Is all publicity good publicity? (Mocking sites)

[thing2b]

After getting a bit annoyed that I was not getting the number of people to my site that I wanted, I tried something new. I submitted all the articles on my site to a Web 2.0 social style site and watched which were liked the most.

The strange thing that I found was that my best page/title/description was ranking at the same level as my worst page/title/description. All the pages in-between did not rank as well.

In particular, one comment summed things up:

Wow. This is the vaguest title and description I've ever seen on ****.
Though the poor writing is expected (as widely known as what?)
Oh, and lots of these "facts" are just plain wrong or outdated.
Rated just because I want to see more people mocking it.

Is all publicity good publicity when it comes to personal blogs?
Does it make a difference if only one item on the site is getting mocked and the rest of the site gets good reviews?
Thoughts?

[BinkyMelnik]

thing2b:

Is all publicity good publicity when it comes to personal blogs?

While I'd be horrified by bad publicity and would climb under the covers with a bottle of gin, I'd secreted be delighted by all the traffic it'd bring in. I'd prolly be sitting there making tweaks to any ads on the pages, maybe trying even to tweak the content to drive yet more traffic there. I'd be a nervous wreck and not answer the phone or my email, but it's something I secretly long for anyway.

[Marketing Guy]

At the beginning of the year, a large UK SEO agency was banned from Google for a short period of time (a few days) - for spamming! It was big news as they regularly touted their "ethical" approach to SEO and they have a lot of big brand clients, so it was covered on most major SEO forums / blogs.

Now, a brand search for the company - aside from the top slot and a couple of PR releases, the entire SERPs are filled with <company> banned from Google for spamming! Not a great situation when you have big brand clients or investors carrying out due diligence.

What's more, it's got to the point that they are *trying* to protect their name by pushing those listings from the top 10 or so by optimising other pages for their brand term - ranging from recruitment listings (one of their other SEO websites actually links to a SEW recruitment thread rather than their own vacancies page in an aim to get it ranking higher than the ban thread!) to creating "optimised" articles that link to other businesses with similar names (to get them ranking in the top 10).

What's funny is that despite how much they have tried to clean things up, Google still displays the negative publicity for brand searches. (ironically it has been speculated that the company anonymously created the publicity themselves for the link loving! )

So is risking your well established brand and multi million pound client base worth a few links and some traffic? I'd say no. But it depends on how you do it - are your users (ie potential customers) likely to read the negative comments and be put off by them?

I once had one of my sites reviewed by Harvard Business School - they complimented the uniqueness of the site, but slated my spelling! I wasn't bothered though - that had more benefits that negatives.

MG

[hulkster]

My guess is that Paris Hilton likes/wanted the publicity for her recent DUI arrest ... ;-)

[TimeIsMoney]

I think it's just another public media stunt, any little action that the stars do end up being watched and thus advertisers get their money off the audiences

[Angelus]

I believe that every kind of advertising (publicity) is good for business unless you have a team of well respected doctors which claim that you product hurts people . There is a limit in bad publicity that your business can take...

p.l.u.r.

[BinkyMelnik]

Angelus:

There is a limit in bad publicity that your business can take

*Excellent* point. Not all bad publicity is publicity you wanna get!

[Angelus]

Yeah, I'm smart, I know

I've seen some bad publicity doing really good things for some companies but I've also seen other companies destroyed by it so there must be a catch in it and catch is in the amount and credibility of that kind of publicity.

p.l.u.r.

[BinkyMelnik]

Angelus:

catch is in the amount and credibility of that kind of publicity

Yeah; just ask Ben Affleck. Or for a much moe extreme example, Fatty Arbuckle.