Using fake problems as marketing?

[Scott]

Has anyone used a fake problem to generate traffic to their website?

I'm not sure whether my example is a solid one, but I can remember a couple of months ago John Cow had a hacked message on his site making it look as if his site had been hacked, before later it was back online as usual.

Would you be tempted to use an idea like this?

[Michael]

Year John Cow got over 100 back links for that 24 hour stunt. I don't think I would have a fake problem because my readers may not like it, if I interviewed someone who's 14 and I say there making $10,000,000 when there not making anything ( basically a fake interview ) I think it would damage my website a lot!

[cassie]

What is sad is that Fake advertising does work. I am sure it is done all over the net. No, I have never done it and never will.

[Dinner_Time]

That's a good idea. Especially on forums people are willing to help out. You say you have a problem, and everyone goes to look at it. If it's a good site (whether you were lying or not) people will stay. There is a difference between that and lying about an interview though lol.

[thenetfool]

Yeah the thing with John Cow is that it was already a good website at the time. You just can't pull a stunt like that unless you have a good amount of subscribers to fall back on, making sure you get the word out that it was a joke.

This is probably going to be a topic for discussion come April 1st (April Fools' Day)

[MyQute]

FAKE PROBLEM? Do you mean cooking up tales just so to draw interest and clicks to your website? Yes, unfortunately (or fortunately) this tactic works! "Fake interviews" but an interview with lots of "gold" info works well.

Just the other day on TV one woman revealed she developed rashes during her first pregnancy. She wanted something organic and gentle to her skin. That's why she started to import some from California. I mean, there are ALREADY lots of calamine lotion and what not to help with rashes. Her problem wasn't 'geniune'. I didn't buy her story but would I buy her products? MAY BE!

If you wanna create compelling stories to market products, you CAN create stories/interviews, etc but please make it more credible. That's all I can say!

About John Cows' comments

John Cow got 100 backlinks cos a fraction of these people thought it's easier to get good page rankings for their blogs with a backlink from his site, rather than to get 100 backlinks from a site with lower page ranking. I am not sure if THAT is effective cos in the first place, John may have NOFOLLOW tags for commenters' links.

What I am trying to say is, DO NOT COMMENT THINKING you're gonna have a good quality backlink. Comment only if you have something to share or ask.