latest version being released to schedule although unready. Besides, my friend Alexandre Oliva tells me that Trisquel is supposed to be “more free” than Ubuntu.

So. I hope to dump Windows for good this weekend, hopefully my computer guy will be able to fit me in.

Trisquel

Meanwhile, I’m currently wandering through the CreateSpace site, in search of my CreateSpace storefront. [When you self-publish through CreateSpace you get access to a web page where people can order your book-book. I started working on it a little while ago, and I began working on it earlier, and now I've lost it... I just can't quite figure out how to get there from here....]

But being the distractable gal I am, I seem to have created a CreateSpace blog called “Laurel L. Russwurm on CreateSpace”

Naturally I had to write an inaugural post. This is, I believe, designed for CreateSpace denizens, but I’ve checked and it is not locked behind a registration wall, so you can take a peek at my Adventures In Self Publishing post without having to sign up with CreateSpace.

So, now I’m heading back to work on the Inconstant Moon serialization blog. Once that’s in hand I need to start in on formatting for the various ebook versions.

Later!

October Update: Inconstant Moon & NaNoWriMo & Blogs

I’m running behind. This self publishing racket requires a lot of work.

I’ve been working on the Inconstant Moon blog, although I may still change the theme…. we’ll see.

they make book trailers now?

Indeed they do. In today’s world, it is becoming more common to have a book trailer to help sell books. Like a movie trailer, only for books. Nobody seems sure if they help or not. But it shouldn’t be too hard, right? Not for me, anyway, with my media arts background. I’d love to would love to make a trailer for Inconstant Moon. Ideas dancing in my head quickly slammed into a brick wall of technical difficulties. Because I can’t see any of my video in Sony Vegas, since the Windows codec has become corrupted.

This is certainly some kind of DRM/proprietary software issue. But it ought to be fixable. So I burned days trying to work out a way to either get the Windows XP codec replaced/repaired or learning new gnu/linux editing software. The former was a bust (seems Windows thinks its working, so it won’t give me the option to replace it!) and the latter will take far too much time. Since I’m transitioning from Windows to Linux, I’m not about to upgrade proprietary Windows or Sony Vega software. Too bad.

my debut novel is *almost* ready to go

Except for a few changes to the Inconstant Moon manuscript itself before I launch, including an author photo. Who knew? But apparently a photo is an essential. Oh well. And I’ve a few changes to make from some last minute notes, and am waiting on a few more notes. Still, one way or another, I should be ready to upload it to CreateSpace by next weekend.

november is NaNoWriMo month

The plan was always that I’d be ready to start NaNoWriMo.

Humph.

Well, I’ve got some ideas and I’m weaving the outline. I’m toying with the idea of appropriating the very cool title of one of my Dad’s early songs. But I may not, as it sounds fairly Stieg Larson-ous. It’s a great title though, and it could work. I’ll wait until the outline is done to decide though.

Tomorrow is the NaNoWriMo Kickoff Party. Since it’s on October 31st people are dressing up, so I’m contemplating swiping bits of costume from the great costumes I’ve made for my kid over the years. I could go as Captain Jack Sparrow…wear the wig, the gold teeth… certainly not going to shave my head to be Jean Luc Picard though. Maybe I’ll just dress up as an author.

It’s really irritating outlining without even having character names yet. Well, I can work on it after the party.

In my grand plan, I would have the research done, the plot worked out, bios for the the characters, any maps sketched. But no.

Because the blogs have been restless.

President Obama is pushing hard for ACTA signatures before the election… Tuesday is it? So I’ve done some more anti-ACTA blogs. Although ACTA did not end with consensus, they are trying to spin it as though it’s been agreed. This is not only disturbing, but wrong, so I’ve spent even more time blogging about it in both my StopUBB: Did ACTA pass? and in my Oh! Canada: ACTA W5, Oh! Canada: Memo to World: Stop ACTA Now!.

Still, just now I’m trying to step back from politics at the moment. The problem is all this political foolishness with copyright law. It’s important to me on many levels, as a parent, a citizen, as well as both a consumer/creator of the cultural arts. On the one hand the technology is making it possible for creators to disseminate their works online, and on the other the “content industry” is struggling to strip us of our natural rights to share culture. So I felt the need to blog about copyright since the government is pushing ahead with their dreadful Copyright Law Bill C-32. Paying no attention to the apparently universal opposition to C-32, it’s been scheduled it for second reading, this week I think. And I had to blog about the Minister of Heritage holding yet another “public Consultation” without, it seems, doing very much about inviting the public, and since the consultation was a Federal Government Book Policy Review naturally I had a few cents to put in.

I’ve recently learned about Toronto activist Byron Sonne’s incarceration, which of course necessitated blogging. Byron is a computer security expert with concerns about government threats to citizen privacy and human rights issues for the Toronto G20 Summit. He was arrested and jailed before the G20 even began, and he has been denied bail. It may be years before the trial, and it certainly appears that Byron Sonne’s incarceration is purely punitive, which makes him a political prisoner. This is not a good thing for Canada.

And if all of that wasn’t bad enough, the CRTC seems to have renegged on the conditions they set before Bell can implement Usage Based Billing, so that’s coming down the pike in 90 days. Or maybe it won’t. If there is an appeal period, as Industry Minister Tony Clement indicated, if may be 90 days + 90 days. Having an entire blog devoted to Stopping Usage Based Billing, of course I’ve blogged about that. Okay… I can see this could easily get out of hand so I’m shutting up on that score for now. (See how easy it is!)

The political scene will have to make do without me for November.

Because NaNoWriMo takes precedence

At least until after I’ve made my daily wordcount requirement. And done what I need to do to launch Inconstant Moon.

If I’m still conscious at the end of the day, then I can blog.

Good night!

Write: Playing With Second Person

If you like to write and you’re online at all, chances are that you belong to a microblogging service called Twitter. Twitter has a huge writing community, most probably because writers are often by nature physically isolated. Twitter has a whole variety of “Live Chats” allowing writers and readers to chat about things of mutual interest. Most live chats have an associated blog, and many post transcripts of the chats. The one I’m having the most fun with at the moment is called #Story Craft because it has (besides interesting participants) that little bit extra: the storycraft challenge. Something the participants can do in the week between chats.

This week’s Storycraft Challenge was particularly interesting to me because it had to do with a narrative voice I was previously unaware of, one called “Second Person”. Since a few of my beta readers started out telling me how much they disliked first person narratives, but went on to be surprised at the fact that my “first person various” narrative voice actually worked, I couldn’t resit giving the exercise a try.

So here it is, an excerpt from “Inconstant Moon” that isn’t really. First person converted to second person. I’m not quite sure if it works.

” You will leave, so let yourself out the back door into the service hall and lock the deadbolt behind you. Walking toward the back entrance. Don’t worry about the fact the store was so quiet tonight.  Listen to your heels echoing eerily on the tiles as you pass the trash compactor they keep for cardboard and packing. Be thankful the garbage in this wing is just paper and dust. You know how much it reeks in the cafeteria’s back hall.

Wait, didn’t you realize that the reason the store was so quiet tonight was because of the attack? That’s why you haven’t seen a lone woman walking anywhere all day. Only you you bimbo. There it is, right in front of you: the exit door.

Thats right, it’s the door that opens out into the faculty parking lot. Push it open and take a good look, girl. The EMPTY faculty parking lot. Are you out of your fucking mind? You aren’t really going out there. By yourself. Are you?

Of course it’s empty at this time of night silly. All the faculty are home in bed or out carousing. And you can even probably guess which are which. But none of them are out there. Just the odd oil stain for company, girl. Oh yeah, and those lovely bushes on the side. Trees.   Trees are not your friends here girl. Clearly they are your enemy. They’ve increased the danger a thousand times. They’ve made the lights almost useless because the heavy foliage hasn’t fallen from the trees yet.

Maybe it wasn’t a big deal when the trees were twigs, but now they are all as tall or taller than the light standards. Are you scared yet? You should be.

Oh yeah, and don’t forget the shadows. Great dark expanses you could easily hide a dozen Jason the Rippers in. Shadows, Lots of shadows. Of course you don’t need a dozen. One bastard predator is all it takes. And you’re fucked. But not in a good way.

So is that why you’re standing there like a lump? Staring at an oil slick and s bunch of litter.

What happened to the brave girl. The self assured one. The fearless writer of iron principles. You’re just a wretched little mouse after all, aren’t you girl. No guts, eh?

Legs of Jello. Don’t be a wimp.

Don’t you want to step out there? Score one for our side. No? Uh uh.

Maybe you know that if this was a movie you’d be yelling ‘Go back you idiot!’

But it isn’t a damn movie. There is no music to warn you that Jason is just through that door. Scary music, go back. Happy music, take the usual route.

Stay on the Road. Keep clear of the moors. Moors. Wait a minute you goof. This is Ontario, there are no moors. Where did that come from? Oh, right… American Werewolf in London. God, your mother was right. You watched too many horror movies when you were a kid.

Don’t you know that it doesn’t matter? It doesn’t matter if you’re oblivious. It makes no difference if you’re scared half to death. Because you know damn well that he’s out there waiting for you Or he’s not.

The only way to find out is to step through that door. “

---

It seems to me that it came out funnier than suspenseful. This is not how it will appear in the book (yes, I’m still messing with it… polishing it, making a reproof.) Definitely a narrative voice to keep in mind for the future though.

And now it’s time to head on over to #Storychat — maybe I’ll see you around.

new and improved… sorry!

I HATE it when something I like is “new and improved.”  

Mostly because it generally means they’ve messed with the bits I like.

So whats with me messing around with my blog?

The problem is that when you start your first blog, you have no idea what you’re doing.  Who knows what all those cool theme features are about anyway?

I’ve toyed with the idea of altering the theme for some time, but the problem is always that it will mess up the formatting of all the posts that came before.

If you’ve got a pure text blog it’s not an issue, but I’ve always had a blogazine kind of thing going and where the images appear and how it’s laid out is part of what holds it all together.   What can I say, I’m a writer with visual overtones.   I certainly don’t want to wreak havoc with my earlier posts.  I worked hard to get them not only sounding but looking right.    Besides, they tend to get as much traffic as the new posts.  So I’m limited in the themes I can actually switch to.

Writing a novel before the stickers ruled....

So here it is, I’m making the switch to The Journalist v1.9 Lucian E. Marin.

But really, in the grand scheme of things, that’s a small change.

The big change is that as of today this blog gets unnamed: it’s not “in the wind” anymore.  

After more than a year of blogging I have come to the realization that I picked a lousy name for my blog. 

“In the wind” is bland. 

Boring. Indistinct. Meaningless.

Vague even. What is it really? A name that doesn’t really say anything.

Even worse, the silly thing is still no closer to being on the front page– or even the top ten pages, probably– of any search engine search engine you’d care to name.  Too many other things have prior or more powerful claim to it. No worries.

Instead, I’ll just call the thing ‘Laurel L. Russwurm’

Kind of makes sense since the whole point is that this is supposed to be my personal blog.

And after a year it certainly is.  (No I didn’t throw a party on the anniversary… I’ve been too busy tilting at windmills and writing my debut novel.)  So what the heck, it’s my blog, it ought to have my name on it.

Other than that, everything’s just the same.  Sorry for any inconvenience.