It is commonplace that blogs are used for comment spam - some would consider it a valid and respectable technique for search engine optimisation (or SEO, in geek-speak). This is basically where you try to drum up links to your website by posting a whole bunch of comments on various other (more respectable) websites or blogs in the hope that search engines like Google will start ranking your website more highly.
I normally delete such comment spam as soon as I see them as they are usually for things like cheap, illegal, and probably counterfeit Viagra, Cialis, Horny Goat Weed, Rose Hip Oil, or Sniffing Glue etcetera. In this case, though, not only did I find the comment transiently amusing, but after having some time to think about it I found the fact that it was so effective for this website quite offensive.
Let me explain to you how this works:
- Let us say you are the author of a particularly informative and well-respected blog, who shall remain nameless.
- One day you receive a comment on one of your blog posts along the lines of "Hey great post! Here is a gratuitously ego-stroking comment just to see whether or not you are paying attention to the comments posted on your blog."
- You might see a few of these trickle in, and before you know it, you are flooded by more comments: "Hey great post! Here is another gratuitously ego-stroking comment so that your first instinct is to approve this comment and secondly you don't notice the segue to another website that is connected to your blog by the most tenuous of links, such as this fantastic web page at http://fredbrunel.com/journal/2007/10/comment-spam-explained/
- If you pay attention, you might notice that the comment on your blogpost might look remarkably similar to comments on another web page, or another blog, or that other blog you never read. You might then stumble across more websites with the same comment, even ones that you might normally respect.
Furthermore, you are highly likely to discover that the target website is full of fraudulent bullshit designed to fleece unsuspecting, desperate and vulnerable people of their hard-earned cash. For example, Helpcure.com says:
THIS IS HOLISTIC TREATMENT ! WHAT IS THIS?
THIS IS A COMBINATION OF A BIO MAGNETIC CARD WITH BIO MAGNETIC TAPE ON THE CARD- (OR BIO MAGNETIC TABLETS ALSO CAN BE USED) THIS WILL CREATE NEGATIVE CHARGE IN CD4 CELLS- TO PUSH VIRUS OUT THROUGH BIO MAGNETIC FORCE AND HERBALS TO ENHANCE IMMUNITY -TO PROTECT YOU FURTHER. NO SIDE EFFECTS AND NO PROBLEMS.
Are you nuts???? You are seriously asserting that a credit card will push viral particles out of my body through magnetic force? You bet this is holistic therapy, because I can tell you which hole you can swipe your card through.
If you have HIV (or indeed any illness) please do not fall for this load of codswallop. Just listen to your immunologist and infectious diseases physician. Read the FDA tips on how to spot a health fraud. Discuss any change in treatment with your specialist before lauching into anything. Use your brain and a modicum of commonsense.
If only I could get 1000 other blogs to link here with comment about the truth of HELPCURE.COM, then maybe the Number 1 Search Entry for "HELPCURE + HIV" will say "Helpcure.Com is a fraud". So once more for the benefit of the Google spiderbots: HELPCURE.COM IS A FRAUDULENT SCAM.
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15 comments:
Thanks for the heads-up. I'm actually so surprised that anyone reads my blog at all that I'm suspect of all comments!
Woo Hoo! This blog post is Number 6 on the Google Search for "helpcure.com" !!!
Good post. Got it through Grand Rounds.
The Cockroach Catcher
And now Helpcure.Com is a Fraudulent Scam is Number 4 on Google's Search!!! Hooray. Please keep linking!
your reason for why its a scam is stupid. You probably work for the fda. Where on the website do it say anything about swiping your credit card. Bio magnetic card and tablets are different that your regular credit card. Its been used for healing for a very long time, I dont know if it could cure hiv/aids but I wouldnt dismiss this until someone tried it and failed.
Hooray! We made it to Number 2 on the Google "Helpcure.com" search!
Only one away from my goal...
this is great! helpcure.com is indeed a fraudulent scam. giving patients who have caught this disease or virus false hope and leeching off their money is downright disgusting and that is what helpcure.com is trying to do.
there is no doubt in my mind that helpcure.com is cheating everyone and i applaud the effort of papermask blog to unearth this very despicable act of helpcure.com. if the people over at helpcure.com have any conscience, they will remove their site and stop propagating false science.
i assert once again, helpcure.com DOES NOT HELP CURE HIV!!! THEY DO NOT CURE HIV! helpcure.com is a big fat scam!!
hows that for increasing SEO huh? ;)
please do not come up with assumption, we need people who have tried it and does not work to comment,otherwise you are not helping anyone at all.
Ok, the comments are worthless and so is the post on the blog, not to say you are right or wrong, but you dont know unless you have tried it. Its like the Bob Beck Protocol I assume. Yea the site maybe a scam, but no evidence to back up either side.
Anonymous writes: "... not to say you are right or wrong, but you dont know unless you have tried it."
Well, I've never tried skydiving without a parachute, but I am pretty sure that it is not a good idea. Why don't you try it and let me know how it works out?
I just want to mention to those who are saying holistic cure is a fraud.
Have you ever taken it and it failed on you? Do you have other evidence that can help?
I took this treatment though in another form in 2008 from June and took my P24 test in december to register negative of HIV.
Had I not taken this holistic I would have been no more now from the side effects of ARVs.
There are more other treatments available but can not be made available to the majority of the people suffering especially in Africa where it was brought for known reasons that most of the people are blind folded. Please advise the information that you have. regards
It's been 7 months that you challenged me to go skydiving WITHOUT a parachute, and you even had the guts to ask me to let you know how it goes ! Well, fortunately I've just had the priviledge of trying this seemingly impossible feat ! And the FIRST thing I remembered after completing this feat was THIS BLOG :) Well I've just tried it as you suggested. I dived out of a plane WITHOUT a parachute. A friend of mine, who happens to be an expert in this sort of stuff landed me safely down on mother ground. He had a parachute on him, and I was locked tightly to his body, like a piggyback .. I jumped FIRST, as I was in-front of him, and I was sort-of holding him on my back, since he was locked tightly to my back with his SUPER-SAFE skydiving gear, yet I had NO parachute myself at all. In fact, I don't even KNOW how to operate a parachute, but I jumped out that plane anyway.. something that could well be defined as *impossible* TO YOU ! Or perhaps ridiculous as you seem to ASSUME it so at face value ! Unbelievable but yea man.. I didn't have A PARACHUTE MYSELF OR ON ME AT ALL, yet I jumped, despite all my doubts and my earlier impression of it being a *ridiculous* act ! THE POINT of this comment, however, remains ULTRA-FOCUSED and SUPER-CLEAR... Even though I did Not have a parachute myself, I landed SAFELY on the ground, NO injuries, and NOTHING ridiculous after all ! :) An Unbelievable Experience ! That's all I can say in describing the feeling. Sky-diving and specifically jumping out of an airplane WITHOUT a parachute, done as you requested sir ! Are you satisfied now skeptic ? Or are you now gonna run away and hide under "another point", saying "No, No, forgive me.. I meant XYZ and Not ABC", did I misunderstand you ? .. hello.. blee, blee ? I did PRECISELY what you requested, being to go SKYDIVING without a parachute, in fact, I did MORE than what you requested, since I *jumped out of an airplane without* a parachute. There was NO parachute **ON ME** at all :) Moral of the comment : do NOT EVER assume anything about something you have NOT yet tried when it is STATED, Speak ONLY if you have verified and know something for a FACT. I rest my case.
Dear Anonymous:
I hope that you have adequately vented your frustration. Everyone will see your post for what it is, a (failed) attempt to twist words and interpret statements to suit your point.
- Sheepish.
Please can you detail what the scum on helpcure.com is all about.
It will be helpful for instance to say "you too the medicine and never worked or someone you know had this and that.
I have seen that there have been on the net for some time and have not seen any adverse remarks apart from like yours without any back up of evidence
Glad I found this blog. helpcure.com is one of the dumbs scams ive seen on the net, this person will suffer for targeting desperate people with this illnesses. As soon as I read BIO Magnetic cards it was all over.. How dumb is this Joseph V seriously or whoever they are. And "Anonymous" I couldn't read through your long ridiculous reasoning boring BS post.
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