Recently I saw a blog on urbanvancouver.com from a new user called Joseph Elite. It was a story about wanting to help children and discovering this great concept called the ERA. The blog read more like an ad than anything. It made me suspicious. So I started hunting around the web. This exact same blog was everywhere. Sites like Gather, Hub, Tazzu, all with the same text or something very similar. One site had the name Joseph Gallos. I did some googling and found that he is employed by the ERA with the task of making them #1 in google ranking. there is a word for false blogging, it is called astroturfing, and it is as bad as spam, maybe even worse.
I quickly found a site called oDesk, which showed Jospeh Gallos accepting the job from the ERA. Take a look at the screen shot, as he may have removed his name by now. Click on it for full image.
I don't mind someone getting paid some money for web work, even if its only $5.56/hr. However when you start paying professionals to make up false blogs to get people to use your business, that is un-ethical. The ERA is already a "non-profit", which often makes people think they are legit. To further use the idea of personal charity or a "heart warming story" to fool people into donating computer equipment (which is worth a lot in the scrap market, especially for export), is wrong.
I started to post comments on some of these sites to alert people to this. Some web admins took the blogs off right away. I provided links to Joseph Gallos personal website where he listed the ERA as a client. You can see a web shot of his site before he took off the ERA. Click on it for full image.
Also on his index page of his web site, he had a contact listed as joseph@era.ca which is now a hyperlink titled Personal Contact, which still emails his era.ca email.Now that his blog was removed from Gather.com under the user name Joseph Gallos, I assume he made a new user account named J.W. and posted the exact same blog, but this time the comments must be approved first.
$5.85/hr doesn't buy you much these days I guess.
If the ERA is doing such a good job, blogs about their service should come naturally. Instead the ERA has chosen to pollute the internet with these false ads. This makes me question all their business practices.
I urge people who find similar posts on the web to notify the sites web admin to the false nature of the this ERA blog, and have them remove it. Also please notify me on this blog so we can all keep up to date on this story.
I think this is a plain black propaganda. There are many falls claims throughout the post if you will really check them out. I think the guy who is writing this is being paid to post bad claims against a competitor's website throughout the internet. It's called "black propaganda". This is a common tactic of a desperate webmaster who cannot match the competitor's website. You can do a little research of the competitor and use anything that you can find against them. For example, they have stumbled upon a website that shows era hiring an SEO professional, you can make horrible stories out of that (like the one posted above). You can even fake forum posts so it will look like ERA is doing something nasty(like the one above). And you can even download a source code of a personal website, edit it using html editors like dreamweaver, and take a screenshot. (like the one above, check it out)
ReplyDeleteI will pinpoint the falls claims in this article.
ReplyDelete1) the [url=http://www.odesk.com/jobs/Contact-000-companies-about-link-exchange_%7E%7E3124ac9f35d5ca36]odesk job post[/url] shows that the task was about "Link Exchange" not "Blog Posting". So why would the hired professional make blogs when the job description says "Link Exchange"?
2) The personal website of the professional there shows NO ERA client, no ERA email but there is on the screenshot. It clearly shows that it was downloaded and edited.
3)ERA is number 1 in google about recycling. They are sure to be targeted by a bunch of internet tugs.
Hello Mr. Joseph Gallos, so nice of your to join us.
ReplyDeleteI can tell your writing style from a mile away. I'm glad you have voiced your opinion, and I can understand why you want to defend yourself.
Unfortunately there are a couple of things I would like to draw your attention to.
1) No, I'm not some web admin or a competitor. I become interested in e-waste recycling back in October when the CBC came out with a special on the National exposing some computer recyclers in Vancouver as exporters. I started to post comments there back Oct 31 2008, well before you accepted the job from the ERA in Dec 2008. It was not till Chase De Schover, of Technotrash Alberta mentioned in his comment dated Oct 23, 2008 that the ERA was exporting containers that I became interested in the company and others that export like Techno Trash and Electronics Recycling in BC.
2) As for the website you say I doctored. Well SteveB, forum moderator of Tazzu, went to the link before you changed it and removed your posting from the website. He was not the only web admin that day that reviewed the sites supplied before they were altered.
3) As for oDesk, you are right, it does only pay for 10,000 links only. So why didn't you stick to that? What is very clear and can still be seen "live" on the Internet is that you did blog a false story about the ERA.
4) When I google "recycling" I get ERA as a 5th hit and Wikipedia 1st. If you make ERA first in that search you better ask for more than $5/hr. As for "computer recycling", yes, they are the 1st hit, good job!
Question: I noticed you changed the mail link for Personal Contact from joseph@era.ca to grainsmusic@gmail.com. Is that your gmail account for your new Frank Williams blogger account?
I have no problem with the link exchanges or SEO work. I just have a problem with blogs that are intended to fool people into thinking you have a real story about discovering "a great new company". Stick to the links.
In closing I want to point out one more thing. You will notice I didn't take down your comments like you did mine. The Internet is a great place to exercise our freedom of speech and right to express different ideas.
Julie, why dont you admit
ReplyDeleteYou are actually astroturfing, as you dont exist.
There is no Julie Keswick in Alberta.
This seems like a post from someone jealous about how popular the ERA is across Canada.
ReplyDeleteI am from Edmonton and I just saw a story about the ERA on TV donating computers to several charities, here is the press release about it too
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/January2009/27/c2960.html
So rather than people talking poorly about a blog post and automatically assuming the worse, maybe you should think about the facts, and why Julie would care about this, if she didnt have anything to gain???
Julie, can you post your real name, phone number and address, so your concerns can be addressed, as hiding behind a fake name is just not cool when you're trying to be righteous.
I call bolox on Julie and her report.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteSubstantially, the article is really the greatest on this deserving topic. I fit in with your conclusions and will thirstily look forward to your upcoming updates. Just saying thanks will not just be sufficient, for the wonderful lucidity in your writing.