Following the SEO news for a couple of years (which I'm assuming you have been doing), you must remember that at some point, in August 2005, Google publicly confirmed that they had penalized a site. What was so special about it was that it had been the first time ever when they came clean
about it, in a trial against Aaron Wall of SEO Book, who was sued for defamation. I've reminded you that story in order to get to this next story.
Traffic Power, the one that started the legal action in the case mentioned above, a popular name in the search engine marketing industry, was faced with finding out that its Chief Executive Officer, Matt Marlon, had been arrested for allegedly conning homeowners that were faced with foreclosure to (sit down for this one) give the company their homes, as Barry Schwartz of searchengineland.com states.
The modus operandi was pretty easy, really nothing more than fancy wordplay. Carolyn Ellsworth with the Secretary of State's Office explained: "He would locate victims by doing a search of the public records on the Recorder's Office (website) for notice of default that are recorded then contact the victims saying he was interested in purchasing your home."
After the locating, came the convincing that he would be able to help the homeowners recover from foreclosure. "He'd give them documents saying he'd take care of everything. Take care of the payment, take care of paying off the mortgage and I'll pay you some cash too. He'd have them sign a contract of sale", she added. After that he would just put renters into those places, while they thought that they were leasing to eventually own the homes.
What amazes me, to an extent that I cannot wrap my mind around it, is the possible reason (I'm not counting greed) for which he did all this. Any ideas? Any insight?
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