Does Livestrong.com have a spam content farm hidden behind it? | Hacker News Reader

Does Livestrong.com have a spam content farm hidden behind it?

livestrong.com

44 pointsbdickason27 comments

The site has Demand Media creating content for it. I would consider that low value content, I suppose others might call that spam.

Indeed, it's the same company behind eHow.com and other SEO spam. I'm frankly a bit surprised that Lance Armstrong's organization would partner with such a company.

Here's an excellent Wired article about Demand Media: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/ff_demandmedia/

Actually, it's not that surprising. In that article, we learn that the founder of Demand "is also friends with cyclist (and Demand investor) Lance Armstrong, a fact that he mentions frequently. (“I’m supposed to go to France Wednesday with Lance, but I just can’t,” he confided, sighing. “It’s a lot of travel.”)."

Good call! I'm familiar with Demand, but didn't realize it extended past blog posts to copy/pasting google maps entries.

I agree with you on the organization partnership. It really surprised me when I saw it, and the content never actually gets surfaced to their homepage. I was googling for my business' name to see where we came up in search (note: the link I posted is not my business) and was surprised to see it surfaced on the second page of results.

Super shady, especially coming from Lance :\

I can't say that this surprises me. Though I don't necessarily share what may be the dominant opinion regarding the guy's character, Lance probably has nothing to do with any of this.

28 million pages of useless spam:

http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&q=site:live...

  "I would consider that low value content"

It's actually high value content (from a monetary perspective) otherwise Demand Media wouldn't be creating it. Low quality, high value. Spam is something else entirely.

I think implicit in that remark is "low value to most people." It may be "high value" to the scummy people who create it but I can't say their value is of much interest to me or anyone else trying to find useful information.

>It's actually high value ... Low quality, high value. Spam is something else entirely

It's not high value from a monetary perspective either. It's low value, high volume. And anything low-value and untargetted enough IS spam.

I would quantify value of an informational chunk by viewing it as a signal and measuring the degree of data compression present. For example, a Groupon listing has extremely high value as it compresses all of the economic data in an entire city to a single very best coupon at a rate of one per day.

The only difference between spam, ads, and content is the probability that the degree of compression or informational value they offer is greater than the attentional resources required to absorb it. The threshold values between categories vary person to person of course.

Due to being in a similar business space (they have a google maps based bike route planner), I signed up for an account to check it out. They send out a spam newsletter once a day filled with fad dieting aimed towards fitness minded people. It's a pretty shady endeavor.

A geek's shady can be a normal's valuable. I've met more than one fitness minded person who told me I should sign up for the livestrong newsletter. Apparently it really hits the spot for a certain demographic. Nothing wrong with that.

Never underestimate how far you are from the mainstream.

A million times, yes. What geeks would consider spam, often ends up being roasted ham for regular people. As web entrepreneurs we must not forget this. If we do, we'll needlessly be judgmental of other people's work, as well as missing out on good opportunities that appeal to mainstream web users.

Not to be too contrarian, but you should let your friend know that much of what they espouse is unhealthy. Atkins was a passing fad, but, it's the sort of thing they'd tout like crazy on there...I understand that some people enjoy this sort of thing, I mean viagra spam is sent out for a reason, it doesn't mean I need to stoop to it.

I really like the tools and the food database at livestrong.com. I've never found any value in any of the other content. Guess I know why, now.

Same here. I can't say that I've even read any of the content, but I do make regular use of the tools on the site and mobile app and like them a lot.

The iPhone app version of the tools and databases is good also.

I never go to the website.

Deleted comment

There was never anything conclusive. It was all accusations by from various sources, hearsay and circumstantial evidence, non of it ever backed up by any evidence that actually held up.

I'm amazed again and again how Lance Armstrong is perceived in the US.

That begs elucidation. I can't even tell if you mean it positively or negatively.

So Lance is not only scheming the sport of cycling but the search industry as well?

(sorry, someone had to say it)

If Google isn't going to start filtering this low quality (spam) like they say, then someone hopefully will write a Chrome plugin to filter out search results for anything created by Demand Media et al.

There was an earlier hn discussion on this very topic, and someone posted a link to their chrome plugin for exactly that. Check the threads over the last week or so.

Wow you're right. I missed that. Thanks. It is here: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/jiicbcimbjppjbck...

First of all, non technical people have no idea that something like demand media might be "bad" for the internet. There's certainly nothing obvious about it.

Secondly, if Google ranks based on certain factors, is it wrong for a business or charity to take advantage of it? Would you rather a charity got the income or a random person?

Demand Media, the company behind Livestrong.com, is allegedly about to go public. Richard Rosenblatt and Lance Armstrong ('random people') have a larger stake in the company than the Livestrong Foundation (a charity) does. So, sure it'd be nice if a charity got the income, but that isn't the case here.

http://www.businessinsider.com/lance-armstrong-poised-to-mak...

http://www.cnbc.com/id/41155886

The exact amount of Armstrong's equity is not known, but the offering is expected to put [Demand Media's] valuation at around $1 billion. More than a few investors think the stock will be a dog, but that won't necessarily prevent major backers from cashing in first.

Wow, demand valued at 1 billion? WTF?

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