Picking the Lock of Google's Search | Hacker News Reader

Picking the Lock of Google's Search

nytimes.com

49 pointsbyrneseyeview22 comments

I'm surprised that the author made zero effort to find out more from the people who are using lead gen sites to generate trade jobs - the locksmiths who are doing the actual hoodwinking. It seems that they are a critical part of the problem, i.e. if they were honest and quality tradespeople, then the fact that a lead gen site connected them to consumers really wouldn't be much of a problem at all.

No, because the lead-gen -> piece-work business model disincentivizes the people who actually do the work from being honest, and almost completely shields them from the downside risk of trying to rip people off.

The last paragraph in the article talks of scams: a telephone rep offers $49 service to a locked-out homeowner, but when the locksmith shows up he insists on $400. Once he gets paid, he drills out the lock and leaves, with the homeowner now needing a new lock.

One possible defensive tactic comes to mind: I'd be inclined, before agreeing to pay even the $49, to tell the telephone rep I was going to take an iPhone picture of the locksmith's vehicle and license plate, and that I needed a picture of him and his driver's license too. If the phone rep hangs up, I'm ahead of the game. (I might also call the local police station and see if maybe a patrol car might be able to mosey on over so a cop could be standing there, just in case ....)

“We showed up at a job last week,” he said, “and this woman told me, ‘A young man came yesterday, quoted me $49 to open my door, then he drilled my lock, charged me $400 and left — and now I need a new lock.’ I hear something like that almost every week.”

The way I interpret that statement, the locksmith quoted her $49, then did the work and insisted on $400.

It wasn't clear to me that the $49 quote was after the locksmith showed up - otherwise why would the woman have paid $400?

Because she's at home by herself and there's a scary guy demanding money and telling her a BS story about how she owes it. Read reviews for plumbers sometime (another trade that tends to get emergency calls) and you'll see the same stories.

Also, if the guy gets angry, she can't retreat inside and lock the door.

> Because she's at home by herself and there's a scary guy demanding money and telling her a BS story about how she owes it.

You're right, I can see how that could happen. If she paid the money under those circumstances, she might have tried calling the cops; the prospect of the locksmith's being prosecuted for robbery, or maybe extortion or fraud, might have gotten her her money back.

(Disclaimer: IAAL but I know very little about criminal law.)

Someone tried this on me once- they quoted me 80 and when he got there said it would be 210. I told him not to touch it, I'd just sleep in the hall.

He then asked "well how much can you pay?" to which I said "80"

Job done in two seconds (I still felt ripped off, but at least paid what I agreed to.)

Lesson being that once they drive out there, they'd rather get paid what they quoted than nothing at all, so just say no and you'll probably get your quoted rate.

Funny that the NYT didn't link to Bob's website, given that the whole article was about Bob not being able to rank well on Google. I wonder why.

Doug Pierce (quoted in the article) is my cofounder. If you have follow-up questions, ask away.

Why not buy out a ranking lead gen site and then change up the content for Stroms business?

If the buyer is in the lock-picking business, and the seller is in the lead-gen business, who is likely to get a better deal?

I'm assuming this is rhetorical but I'm not getting the message. I see how it's a "sellers market" in this situation, but a heavily functioning source of recurring leads for a one time purchase should pay for itself in time- I can't see why a legitimate valuation wouldn't work in this scenario as well. Some of these "lead-gen" sites are probably individuals who would be happy to sell their site for 10 to 12 months revenue upfront.

It's a market for lemons: some lead-gen sites will last a while, and some will get burned by Google or the FTC. If you're a buyer, you know that those are possibilities, so you bid less than what you'd bid assuming that the site would last forever. Now sellers know that if they sell a good site, it'll be undervalued, so they have a natural tendency to sell the bad sites.

The original "market for lemons" paper valued a lemon at half the cost of the good version. When your lemons are worth zero, or have a negative valuation, there may be no market at all.

Congratulations on your company's second appearance in the New York Times in as many months. Care to share how Digital Due Diligence became the go-to source for this sort of analysis at the New York Times and elsewhere?

Thanks! I would ascribe some of it to random chance, not in the "Anyone can do it," sense so much as the "We will not likely appear in the Times or similar sources on a monthly basis in the future," sense.

I wouldn't characterize us as the go-to source, by any means. We've gotten some good press, but there are lot of companies that get quoted on this kind of issue. That said, my cofounder and I have been cited by the NYT twice each, in under a year, so we're getting something right.

Here is what I would advise: find a way that you can provide uniquely useful data to journalists. Only contact them when you have something useful to say. It's okay to fact-check people, as long as you frame it more as "Here's an insider's view," not "Here's why this person is wrong." (And, within their paradigm, journalists are rarely wrong--but it's often possible for them to do a follow-up piece that discusses things from another angle. That's where the industry experts come in.)

I also have to point out that Digital DD is in the unique position of evaluating companies as our business model. Our job is to have an opinion, so it's natural that if a journalist wants to talk to someone with an opinion about a related issue, they'll reach out to us. You can't count on this if you're not in the business of researching and analyzing other people's behavior.

Thx :-)

The gaming is definitely not all Google. I was ripped-off by a scumbag locksmith out of the yellow pages.

Quote was: 60 + hourly. He shows up and does his best to do nothing as long as possible. He only did anything when I demanded his tools to do something - then, it was literally a second. Naturally, he demanded lots of money.

I'm almost hesitant to say this because I don't want spammers jumping all over this like they have Google, but Blekko is the shiznit. Yes, it used to suck, but try it now. Tell me if the search results aren't much higher quality.

Mums the word.

I'm not seeing it, for technical searches. E.g.

http://blekko.com/ws/cython+boundscheck http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8...

Blekko results are much spottier. Google results are exactly what I needed earlier today. What domains does blekko excel in?

I've been using Blekko for research in a broad range of topics. Yesterday I searched for French grammar rules and was happy with the results (I actually made a purchase because of it).

I quickly referenced Google but the SERPs were far less interesting and diverse.

EDIT: Ah yes, almost forgot Blekko's SEO/competitive intelligence features. Makes for nice client reports.

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