Indonesian SEO Contest and WordPress.Com

One of the latest topics in Indonesian blogosphere is about an SEO Contest. It’s a competition to bring the “ngadutrafik 2007” to the top position in search engines. I think the idea is similar to SEO World Championship. What I understand, this is how the contest run:

  • Participants create a new site at WordPress.Com.
  • Do some strategies to bring “ngadutrafik 2007” to search engines.

I think, this kind of contest is a challenge. It seems that the interesting part is not about the contest itself. It is more about how the participants — who opened an account at WordPress.com — got their accounts suspended. The very first questions is: Why?
Let’s start from what Moh Arif Widarto wrote at his blog.

I have an account on WP.com. So, I create new blog addressed on http://tipsngadutrafik2007.wordpress.com. Calupict had reported to Matt that WP.com is used for this SEO contest. He wanted Matt to take action soon to overcome that missuse of WP.com accounts. What I dislike from Matt was his action in suspending accounts without notification to the accounts owner. In my opinion, Matt has to email the owner of the suspended account. Inform they why their accounts is being suspended.


After reading some blogs talking about this contest, there are some points:

  1. Nenda Inasa Fadhilah (Nenda) thought that this contest scenario (signup at WordPress.Com only for this contest) might abuse the service. (source). And she had plan to report it to Matt. I am not sure whether she did reported to Matt or not.
  2. After that, some blogs were suspended (by WordPress.Com team).
  3. The participants (some) were angry. Not only because they had their accounts suspended, but also to Matt and Nenda.
  4. The contest organizer changed the contest rule. The participating sites should resides in a domain (as subdomains).

I think:

  1. Nenda probably did an initial action. If she reported that ‘something happened related to WordPress.Com service’. Her report (if she made a report) probably can be paraphrased as, “Dear WordPress.Com, there is a contest. It uses your service, could you please take a look?”. If she did this, I think Nenda could not be blamed.
  2. WordPress.Com team has the full control on this. One thing we all have to understand is that, “When you sign up at WordPress.Com, you’re a WP.Com customers. And WP.Com has rules.”
  3. WordPress.Com team should take actions to keep WordPress.Com run smoothly. And they have their own definition of the words: abuse, breaking TOS, etc. When we are talking about WordPress.Com, we are not talking about hundreds of accounts. We are talking about more than 800,000 accounts.
  4. Before users got suspended, they hope that they got initial warning first. Yes, it will be great. But, we are talking about a large-scale of service.
  5. Yes, it is an SEO Contest. But if you do some actions that is not ‘right’ e.g. spamming blogs by off topics comments to get backlinks… please rate your own strategies.

If you have your WordPress.Com accounts suspended, and you think that you do NOT break the TOS, just report to the WordPress.Com management. If you do not get response, just be patient. You are not the only customer. Anyway, I wrote about WordPress.Com few months ago. It was about how Luthfi got suspended. And, he got his account back.
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Comments

11 responses to “Indonesian SEO Contest and WordPress.Com”

  1. Wah siyal post pake bhs inggris pulak :D
    menurutku memang pada intinya kasus ini bukan soal lapor melaporkan, akan tetapi terlebih kepada tingkat kepedulian dan kebersamaan itu. Seandainya sipelapor memberi masukan (karena dia tahu tentang TOS yg ada) kepada panitia dan peserta lainnya, mungkin hal ini tidak akan terjadi dan bisa dicegah sedini mungkin, jelas tentu tidak perlu ada cacian berbuntut makian kepada sodara sendiri (se Negara). yah sekali lagi inilah proses kita belajar untuk lebih menghormati orang lain, baik dari yg bersalah maupun yg merasa dirinya benar.

  2. Pak Thomas, Salam Kenal. Dari pada nebeng pada WP (yang memang harus mengkontrol traffic volume), kenapa nggak set-up site sendiri (eg. hosted) yang menggunakan WP software. Setiap peserta kemudian bisa minta account sendiri. Lebih bagus lagi, kalau peserta turut menyumbang Rp. [TH].

  3. Pak Hardjono,
    When I first read the contest rule, I was indeed confused about a mandatory clause that contestant have to open a new blog on WP.com. But, I never thought that my participation in that SEO contest would result a suspension from Matt.
    I have written in many comments that I would never contact Matt or WP.com like what Pak Thomas has suggested. I prefer to back to Blogger and blogging from there. If, for example, Matt or WP.com reactivate my WP.com account, it does not mean that I will forget this experience. I am used to blog with Blogger. I run more than 5 blogs and everything runs well.
    Nenda has confirmed that she (not he like what I wrote on my post) reported two blogs to Matt. I promise to post my tipsngadutrafik2007.wordpress.com contents (only two posts because it still was in starting period) to be analyzed by Nenda and all of you whether the contents are containing spam or not. I will post it on arif.widarto.net, not my http://www.widarto.net.
    Perhaps some one would voluntarily translate them to English so Matt’s blindness can be cured. The contents did not contain spam. I created tipsngadutrafik2007.wordpress.com to participate in that so called SEO contest and give tips on how to win the contest. If someone judge a content in Bahasa Indonesia but we all know that he has no ability to understand what things that is written, I think that man is a stupid guy.
    Then, … I know that I can do nothing. I only used a free service from WP.com and I have to accept what WP.com want to do with my account. I have no intention to email Matt or WP.com even if they want to delete my account and the blogs related to that account. See… Blogging service is not only provided by WP.com. There are lots of free blogging service out there.
    Matt, my account is honestthought. I give my confirmation if you want to delete it. I give my permission to you. What a pity Matt. A man who has no ability in Bahasa Indonesia but judge a blog content that is written in Bahasa Indonesia. Matt or WP.com team is the same.

  4. @#1 Panitianya nggak ngerti TOS wp.com? Masak iya sih?
    Salah satu hal buruk yang masih lazim sekarang ini: main teken kontrak tanpa baca aturan dulu. Setelah aturannya dilanggar dan kontraknya dicabut malah misuh-misuh ra karuan.
    Common sense. You are going to held a competition using a free service without checking first whether the service provider approve or disapprove of such action? Or maybe you think you won’t get caught?

  5. Terimakasih atas pembenarannya, atas kelalaian kami dalam menyikapi kejadian yg kurang berkenan di pihak WP.
    Aturan kompetisipun sudah dirubah total dan lebih ketat, serta tidak mendekriminasi dengan sebuah CMS tertentu.
    terimakasih
    http://www.masterseo.web.id

  6. Blog Wadehel di Bajak Lagi?
    Ya.. ya.. saya tahu, pasti hanya judul itu saja yang anda simpulkan kan? tenang wadehel. ketakutan anda yang anda tulis di blog anda itu ngga perlu koq. kami ngga akan benar-benar merebut account anda
    Orang-Orang Yang ngga menghargai pekerjaan orang …

  7. I have a 2 years old blog at wordpress.com suspendedfew days ago due to an outbound link to my other blog in the same account that has registered to join the contest. WTF ! Matt is so silly.

  8. @ no 4 :
    karakter orang kita yang malas membaca TOS, Manual Book dan Buku Petunjuk?
    http://nurulwibawacahya.blogspot.com/2007/04/malasnya-membaca-buku-petunjuk.html

  9. :ngakak! Sampai sekarang yang teratas blognya jay. Padahal menurut lajang berambut panjang ini kan lebih baik mengadakan kompetisi konten atau berbahasa yang baik, misalnya. Ngomong-ngomong blog Polisi EYD sekarang pindah ke mana soalnya setahu saya terakhir diajak Mas Ari ke weblogs.or.id ya. Padahal saya mau tanya benar mana mempertanyakan atau memertanyakan, mempelajari atau memelajari, dan memasok atau memasok.

  10. thanks,its great

  11. Oh my god, this is silly. Didn’t expect that from wp.com. Hopefully at least the real blogs will become usable again.