Social Media Inspector Scam

There has been the usual flurry of hype that accompanies the launch of a new product recently, with the advent of something called Social Media Inspector by someone called Jeff Alderson.

Now, i don't know Jeff, and for all I know he may be completely unaware that his product does not and can not deliver what it promises.

But just in case I can save a consumer somewhere from losing $47 and wasting a whole lot of time, I am writing this Hub to explain the pointlessness of this piece of software.

Let's start with the reasoning behind this marketing strategy.

We're talking about two major sources of traffic - organic search results, and referrals from other sites.

Social media sites can help with both types of traffic, at least that's the theory.

People who are tooling around on a social media site may see a link to your web site, and click on it, and come visit.

Or, they may find your site when they search for a keyword.

The problem is that there are millions of pages competing for those first ten spots which most searchers never look beyond.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) refers to all the things that you can do to try to get your site moved up the listings, above the other millions of pages.

One thing which helps to get your site rated more highly is links from sites that the search engine considers an "authority".

Social media sites are often considered "authority' sites, because they are places where a lot of people visit, and where real people vote on the content.

So, links from social media sites would theoretically give you a big boost.

Another influence on the value of a link is Page Rank. The more visitors a page has, the higher its Page Rank.

So a page on a social media site which also has a high Page Rank would be a "double whammy' of search engine "link love".

And, guess what? On two of the big ones, Squidoo and HubPages, you can leave comments on the pages, even the high Page Rank ones.

So this software hunts out the pages inside Squidoo and HubPages with high Page Rank, so the owner of the software can go and post a comment containing a link to their own site.

But don't you think the owners of these social media sites are aware of this?

Don't you think they are doing everything in their power to stop people using their sites to post spurious links just to boost their own pages on the search engines?

On HubPages, all links posted in comments are marked "no follow".

That means that the search engine spiders don't follow those links. They don't see them. It is as if those links DO NOT EXIST.

And on Squidoo, the links in comments are not live links at all. They aren't clickable.

This means that posting your link in comments on Hubs and Squidoo lenses will gain you exactly NOTHING in SEO benefits.

Write off those "High PR Links" advertised in the sales letter. They don't exist.

So, what about the other items?

What about traffic?

Look, if you found a very, very relevant Hub or lens, and yours was one of the first few comments, and it was a really, really good comment, it IS possible that some people may be interested enough to click on your link. Maybe.

But the click-out rate is not great - Adsense CTRs are lower on Hubs and lenses than ordinary web sites, for example - and the clickers are more likely to bounce than ordinary referrals. My referrals from Hubs and lenses bounce at about the rate of PPC referrals - ie, pretty darn cold.

Generally, traffic from social media sites doesn't convert very well.

There are always exceptions, and if you hit dead on a very targeted Hub or lens with a very good comment, you may be able to become the exception.

But it's a very low percentage play.

What about exposure?

Let's be brutally honest - not many people read the comments. And even those who start reading the comments usually only read the first few.

The people who read all the comments are usually active members of the community in question, and they are highly sensitive to anything that looks like spam. They hate it. For a detailed explanation of that phenomenon, go to Web 2.0 Marketing - Fact or Fiction?

So how should I get backlinks, then?

There is still great value in getting backlinks - just not from HubPages and Squidoo comments.

Blog comments, on the other hand, are a great source of backlinks.

Some blogs have links in comments set to "no follow", too, though.

There is a piece of free software you can use to find blogs relevant to your topic which don't use the "no follow" feature, so they will show up for the search engine spiders.

So you don't need to spend a single cent. You can download Real Link Finder for free. (I am not an affiliate for this product, and nobody will make any money from your use of it. It's really free.)

Just make sure your comments add value to the blog, too. The relationship you build with the blg owner will be worth much more to you than the backlink, over time.

But that's another story. Read the Web 2.0 Marketing - Fact of Fiction? Hub to get that explained in full.

The Bottom Line

Don't waste your money buying Social Media Inspector, or your time trying to use it.