Tag: outskirts press scam

I mentioned in a previous post that our most vocal critics are other publishers and competitors–hardly credible sources.  Given our 99% author satisfaction rate, our authors’ comments are better sources for accurate information, as is examining 3rd party reviews of self-publishing companies and then averaging those scores to arrive upon a scale of the best firms according to a wide range of sources.

Perhaps you have even stumbled across an “outskirts press scam” topic or thread yourself without even trying, given Google’s own propensity to highlight rubber-necking results with their so-called “Google Suggest” functionality. I have discussed Google’s controversial functionality at some length in previous posts, where I demonstrated via Google screen shots that EVERYTHING is a scam according to Google, even Google.

So, congratulations! If you’ve stumbled upon this postings, you’re more than likely a victim of Google’s own manipulation — you didn’t even know you were looking for a scam until Google suggested it to you.   But, if you take the time to read further into nearly any of the “scam” results Google presents for any company (whether it be for bottled water or shoes), you soon discover that you haven’t really discovered much of a scam at all.

In our case, a competitive publisher, who as far as I can tell has published less than 25 books (half of which are by the publisher herself), demonstrates her vested interest when she calls into question one of our book contests, which by the way isn’t even sponsored by us, but rather by the Colorado Independent Publishers Association.  This posting, appearing on Gather.com, carries all the indicators of a questionable source that I have mentioned previously (i.e., it is written by a competitive publisher, the content is slanted and biased, the date of the posting is from 2007, and the content lacks accurate information since it wasn’t vetted for accuracy, as newspapers are).

Another posting/topic shares many of the same indicators of a questionable source. In this case, the blog was created by a small press publisher.  The date of all its postings are from 2008 (in other words, 2.5 years ago!).  And the content lacks accurate information (in fact, by its own admission, the content is 100% supposition) since it wasn’t vetted for accuracy, either.

It’s interesting, actually.  Of the first page postings, half of the “scam” results are from competitive small presses who publish their own books, and are using this tactic to attract customers to their own business or products, since more people search for “Outskirts Press” than for their company.   Heck, makes sense to me.  If I was selling RC Cola, I’d write as much about Coke and Pepsi as I could.  But even RC Cola can’t convince itself, much less anyone else, that it is superior to Coke or Pepsi.

Other scam postings appear because they are asking if Outskirts Press IS a scam on various Q & A sites (the answer is “no”) or because we have published many, many books on the topic of scams.  “Scams” are a popular topic, in a supermarket tabloid sort of way.

And all this goes back to support my previous posting, which is… do your homework when conducting research online.

This blog posting about the legitimacy of Outskirts Press might also help.

In my last posting I discussed the self-defeating Google Suggestion functionality and the manner it which it feeds on people’s fear and uncertainty by validating–even rewarding–irrelevant, unscrupulous, inaccurate content on Google.

Google does this disservice to its users by misinterpreting terms like “scam” as relevant rather than morbid curiosity.  According to Google, it’s Suggestion functionality uses “a wide range of information to anticipate the queries users are most likely to want to see. As the user types into the search box, we provide suggestions to help them formulate the query, reduce spelling errors, and save keystrokes.”

What this logic doesn’t anticipate is that many human beings like looking at car accidents, like reading the Enquirer, often feed on negativity, and seek controversy.  Especially on the internet, where anonymity removes all accountability.  So when Google takes into account the popularity of a suggested phrase based upon the number of times it is clicked from the suggestion box, is it any surprise that the controversial ones find their way to the top? 

This isn’t rewarding relevant content; it is rewarding rubber-necking.

Just to see how ridiculous Google had become, I did another search, this one for “chiropractor salaries” and even before I could say “back pain” Google suggested this:

So then I did a search for “bottled water.”  Yes, bottled water… should be safe right?

Even clean, fresh,  bottled water isn’t safe.

Do you recognize a theme here?

Everything is a scam according to the Internet, because every Tom, Dick, and Harry (usually the middle one) can post anything about anyone on the Internet, no matter how inaccurate,  inane, ludicrous, or irrelevant it is to your inquiry. And yet, Google, in their infinite wisdom, has decided, in essence, to authorize and validate this inaccurate, ambulance-chasing content by making it even easier to find.

Is anyone safe? Nope.  Try searching for scarves on Zappos, the #1 All-Mighty Customer Service-Centered Company According to Everyone (especially CEO Tony Hsieh):

Heck, even Google is a scam according to Google:

Thank you, Google. You’ve just proved my point.

 

In yesterday’s post about Outskirts Press on the Inc. Magazine Fast 5000, I listed “scam” in the tags and categories since that posting discussed #1 Inc 500 company Ambit Energy; and I wanted to refer to my posting today about Ambit Energy and, more specifically, what I refer to as the Google Search Engine Scam (officially called “Google Suggest”).

Certainly you’ve seen this relatively new functionality of Google, whereby Google tries to anticipate a search term and offers suggestions even before you finish typing.  Convenient, yes?  Well, no. The reality is that Google now ends up penalizing real content (and, ironically, “real content” is Google’s whole M.O.) by pairing logical, relevant results with the car-accident-gawking illogical results derived from human curiosity. 

For example, since I wanted to compose a blog about Ambit Energy in my last posting, I searched for Ambit Energy on Google. And here’s what Google Suggest offered to me even before I finished typing:

The #1 fastest-growing, cover-story-leading company featured in Inc. Magazine and probably hundreds of other magazine and newspaper articles receives a slap in the face by having “ambit energy scam” appear on the list of Google Suggestions immediately below the actual term I was searching for.   Well, gosh, thank you Google.  I didn’t even know I was looking for a scam until you told me I was.  And gosh, thank you so much, Google; you list it #2 in the suggestion drop down, so it MUST be important.

How silly did I feel believing any of this? Was the Outskirts Press CEO really susceptible to Google voodoo logic to believe a “scam” just because Google suggested it?   It felt like a visit to the carnival side show hypnotist, who whispers suggestions into your sub-conscious. Snap out of it.  

Let’s consider this: Is “ambit energy scam” more relevant, valuable (or impartial) than the 3rd suggestion “ambit energy reviews?”  Of course not.   Is it more relevant than “ambit energy rates” or “ambit energy phone number?”  Absolutely not.

Here’s the unfortunate, Big Brother-esque reality: Google now rewards the human being’s natural inclination toward controversy by improving the Suggestion Rank of suggested terms based upon nothing more than the illogical number of times someone clicks on it. And, like it or loathe it, human beings are fascinated with negative, controversial things.   That means Google’s suggestion algorithm flies in the very face of Google’s mission, which is to display the most relevant results first.   Instead, what Google now displays are results people didn’t actually search for OR care about (or even have in their mind) but which appeal to our basic, morbid curiosity.   

And therefore, instead of valuable, relevant content, Google delivers the rantings of a few kooks and/or the carefully crafted blogs of unscrupulous competitors.    Neither is what the Google user was searching for.

And that, as Spock would say, is very illogical, Captain. More on this next time…