Is Paying for Links in Profile Picks Cheating?

coffee exits nose...

truth .... be stranger than fiction

I had completely forgotten I even had anything in that mall.

The reason everything dated back to 06 .. is thats when I had put the stuff there.

This was before the new search even existed ..

The situation has been remedied I no longer have **ANY** products in your mall.

When in the hell did I ever say that?

I do not think that at all.

I just don't think I should have to compete with people who cheat.

Since I am forced to, I do ...

But I do not think anyone should be cheating at all.

Why is this a complicated position to understand?

So the question really is: If you optimize as well as you an for Search All, how would your ranking be for the keywords you are aiming for? And would the ones above you, be in that position through what you call cheating?

Since I do not know your business, I have no idea whether you did optimize for Search All, but traffic and picks are hardly important. Believe it or not.
Look at my traffic, it is very low and I am still on #2. Even my amount of picks is lower then some below me in ranking. So maybe you do not have to compete with people who cheat, but simply with people who optimize the important parameters. The idea that the new Search is gamed as much as topics like this one try to show, just might be a bit exaggerated.

Did you ever compete in any Athletic Sport Marcel?

I suppose this is a perfectly good answer to my posting

As a matter of fact in my younger years I did some running, but please enlighten me in what that has to do with my piece of writing?

They'd just argue that steroids and other performance enhancing drugs are there to "optimize" their body and don't count as cheating .

steroids.. Marcel.. shes gearing up for a post on doping...

Would you have wanted to run against people taking steroids, blood doping, and other performance enhancing drugs?


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Even if you might be able to keep up ?

Marcel: Colette doesn't compete at all, so you are wasting your time on her. She wants it to come to her, based on the idea that, if you make it and put it up for sale, people will come. If they don't come, it's someone's fault, but never hers. Don't be surprised if she tell you that you are the sort of person who took short cuts in your running

I have never said that. You are just making things up.

You seem the remarkable Psychoanalyst, Dr. Phil.

You are, of course, wrong.

My objections to Search Gaming have never been about *my in-world business*.

Colette, did you ever bother to READ my posting? Because your answer really makes absolutely no sense regarding to what I posted. Now if you prefer to completely ignore what I have to say, you blend well in with some of the others at your side of the discussion, but at least have the guts to say so.

So quite frankly that gives you 2 options: either come with serious answers to my questions, or show you are not here for a reasonable conversation/discussion at all. You have been accused of that several times, and not just by Phil, this is your time to show what you are about.

She's asking if you think it fair that someone who doesn't cheat should be expected to compete against those that do? And when it's pointed out told to shut up or join them?

Her chosen example is would you expect an athlete to compete against those using steroids.

yes and i think if you want to use that anology.. what Phil is trying to say is that.. would you expect an athlete who isnt constantly training and improving themselves to win a race against other athletes who are?

if one can't present anymore to the argument.....let's pull out some analogies out instead.....as long as we keep moving at tangents!!

Colette doesn't try to compete, Mort. She just talks. It appears that she hasn't even made anything new for 2 years. She just talks. Or to put it another way, she just stirs, twists, prods - i.e. she trolls.

It makes perfect sense.


You come and say that people can compete with those who are cheating.

I ask why you think someone who is not cheating should have to compete with those who are.

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It is not YOU who gets to set the conditions of whether or not I am here for a reasonable discussion/conversation.

Neither you nor Rene nor Phil are mind readers. You may THINK I am not interested in discussion. But that is just your opinion.

Thank you for explaining MortVen, but I am capable of reading as well. Now that we are talking anyway, did you manage to find time yet to come with an actual answer to the bots and resources question in the other thread yet?

I have moved nothing. I have contended that it is Cheating all along. And thus the comparison is completely consistent with my original argument.

I will remind you that just yesterday it is you who suggested that those who were sticking to the TOPIC of the thread were the ones being stubborn.

This argument however falls apart when it is two people doing all the same things except one is cheating and the other not.

can you post it again?

You must be the worst person at ignoring someone else on the planet.

Your facts are incorrect, not that my business is any of your business.

As for your supposed insight into why I post, Dr. Phil, you don't know what you are talking about.

So in fact you just answer a serious question with an analogy that makes no sense at all. To show you we are cut from different wood, I will answer your question though.

Athletes already compete with other athletes on drugs. And when those athletes on drugs get caught, they are disqualified. So that is where your analogy already goes wrong: using drugs in sports is explicitly forbidden.

And no, it is not me who sets the conditions of whether or not you are here for a reasonable discussion/conversation. Neither Phil or Rene.
That honor is completely up to you Colette. By avoiding answering any question asked to you, but instead answer new questions, you make perfectly clear why you are here.

But the analogy was pertinent. I just didn't answer the question the way you wanted me to.



No Marcel, thats where my analogy goes right. Its forbidden in sports for a reason. Because it is cheating, and an unfair advantage.







This last statement of yours completely contradicts itself.

He gave an account of how he got to his current ranking a few months back and it has an answer right there.

/327/71/260358/4.html (post 91)
The key phrase being "I knew the only thing I could do is get more picks".

The last phrase refers to the fact to Marcel beat Phil's ranking causing him to game^H^H^H^Hoptimize a bit more to get ahead of Marcel again.

The snipped paragraph refers to the then popular argument that manipulating search was in everyone's best interest because it yields better results.

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Marcel can spin his own words now (or claim I spinned them) but the quote seems to make it rather clear: he jumped on the picks gaming bandwagon and came out ahead, knowing that if he didn't he'd get left behind. And that was at a time when search was brand new so you could get ahead using just simple keyword optimization (as opposed to the current keyword spam of listing your keywords 60 times all over the page) so if he hadn't manipulated he'd just have kept dropping and dropping.