Although I still remember joining Entrecard less than a month ago, maybe things had really changed. I recall signing up, being confused about the dashboard, and reading the help file to understand it all. Was the new Entrecarder’s experience 30 days later so horrible that immediate change is required to save Entrecard? To blow the lid off this story, I needed a scoop. After writing my tirade last night, I had the clarity of mind to conduct a little experiment.
Operation Honeypot was born! I threw some stuff on a webpage and created a new Entrecard account. That wasn’t all. I also kept 2 browsers open, one Firefox and one IE7. First I checked that my new ad did not appear yet on the “most recent” page. As I thought, it didn’t appear there until you insert the code and click “validate”.
With multiple windows open, I inserted the proper code, saved, then told Entrecard to go ahead and send their bot. Over and over I refreshed the “Most Recent” page using another account. The very second my new ad appeared I “confirmed”. THEN I logged out and logged in using a different account. I used roboform, so that took a second at most. I went right to “most recent” and confirmed. Total amount of time passed between validating the account and confirming 2 ads? Less than 1 minute.
Here’s where it gets interesting folks; I promise. In between my first confirm and my second confirm, 4 people applied for that ad space. The odds of 4 people getting lucky and spotting the ad seconds after available, zero. All in a fraction of a minute? No, way you say?. Two other people spotted my ad and bid on it, 3 minutes later.
Sam Spade time, I put on my detective outfit and got right onto the spammers trail. Who were these people that somehow either got extremely lucky, or worse, had automated the process of advertising on new blogs? Below are the 4 blogs that displayed such amazing dexterity:
Next I did a whois on the 4 sites to look for a pattern.
IP Address: 70.87.226.50
IP Location - Texas - Dallas - Theplanet.com Internet Services Inc
IP Address: 77.232.68.93
IP Location - United Kingdom - Srvg-net-fl1-h
IP Address: 82.165.49.27
IP Location - Germany - Schlund + Partner Ag
IP Address: 64.13.192.197
IP Location - California - Culver City - Media Temple Inc
No pattern at all! (I deleted the e-mails and their registrar names to prevent these people from being spammed) So what did all four of these people, and the 2 others have in common? Was it the Evil Woobie or Evil Saphrym muscling out the noobs for cheap ad spots? Nope. All 6 of the blogs that requested ads were all new people themselves.
Mystery solved! The “vultures” who prey on new people are actually new people themselves. Why? They are checking the “most recent” screen for their own ads, and that is also the only screen they can afford to advertise on. That’s why they jump on new ads so fast. I’m actually sad there was no conspiracy.
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18 users commented in " Vultures Unmasked! "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a Trackback **********[...] January 31, 2008 · No Comments Turnip goes undercover to fish out “Vultures” preying upon noobs! Get the scoop and check out his latest article. [...]
I love this! This is so something I would become obsessed with doing,and you did it well. I’m glad you were able to solve the mystery with a plausible explanation, Sherlock, but I prefer conspiracy theories. How long did it take Doodlage to request, though?
Entrecard is different, already. Funny how the good old days can be a month ago.
This is pretty interesting stuff! If only there was a way to catch those new accounts when they were still virgin — er new and with unfilled ad queues.
I remember very clearly when I signed up — I had six advertising requests in the space of a minute or less (I think one of them might even have been you
) and had no clue what to do with them.
I carefully visited each site and approved ones that I didn’t mind having their ad on my site, but disapproved several as not being relevant — I was VERY picky at first.
Now I get hardly any requests for ads except from my pu2b friends (and I reciprocate by advertising on their blogs). Alas, I am still at a loss as to how this whole thing works for the “average joe” who doesn’t do a bunch of marketing stuff.
Maybe one of these days the light will shine on my dark corner and I will be illuminated with the knowledge of how Entrecard works.
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It might have been me, Margaret. I only bid on new ads. What I do is click on “Most recent” when I log into Entrecard. I’ll bid on any ads available. I don’t sit there and refresh all day. Since I have 2 accounts, you might see ads from both of them.
The first 4 sites listed all applied in under 1 minute. The next 2 were before the 3 minute mark. Once you have 8 ads in the queue, nobody else can apply until you either accept or reject the current ones.
OH! Me too… I was so hoping your story was going to end with a big reveal and a bust on the bad guys
Great post!
Excellent Post! I knew there was nothing funny going on.
Nice post. I definitely appreciate the “Sam Spade” reference. Nice to know Entrecard is still safe for all the newbies and relative newbies, like myself.
I’m glad you solved your mystery. I bet it makes you feel better. 4 ads in 3 minutes is quite amazing - but I am glad to see that they were all from new people as well - thats a lot better than some robot.
gee wiz! I still don’t see what the big deal is. Though I was kind of in a state of shock and not knowing what to do with all the ad requests when I first joined, having those requests made me feel kind of welcome in a way. I had a blog with next to nothing on it and people actually clicked on me. Now whether or not they actually took the time to look at my blog before they grabbed the ad space is still an unknown, but still, going from being somewhere in the far reaches of internet outerspace to being acknowledged as existing is a big boost! Plus, who is it that’s complaining here??? The newcomers who are the so-called victims of all this? Yeah, right… I didn’t think so! Ya know, people should just mind their own business.
Hilarious! You had me waiting for a big end..all suspenseful. But really I loved the ending…as I am a total newby..and was hoping it was not all corrupt.
Take care.
Only Entrecard can prove it isn’t corrupt. Reading how Phirate recently banned some top users for scripting, he seems serious.
I always hope to stumble on a high traffic site that just signed up, but they are usually already taken. Found one today though.
Heh, for a second I was afraid that afishblog.com was doing something wrong.
The guy running that blog is a great guy
I’m sure he is Thomas! That’s why I edited my article and linked properly to all the sites listed. Might as well help the new blogs any way we can.
Oh, I hate it when all the conspiracy theories have real facts to blow them up. Now, what will be the next conspiracy? Will it be that John Chow and John Cow already have stock in Entrecard and they are just gaming us? Hmmmmm?
lol … mystery solved by Turnip. Good job detecting.
I never read this before, but I must say I visit the Most Recent page once every two weeks now. When I first joined and had no credits, I was there all of the time.
How is it possible that one of my better articles went undiscovered by so many? Even the graphic is catchy!
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