Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
It's neither a warning nor a recommendation -- it's news, just like articles on what television shows receive high ratings are news.
Is it a form of news where newsmakers play the system to get more coverage? Yes. It you pay individuals to walk into bookstores and buy your title one at a time, that can, according to the OP article, make your book a bestseller, at least for one week. It is impossible to completely prevent this.
Of course, something similar is true of the front page news as well. If someone with high name recognition runs for president, and comes out in favor of torture, and then flip-flops on it, all to get free publicity, I don't see how it isn't news.
Search engine optimization is broadly comparable. Is it less bad to manipulate Google than the New York Times? I guess, although I'm not quite sure why I think that. |
Actually, if you "manipulate Google" there's a good chance that you will get caught. Google is also constantly changing the way they rank pages, and what works today might not work next week.
Google has also been known to punish websites that it perceives as trying to cheat the system. Do the major bestseller lists do the same?
Shari