Does anyone know Mike Floyd in LA - Balloon Sculptor?

[Jim]

Does anyone know this guy?

http://www.mbfloyd.com/

His name is Mike Floyd and he's a balloon sculptor in LA area.

My name is all over his web site and I'm just trying to figure out who the heck he is...

http://www.music.mbfloyd.com/pages/the_jim_show.html

He's taking keywords from several performers' web sites and spamming google with links to his site.

Yuck! This creeps me out.

[Steven Ragatz]

Hey Jim, where is he inserting these text strings?

Steven Ragatz

[Jim]

Originally posted by Steven Ragatz
Hey Jim, where is he inserting these text strings?

Steven Ragatz

I have no idea. All the pages are generated HTML. There has to be some script in the background interacting with Google, finding related pages, stealing keywords and then creating new pages on the fly.

It's kind of spooky. If you keep clicking on the links in the middle of the pages, it just leads you to more "entertainment" related pages of links.

It's a Google Ad farm!

[worldwidese]

Site Spam

Couldn't you just contact him and tell him to delete all references to your Site/Show?

On the other hand, maybe it will bring you a greater number of worthwhile hits to your site?

Following is from his site-
Contact Info
Email : mike@mbfloyd.com
Or if you are in the Los Angeles California Call...

Phone: (818) 468 5548

[Jim]

I did contact him. We exchanged some emails and he said he has every right to do what he's doing and plans to continue. I just wanted to see if anyone knew him and could tell him in person how slimy he is. I tried being professional about it, but he doesn't seem to give a crap.

Since he's going to be a wakner about it, I thought a little public shaming was in order.

Jim

[worldwidese]

His rights

Does he really have legal rights? If your site is copyrighted, he can't use anything without your permission. To copyright, just add a clause at the bottom of your site for example.
"Copyright 1999-2003 All rights reserved.
No titles, text or photos may be downloaded without prior written permission from the Webmaster."
The copyright symbol, a C enclosed in a circle © is good to add. Find it in your wordprocessor program 'Insert Symbol"

[Chance]

what's the problem?

I'm not sure why anyone would have a problem getting extra exposure on the web.

In less than one minute there, I saw Jim's site, an essay on busking by Steven Ragatz, and a direct link to the Sydney Busking Permit Office.

Seems like a good resource to me.

[martin ewen]

What were you thinking?

He's a 24 year old balloon twister and you want to SHAME him?
You've just ended up sending traffic to his site, you could reconsider.
It is a google ad farm, how can that be detrimental, I'm just curious.

[Jim]

OK, so you guys don't think this is slimy? He's using MY web site (and many other performers' sites) as bait for Google to up his rankings, thus driving traffic to his site, where he's selling ad space. That's just wrong. I feel exploited.

This would be like me going to every single juggler, clown, magician, unicyclist, comedian, stilt walker, escape artist web site and copying the text from their pages, and then making hundreds of new web pages on my web site using that material. Then submitting all the pages to Google so when someone searched for a "comedy stilt dancer" you get me. Or when someone searched for "straight jacked escape artist," you get me. And not only would I get the exposure (because my header would be at the top of the page) but when people realized they didn't find what they wanted, I'd have dozens of Google ads to click on to go somewhere else.

Martin: How is it detrimental?

I don't want my name associated with him in any way. And I certainly don't want my name splashed all over a cheesy web site filled with ads.

Why am I the only person who thinks this is wrong?

[martin ewen]

wrong and detrimental 2 different things

Ok, I think I get it, He's using content from the sites. I thought he was compiling pages with URL links on subject matter and having some of the meta stuff along with the URL's.
But if he's taking actual copywritten stuff, the actual copy from the pages not just a discription.
Then we must all chip in and help you pay for some sort of cease and desist.
I thought it looked like the usual cheesy exploit that google suffers for a short time, people make a little money on the exploit and then when its seen to be eroding the search integrity, google stamps on it.But the google ads are creating revenue for google as well.
Interesting.
Its slimy , until it bumps your pagerank its not too important though right?

[Chance]

anyone wanna be a millionaire?

I've never read his stuff, but somehow it wouldn't surprise me to learn that tactics like these are endorsed by the likes the Millionaire Magician guy.

[Frisbee]

Slimy

I think it is slimy and wrong, there has to be some way to stop it.
If he will not stop, maybe go to the route and go to his server admin.
Google may not approve of his actions either.
If they (server or Google) know what he is doing this then perhaps they will shut him down. Maybe that would scare him a bit from doing it further.
If he went to a different server then you can threaten to do it again or as martin said to get some sort of legal action against him.

[Josh Casey]

Yeah, I find it pretty lame as well. Another similar thing I ran into a few months ago was this guy Craig Carmean, a guitar singer guy had hundreds of names of entertainers in hidden text on the main page of his site, including mine. I was told about it by another performer. It's against most/all of the search engine policies to do it and you can actually report them. I guess the idea of it is if someone searches for you it increases the odds of his site coming up as well. I had contacted him about it, as did other performers but he never responded. I just checked back and he has a new site now without it.