TY - GEN
T1 - Search + seizure
T2 - 2014 ACM Internet Measurement Conference, IMC 2014
AU - Wang, David Y.
AU - Der, Matthew
AU - Karami, Mohammad
AU - Saul, Lawrence
AU - McCoy, Damon
AU - Savage, Stefan
AU - Voelker, Geoffrey M.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2014 by the Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. (ACM).
PY - 2014/11/5
Y1 - 2014/11/5
N2 - Black hat search engine optimization (SEO), the practice of abusively manipulating search results, is an enticing method to acquire targeted user traffic. In turn, a range of interventions-from modifying search results to seizing domains-are used to combat this activity. In this paper, we examine the effectiveness of these interventions in the context of an understudied market niche, counterfeit luxury goods. Using eight months of empirical crawled data, we identify 52 distinct SEO campaigns, document how well they are able to place search results for sixteen luxury brands, how this capability impacts the dynamics of their order volumes and how well existing interventions undermine this business when employed.
AB - Black hat search engine optimization (SEO), the practice of abusively manipulating search results, is an enticing method to acquire targeted user traffic. In turn, a range of interventions-from modifying search results to seizing domains-are used to combat this activity. In this paper, we examine the effectiveness of these interventions in the context of an understudied market niche, counterfeit luxury goods. Using eight months of empirical crawled data, we identify 52 distinct SEO campaigns, document how well they are able to place search results for sixteen luxury brands, how this capability impacts the dynamics of their order volumes and how well existing interventions undermine this business when employed.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84910151319&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84910151319&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/2663716.2663738
DO - 10.1145/2663716.2663738
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84910151319
T3 - Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM Internet Measurement Conference, IMC
SP - 359
EP - 372
BT - IMC 2014 - Proceedings of the 2014 ACM
PB - Association for Computing Machinery
Y2 - 5 November 2014 through 7 November 2014
ER -