Inspired by one of the lame images on one of the lame sites in question.
WORDS Marcus Bandy PHOTO A. Mazon Affilatestein
The topic of this week’s Action Now column is simple: There’s a whole bunch of fake-ass “longboard Review” websites out there these days and many of them are so SEO heavy that all three Fat Boys sitting on top of two sweaty walruses while eating a basket of McChubbles couldn’t even weigh in. Hold on, who are the Fat Boys? Ha ha!
Anyway, a majority of these websites are Amazon Affiliates and their goal is to make themselves look like experts in “longboarding” so that they rank highest on Google searches when people are searching for: Longboard Reviews, Longboard, Longboarding, and Freeride, and in return they hope to sell a shit ton of boards via Amazon via brands they are themselves reviewing as ranked as the “Top 10 Best Longboards”. But here’s the kicker: you and I (the skaters) have never even heard of any of these brands. Well, their scheme is working perfectly and they are fooling young skaters as well as their mothers every single day via these schemes and thanks to Google’s hungry-hippo algorithms.
I’m so saddened by this whole thing that I’m not going to even link these abominable sites in this post. You can find them for yourself, easily, by simply typing in the above keywords I mentioned like “Longboard”, “Longboarding”, “Longboard Review”. In fact, most of these sites are ranked well above your actual favorite skate brand on Google. That is a huge problem, and it says. . . we’ll it speaks a lot about the quality of information you and I are receiving when we do key word searches on Google’s search engine—how that can be so wrong and easily manipilated. Damn! Now that I just said that Wheelbase will probably fall to the end of the 13th search page by morning. By the way, it also says a lot about some other developments in our industry as well. But like my frog Kermit, I’m just sippin’ my tea.
Basically, I hate to see extremely foul information and products being promoted to my fellow skateboarders, especially when there are amazing brands who do a great job of making excellent products, supporting the culture, and providing amazing customer service on the retail side of things.
Obviously, there is way more to discuss regarding these sites—such as the specific brands that are being sold on them & how they selling them, the gross misrepresentation in their information, their lack of any accountability whatsoever, as well as the fact that they are ranked on Google well above many of the actual brands and retailers in the segment of skateboarding labeled as “longboarding”. That being said, let me leave you with an email excerpt that was recently received by a homie who owns one of the good brands, and claims to be from the owner of one of the sites in question:
Hi, my name is T**u Sar**ar. I have found your blog with a friendly content. Also, I have a blog too. It is a niche site about best longboards review: https://long****sreview.c*m/ I think you accept guest posting. I have very high-quality articles for guest posting. All the articles are 100% unique, 600 to 1000 words with high-quality images. These articles are not product review articles. Those are How to type and informative articles. Additionally, those informative articles attract readers and reader also like it so much. This will not only increase your site visitor but also increase your domain authority too.
In return, I just need 2 or 3 backlinks from your site. Have a good day. I am waiting for your reply. Please reply me ASAP.
Thanks again for reading my latest Action Now column. BTW I look forward to answering your questions the comment section below as well as via Periscope throughout this evening starting at 6pm PST as time allows. See details below. I look forward to chatting with ya’ll and connecting via your questions.
-Marcus Bandy
@wheelbasemag
Join the live-streaming discussion of this week’s Action Now column later today Thursday at 6PM PST and intermittently throughout the evening via the WheelbaseMag Periscope. THAT’S TONIGHT!!!
Also, please make sure to spread the word about this and add any comments ya have below in the comment section so that we can discuss them on-air tonight once we go live. Shredlove and thanks for checking out Wheelbase Magazine and my column!
__________________________
I just want to reiterate that the comments and ideas presented above are published with the sole purpose to create dialogue, not as instruction. If any of these ideas get your panties in a bunch please first: relax, and then pluck and place said undergarments in a more comfortable position and let’s have a heathy skater-to-skater chat. The live streaming Periscope discussion for this week’s Action Now column begins at 6PM PST tonight (8/25/2016).