Case Study: JohnChow.com, BC Magazine Canada, and Manipulating Readers to Earn Money
11. Jul, 2007 
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Recently, JohnChow.com was banned by Google because of John’s illegal techniques to gain link popularity. The “illegal” clause here refers to Google’s rules, so it is debatable outside of Google’s Search Engine realm whether or not such activities were illegal. John is now urging his readers to tell Google how Google Search is not good, because Google does not index John Chow’s site anymore. Now, what John does not explain to his readers in that post is why Google has removed his site from their search index. That is, in my view, reader manipulation. I am disappointed that a blogger I respect before is doing such a thing, at the expense of his readers.
JohnChow.com is the perfect example for reader manipulation
There will usually always be die hard fans who will support John Chow with anything. However, it is very disturbing that a site which can promote reader appreciation and a feeling of honest online has turned into an advertising portal which gains popularity only because it promises people that they will become popular, sort of like a pyramid scheme. I myself wrote a review regarding John Chow a while back, and at that time I used to like JohnChow.com as it was interesting and had some honest value. Boy, has that changed, and I am sad about it. I used to tell everyone online that John Chow was a great asset to the blogosphere; I am sad that I cannot claim such a thing anymore. Of course, John probably doesn’t care about what I think, since he probably doesn’t even know who I am. Commentors who bring in money are apparently more important to him, and so are people who support any of his illegal activities which hurts other innocent bloggers.
One way John Chow manipulates others is by not telling them the whole story
Instead of saying, even if he had good intentions, something like “I did illegal things and Google found out and I didn’t realize the consequences before, but Google is being too strict and unfair and not listening to me right now“, John is telling his readers “Tell Google how they such because they don’t care and because their search results are biased against me.” That does not make any logical sense to me. Please tell me if it makes any sense to you. Readers on JohnChow.com are being told things without the whole story. Slowly more articles are starting to be published on JohnChow which talk about bad things regarding Google and its Adsense program, something which can be expected from people who want to try to turn the attention and save their own face, because they did bad things and got caught in the act.
Are magazines like BC Magazine supporting John Chow’s illegal activities? Are they supporting him simply because he is making money and because he is Canadian?
I was surprised to read BC Magazine doing an article on John Chow without mentioning any of his illegal activities, something which more people should know because John is proud of such activities, and has yet to provide any single piece of logic and reasoning as to why his activities are not bad. Such articles tend to manipulate readers more, because they are written to promote and glorify bloggers in a certain region, without talking about how such bloggers are now conning people and companies out of money. In the end, BC Magazine appears more of a biased magazine supporting any blogger within BC Canada that makes money, no matter what they do, because of the above facts and reasoning.
I wish BC Magazine could have instead profiled Vivien from Inspiration Bit, also in Canada, though I am guessing talking about someone who publicly proclaims being evil [when actually he is only manipulative and far from real evil] and publishes his blogging income details sells more magazine subscriptions than someone like Vivien who tries to provide more value to others compared to John. Someone needs an editorial and ethical overhaul in their publishing office.
What do you think?
What is your view on this? John Chow told his readers to complain to Google about John Chow’s site not appearing in search results when searching for John Chow. I think the readers should do the following instead:
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Illegal activities?? Don’t you think that is a bit overkill? Perhaps even manipulative to your readers?
Sure you say it’s debatable outside the Google realm, but it’s not really!
Even if he violated Google’s terms of service somehow, I highly doubt he’s using his blog as a front for the mafia.
Or are you taking a page out of his book and is this just linkbait?
Haha. Hi Joshua, and welcome. That is a very good comment, and makes me think a lot before I respond. Here we go, a very lengthy answer to your excellent comment.
Doing something that is not allowed by a service is considered illegal activity by that company, which I mentioned in the opening paragraph. Manipulative to my readers? Not at all. Let me repeat myself, using the above proof that I have given: I used to recommend John Chow before to people, write about him, and link to him. Slowly, he and his blog changed direction to go more towards making money than providing service; that is fine, nothing wrong with making money. However, using different methods to lure people in while not providing actual value is something I do not appreciate. That is fine too. However, if Google comes along and does something to punish John Chow, that is what I am commenting on.
Can you please explain how this article can be manipulative to readers? I am not asking anyone to donate any money, and there are no advertisements on this site either, which is what John’s site currently has. Even if this site currently had ads, this site and this very post relies on quality content [Who am I to judge? You tell me please] and uses proof to validate points. Let me clear once again to answer your question about being manipulative: John Chow was involved in illegal, unethical and manipulative activities, and that is why Google punished him. I hope I was more clear and forward in that sentence. Manipulative in our context here means making people do things without telling them everything, like John telling his readers that Google search results are not enough, when in reality he is hiding the fact in some posts that he was removed from Google index. That is manipulation.
Hmmm, now that I think of it: can you think of a better word than illegal activities, something to describe an idea along what I am intending to show? If it really is better, I’ll go ahead and edit the article and note in the article that I replaced a word because of your suggestion.
Also, you say it is not debatable outside Google; does that mean it is considered illegal outside google too in your view?
This is not linkbait, heh, though I am honored that you think this article has the potential to attract people; a linkbait basically means attracting people with some pull and thus getting links.
RA Project, this very website, prides in getting people the hard and normal way, by writing quality content. I was actually thinking some people will not visit this site anymore because of talking about something which John may not appreciate; I am guessing you are living proof that people like you like reading quality content, and that this is quality content?
Thanks again. I love healthy starts to any discussion and topic.
Off-topic: Are you a John Chow fan, not a John Chow fan, or visiting John Chow for the first time? I want to keep in mind what kind of people [fans, opponents, newcomers] have what kind of views about this. Thank you.
Bes, I’m very flattered that you think BC Magazine should do a feature on me, another blogger from Vancouver. I doubt very much me ever being featured there, as I’m not blogging for money, thus not a hot topic for millions of readers to be interested in.
It never ceases to impress me how much guts do you have to write articles such this one. If I were wearing a hat, my hat would go off for you.
I absolutely agree with you re: John manipulating his readers. To me it looks like his fans are under some kind of mass hypnosis and I’m not sure who and what will ever bring them back to life.
Just like you I was a big fan of John Chow, but my respect and admiration for him are getting thinner with his every post.
Of course, he had to write about WHY Google has banned him, and ask his readers Whether they agree with Google’s reasons on banning him. Or if he “doesn’t know” why Google has banned his blog, then at least he should’ve asked his readers to ASK Google Why the ban?
I also agree with your definition of readers manipulation – if one doesn’t tell the whole truth about a subject matter and intentionally hiding the crucial part of the truth, then he/she is definitely manipulating the readers by telling only one side of the story and being subjective rather than objective.
I’m very curious to see how this will all end?
Here you go Bes…
only one word describes u noobs….HATERS!
inspiration, thank you for the comment. I like your use of the word “hypnosis.”
Yes, explaining in a bit detail why Google is acting this way can tell readers the whole story, and the other side of the story too, which contains the main facts.
Do you subscribe to that magazine, or have you ever read it before?
Ronald, thanks.
The worst sites on the internet? heh. What could be some of the reasons you are looking for such sites?
Abdalla, thank you for, umm, calling me “noobs“? I am glad this post prompted you to at least participate and express yourself, and to think I am a hater [or haters, as you said] because of bringing up facts about John Chow and BC Magazine. Could you please explain your comment a bit more? Thank you.
Abdalla,
Thanks for your comment. I was hoping someone would bring some logical and intelligent analysis to this discussion. You fit the bill perfectly.
Bes, no, I don’t subscribe to BC Magazine, but read occasionally.
I wonder what would be the appropriate word to use opposite to Haters? Abdalla, what would be that one word that describes people like you in this case?
Regardless of the rights and wrongs – I do not think Google should be playing “godfather” like this. If they wanted to make it so the system could not be manipulated, they could do that. They are the ones running the system. Someone who uses every trick in the book to get higher PR and rankings on google is merely playing by Google’s own rules. Then, Google chooses to change the rules to suit themselves. It’s not affecting anyone else but that particular blogger, and that is plain unfair.
Not only that, they refuse to be specific about how they calculate these things. Make the rules simple, make them apply to everyone, and have set specific rules for how people will be penalized. This striking down as if by lightning is really not appropriate.
We the public have made Google the powerful force that it is, but we the people can choose to stop allowing it to be that powerful force. We can take that back, if we want to. Google is putting themselves at risk by acting like the Internet Mafia. They are getting far too big for their boots.
Unfortunately, if you throw mud it sticks to everyone involved. Google can throw all they like but they will get muddy too..
As far as calling people haters because they are questioning things.. that’s pretty immature I have to say..
This entire website is CLASSIC John Chow strategy.
Lanie
What the heck did he do, SPECIFICALLY? I keep reading he did something wrong, manipulated backlinks, etc, but what exactly did he do that was illegal. Hard to find a straight answer.
I would like to start a blog about who is alive, who is authentically alive. I would like to challenge everyone because everyone is virtually and/or vicariously dead! what is taken as living is the image of living, and everyone is addicted to the image of living. Everyone wants to be and have a celebrity image of life. Everyone is addicted to the images of wealth, beauty, youth, and these are all anesthetizations and oblivion. What everyone is oblivious about is their limitations that are realy the absence of freedom. Everyone has a religion of popular-culture-celebrity (or classic-culture-celebrity instead of being a celebrity to themselves (even if it IS without perks, and/or everyone has their race or ethnicity or gender or class as if they are theoretical “religions”. All these “religions” are just images and a kind of precommunication-politics (laicistic). Maybe our pre-communication (a kind of tool that mostly uses us) can be what we need to use our work-capital energy on, a kind of language “labor” dues (after we us our primal energy on what ever it takes to achieve our basic needs(hopefully we are avoiding physical harm to our self and others when we must obtain our basic survival needs). Maybe if we all tried to be virtually autistic by only making language statements that are declarative about how we feel, what we know, ie about ourselves and our own past experiences, reflections, what we learned without using drama and/or ego (except when necessary to obtain basic subsistance needs,) then mayber we could eliminate a large part of what causes stress to all of us: namely that questions, even seemingly innocuous ones @ the wx (weather) make us defensive and we are defensive enough,thank you, from our own guilt without having it poured onto us externally by others whoss commands (through questions) demand answers and thus make us emotionally defensive.We can PRACTICE making others defensives themselves for asking questions in the first place! Ie If someone asks me how I feel I just state that I have to know if there is a person asking the question, or are they virtually “dead” (like in the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers or in “The Matrix”) and therefore only practicing to ask the question anyway so in stead of being commanded to respond I will say I feel you are only practicing to ask me that question, you are expert in asking yourself that question, or I can just think that and ignore “them” because I think they would prefer to take back that question if they were authentic because then they would have the empathy needed to know and feel that they were being obtrusive, obnoxious, to make a demand of me to answer because after all they themselves would like to be free from the emotional defensiveness, free from being forced to answer questions, if they were in their right or any mind, other than their virtual, oblivious “one”. This would go far to make us “virtuals” become free from the addiction to images of identities that are constructs of limitations all along the range from “self” hatred to “self” arrogance. We have the guilt intuitively because, unless we are struggling intensely in a traumatic state for our daily bread and sustenance, we just HAVE to feel guilty about our survival due to selfishness when others are dying due to famine, war, capital punishment, etc. So we HAVE to distract ourselves from this guilt by the oblivion of capitalistic consumeristic frensy. BUT if we see and allow and let there be an opening for hope to emerge then there can be the unlimited possibility of hope, that all CAN have their basic needs met instead of accepting the anesthetizations of limitations ie where using language of hopelessness like “it has to be this way” “some have to suffer from absolute poverty”, “there has to be war”, “there has to be the “rule” of law that sanctions state decreed capital punishment”, etc. Then we can FOCUS on language discipline as human capital instead of squandering our energy to fuel oblivion. Maybe we can start a new kind of capital commodity/currency, for instance we could use blogging to admit that we are emotionally defensive and that until we all eliminate or do the very best we can to reduce poverty, wars, death penalties, etc., we admit we only are PRACTICING to have our freedom (ie freedom from emotional defensiveness) and we only PRACTICE having our life, too. Likewise we at best only have an image of freedom, and image of life and an image of personality. So we can “HOCK” our life, freedom, our personality into a kind of Life-personality Bank (or Blank?)until we are sufficiently disciplined in “paying” our language dues, ie we are virtually autistic or develop an enhanced virtual autism where we have eliminated what would make us defensive ie anything of a verbally limiting nature:questions, judgements, criticism, comparatives, except what it takes to obtain our basic needs (and this would make us all be motivated to simplify those basic needs. The result would be freedom from emotional limitation. The only limitations on freedom would be our basic needs). I have practiced “walking the walk” of this scenario. and I would like to get some ideas @ how this Bank-Blank(maybe we could get a “boiler plate” type personality and wear a color, or some indicator, etc., might be put into effect. Maybe we could come up with something along the lines of a Pre to Post Revolutionary-Personality Pawn Bank-Blank where we put our Personalities in a kind of safe keeping marketplace ( without any uniqueness to this pawned bank-blank personality their value would be minimal unless and until the personality was made unique by the effort put into the discipline work done on the pre-language skills with the later value determined by the authentic personalities ability to be free from emotional limitation) in exchange for virtual currency and/or actual food or barter of skills, services, etc. In other words, we, in a kind of virtual life “game” (like 2nd life”),admit/take an oath, pledge, we are emotionally defensive until we practice simplifying our basic needs down to minimal by focussing on the intrinsic value of freedom/presence (flow, unique thinking?)in place of all the absence-limitations of immediate gratification (ie all social and cultural constructs/images). To show that the challenge of freedom from emotional limitations is authentically meaningful, I would like to start a blog (with someones,anyones help? or at least without interference or too many obstacles, or at the very least allowing me my most simple of basic physical needs being met) where I challenge everyone to try to make me emotionally defensive with your writing, etc. Anyone can make me physically defensive by making my most basic physical needs be at risk, so with this “off the table” anything else is permitted. I will assure you that I can make anyone emotionally defensive. (I have had lots of practice making others feel uncomfortable, but I know now I was only practicing making them uncomfortable, because I was expert in making myself uncomfortable, until now). I will do this by deflecting any questions you ask of me, by telling you first, that you are only PRACTICING being a you. So “you” are asking any question to yourself. Lets see what can be accomplished. Call me at 973 484-1023 and/or you can google Barbara Todish for more of my writing or go to flyinginplace.com to “study up” on me to try to make me become emotionally vulnerable. Maybe if/when you give up you will owe a “Pay It Forward” duty or you will cause me to help someone out but you and/or I would have to work hard at finding someone in trauma or close to it in terms of being desperate for thier most basic physical needs to be met, otherwise I/you will make you/me emotioanlly defensive, ie if someone is only PRACTICING to be desperate but is really just being greedy, and wanting, his/her desires met and/or enhancements beyond the most proximate and/or simplest of basic physical needs.
If there is anyone TO read the above long comment, yes I would like a response.
Hey Barbara,
How are you? Thanks for the reply. Heh, yes I was going to reply to you regardless of that option. Just thinking about what you said & trying to do a few things with it, including connecting it with this article. I’ll get back to you soon, thanks!