

Mahalo's new spam is worse than old - tomh-
http://smackdown.blogsblogsblogs.com/2010/03/08/mahalo-com-meet-the-new-spam-worse-than-the-old-spam/

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jacquesm
Can we please stop giving Mahalo and Jason Calacanis more airtime than they
deserve ?

Every post like this just fuels the fire and creates more drama around the
theme and in the end will benefit the spammer.

There is no such thing as 'bad publicity'.

~~~
dschobel
Companies like Google care about and have responded to populist uprisings like
this in the past (especially as it relates to search quality). I imagine
that's the actual goal here.

~~~
earle
Why would they? This generates revenue for Google.

There's no excuse for them not having banning them from day one, like they do
every other individual trying to capitalize on the same tactics -- only the
sheer capitalization and size that Jason brought to the table allowed him to
get away with this at scale.

Shame on Google for having double standards, IMHO.

~~~
houseabsolute
Google has made revenue negative banning decisions in the past. They have
demonstrated that they recognize that the long-term quality of their index is
more important than short term profits.

~~~
earle
Every banning is against revenue, yet Mahalo still is operational.........
Google's lack of definitive action against Mahalo's outright spam is the clear
example here.

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whughes
It's come to the point where I actively avoid SEO-optimized sites on Google.
If I see my search terms in the URL ("how-to-become-a-travel-agent") of a
result, I'll just skip over it. Even moreso when there is generic, cut-and-
paste content in the description. SEO may help you rank, but you won't get any
clicks from me until I've run out of options.

~~~
ROFISH
Alas, the Law of Facebook Login states that people will click anything on
Google because they blindly trust Google.

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ashleyw
Wasn't Mahalo's founding goal to improve search by creating quality pages
written by humans, without the spam and low quality content you get with
traditional search engines?

~~~
MikeCapone
That's what I remember too. Guess they figured out it was hard, and they
couldn't compete with Wikipedia.

------
fnid2
My HOSTS file:

    
    
        # localhost: Needs to stay like this to work
        127.0.0.1   localhost
        127.0.0.1   www.mahalo.com

~~~
banana
Warning: This will redirect every second google search result to your
localhost!

------
anderzole
What a load of sh*t those pages from Mahalo are. The guide for free wifi in
Chicago for example is way off and completely misleading.

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teeja
There's no need to rely on search engines to find pages full of useful
information. I do broad topical research, and I've managed to find pretty
decent concentrated sources on most topics online. There are many fine
specialist websites, and blogs, done by knowledgeable human beings.

It takes time to find them and organize them (I use a custom database rather
than bookmarks). SE's are fine for quick, one-off searches that -aren't
important- ... otherwise, human expertise is far preferable, and always will
be.

------
corruption
Someone should setup a public site to petition google to get sites like this
banned from the index.

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jasonmcalacanis
Also, just relax and have a beer at the This Week in Startups party at
SXSW.... life is too short to be so angry/upset about nothing!

RSVP here www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=342222228076&ref=mf

I'm not the worst guy in the world... you'll actually have a good time.

~~~
shareme
Jason, it be better served if you address the original points rather than side
step them..

~~~
jasonmcalacanis
What's the point of responding if the trolls just vote you down?

see: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1176362>

This is becoming sad. Really... some folks need to get a life.

~~~
mvandemar
That is actually quite typical of you, Jason. You respond to well documented
and well written articles that cast you and your actions in a negative light
by avoiding any discussion whatsoever that actually addresses those facts, by
making more stuff up with zero substantiation, and by insulting and lying
about the authors of said posts... but anyone who disagrees with you is a
_troll_.

You are a fucking piece of work Jason. Seriously.

@Devilboy - technically speaking it was the noindex tags that disappeared (and
which he refuses to address). There was never a nofollow meta tag on the
pages.

~~~
Devilboy
Yep sorry that's what I meant

