Business week covers ViralNova copiers - Internet hits the copy button.
- Thread starter jhoffy22
- Start date
Here recently I have seen people sharing these types of stories on my timeline from a site called twistedsifter.com. I took a look at thier facebook page and they have over 335K fans.
I looked at SEMrush and they have been around since 2011-2012, but I have never heard of them, nor have I ever seen stories shared from then. I didnt care enough to look to see if they changed formats or if Viralnova was actually a copy of them.
Also, those sites in the story better get those links nofollowed or Matt Cutts is going to give them a penalty.
I looked at SEMrush and they have been around since 2011-2012, but I have never heard of them, nor have I ever seen stories shared from then. I didnt care enough to look to see if they changed formats or if Viralnova was actually a copy of them.
Also, those sites in the story better get those links nofollowed or Matt Cutts is going to give them a penalty.
I don't think they give a fuck about Google penalties. They spin or just swipe all of their content. I read that the vast majority of their traffic comes from Facebook fanpages. Adding adsense may be an issue, but ViralNova has adsense.
You're talking to someone who once thought buying a WSO was a ticket to riches. Sometimes I don't catch the obvious quickly.
A couple of thoughts on this as I manage FB pages for $$:
1. FB's algorithm changes are hitting posts with links very hard. The reach has become abysmal, with organic reach for pages with 500k+ fans achieving reach of just 2 percent. Memes and other photo posts are still doing well but the link posts are getting hammered - I guess FB figured out that posts with links are gold to page owners and so they are trying to get them to pay to promote posts. As a result of decrease in reach, Facebook likes are worth a lot less, yet they are becoming more expensive as more and more pages are created and advertise to the same people (though one would expect that would correct itself eventually). Because of this decreased reach, pages like Viralnova should become worth a good bit less as they find it alot harder to drive traffic to their websites.
2. The low barrier to entry has resulted in a crazy flood of pages on virtually every conceivable topic. In a just a couple of years I've seen the number of pages in my niche explode. Even today I discovered a page that is literally copying each of my posts and reposting them on its page - that's all the page does for posts is copy my successful page. And he takes the affiliate products that I post and posts them to his page's followers but with his own affiliate id. So basically I'm doing all of the work for this guy. What's to stop other pages from doing the same thing?
1. FB's algorithm changes are hitting posts with links very hard. The reach has become abysmal, with organic reach for pages with 500k+ fans achieving reach of just 2 percent. Memes and other photo posts are still doing well but the link posts are getting hammered - I guess FB figured out that posts with links are gold to page owners and so they are trying to get them to pay to promote posts. As a result of decrease in reach, Facebook likes are worth a lot less, yet they are becoming more expensive as more and more pages are created and advertise to the same people (though one would expect that would correct itself eventually). Because of this decreased reach, pages like Viralnova should become worth a good bit less as they find it alot harder to drive traffic to their websites.
2. The low barrier to entry has resulted in a crazy flood of pages on virtually every conceivable topic. In a just a couple of years I've seen the number of pages in my niche explode. Even today I discovered a page that is literally copying each of my posts and reposting them on its page - that's all the page does for posts is copy my successful page. And he takes the affiliate products that I post and posts them to his page's followers but with his own affiliate id. So basically I'm doing all of the work for this guy. What's to stop other pages from doing the same thing?
I can vouch for Jerry's first point. One of my pages has just over 20,000 likes & the standard images reach anywhere from 2,000-5,000 users (depends on what time it's posted) whereas links seem to be always in the hundreds; Facebook has cracked the fuck down on links in an effort to make you "boost" the post which is ridiculous.
The link problem - is it the same both for internal links (linking to facebook page) and external ? Or external only is triggering it ?
I haven't actually tried any internal linking so I'm not too sure. We've tried a number of different ways of sharing links to see what works best, for example:
1) just manually posting the link (leaving the box & image that FB pulls)
2) using the share button on posts
3) posting the link (but crossing off the box FB brings up which pulls an image & text) & uploading a relevant image with it.
4) posting a relevant image with a shortened link
5) posting a relevant image & writing a lot of text & a URL
So far we see more engagement with the 3rd option but we haven't done enough testing to determine that's the best route to follow. We'll also be trying in the next few days posting an image from an article by itself & the URL in the comments section. Either way it's hell annoying.
1) just manually posting the link (leaving the box & image that FB pulls)
2) using the share button on posts
3) posting the link (but crossing off the box FB brings up which pulls an image & text) & uploading a relevant image with it.
4) posting a relevant image with a shortened link
5) posting a relevant image & writing a lot of text & a URL
So far we see more engagement with the 3rd option but we haven't done enough testing to determine that's the best route to follow. We'll also be trying in the next few days posting an image from an article by itself & the URL in the comments section. Either way it's hell annoying.