Genius link bait technique

1 October 2007

Check this out: http://en.msnspy.biz/ (Not a link for SEO reasons)

They offer a program that lets you spy on other people using their own webcam. Sounds neat, but look at what they request you to do in order to download it.

Yeah, that's right. They want you to distribute a referral link to 13 people, otherwise the thing won't download.

Well, after seeing this, considering the amount of Ads on that page, I bet it's now pretty clear what this whole thing is all about.

The program really doesn't work (I haven't tested it myself, tho), but it does sound very lucrative. The site owner manged to make it look very authentic (using a video), and since it doesn't cost money to the visitor, he/she has a great chance of getting this feeling of "what have I got to lose here?".

When they give it a try, the same process repeats itself 13 more times, and expands over the net at an exponential rate. It doesn't matter if the thing works or not, since it's been recommended before it was even tested.

I stumbled into this link on at least 5 discussion boards yesterday, and you can imagine how many of them are really out there.

Take a look yourself: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=msnspy.biz&btnG=Search . Note that Google hates things like that, but it still has tens of thousands of those links indexed.

To say the least, this guy earned some serious cash by now. And thanks to him, we all got to see all of the classic techniques to creating something truly viral.

It will work if it:
1) Sounds good, looks authentic (doesn't have to work as promised)
2) Designed in a way that exploits the natural curiosity of people.
3) Programmed so people have to distribute it BEFORE they can get it themselves.

So there we go. I don't know what's the chance to successfully pull something like this off, but it sure ended up being profitable.

Posted by: kGen | In category: General SEO | Comments (0)

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