Ages ago on 21st July 2008, I wrote a post entitled "Is Xocai a scam?" I concluded that whether or not the chocolate itself was an honest product, some of the people selling it in a multi-level marketing scheme were definitely dishonest, because of the way they had changed my comment on their blog.
And the whole thing faded from my consciousness, until yesterday, when somebody started commenting on the old blog item. They were not pleasant comments, or well informed, but at first I replied politely to them, pointing out the flaws in what was being claimed. But they got nasty, so I deleted them all, and blocked the person's emails. I'm here to enjoy myself, not to be insulted. I would bet this person feels they have been hard done by, by an evil person who censored their comments. Well, it's my blog, not yours, and I am not compelled to display sneering insults to myself, complete with incorrect spelling and no punctuation.
You can read all about multi-level marketing, MLM, on an almost infinite number of web pages, where a huge army of people are ready to sell you the secret of their success for only, ooh, quite a lot, usually. But the one thing you should remember about these schemes is that they are pyramid shaped. There is this person at the top making a fortune from all the lower people in the pyramid. And those lower people all think they can do as well as the person on the top, if only they work as hard, (or buy the scheme that tells them how to be that person without working hard, but that's another story). Well, obviously, the person at the top is already there, so short of assassination, and somehow helping yourself to the "downstream" people, you are not going to get to the top, ever. And that's really all you need to know about MLM. You can make a little money if you work hard, but you are not going to shift the people at the top who are raking it in. You want lots of money from MLM? Start your own, it's the only way you can be at the top of the pyramid.
Anyway, where was I heading with this? Oh, yes. Google. I searched for "Is Xocai a scam?" back in July, and found lots of very carefully crafted "Search Engine Optimisation", all designed to lead anyone who asked that question to sites that pretended to ask it, and then come up with the answer that it wasn't, and by the way, why not join them and sell the stuff for them? I also found one site where somebody actually says that Xocai is not a scam, but is an unhealthy product, compared to the one he sells. It's a well written, clearly explained web site, and is well worth reading. Link.
I Googled for the same thing, "Is Xocai a scam?", yesterday, and was pleasantly surprised to find a blog entry at the top of the list (apart from somebody who pays to be first in the list). My blog entry in fact...
So, entirely by accident, I have managed to achieve what vast armies of "Search Engine Optimisers" are charging people money for. I can't easily explain how hilarious I find that. Thanks, Google, for making my day!
