Mechanical Turk

[PeterAlexLeigh]

Anyone used the Mech Turk for SEO purposes?

I've heard and thought of various uses for it ranging from genuine credible uses to greyer areas, but if anyone's got any real experience, suggestions or ideas about it, I'd love to hear them!

[cfguti]

I think it can be used on cliking the +1 button!

[StalkerB]

This is a reasonable read on how it can be used for SEO - http://www.wolf-howl.com/seo/how-mturk-protects-my-site-from-panda/

There are also a whole bunch of other legit and (as you say) semi-legit reasons, from the +1/like/retweet suggested by the walrus to UX testing.

Dodgy stuff could be negative reviews for competitors or positive reviews for you on various sites.

Really you're only limited by whatever you can come up with.

[PeterAlexLeigh]

Nice article Barry, thanks. I was thinking it could be useful for gaining twitter use, e.g. increasing twitter followers and getting required links retweeted

[KeriMorgret]

Reading the list of things that violate Mechanical Turk policies is probably a good idea. You can check out a lot of information at https://www.mturk.com/mturk/help?helpPage=policies. Some specific information includes that these types of things are not allowed:

<a name="#violation_examples">What are some specific examples of HITs that violate Amazon Mechanical Turk policies?</a>

• HITs requiring disclosure of the Worker's identity or e-mail address, either directly or indirectly
• HITs requiring registration at another website or group
• HITs that directly or indirectly promote a site, service, or opinion
• HITs that violate the terms and conditions of an activity or website (for instance asking Workers to vote for something)
• HITs that have explicit or offensive content, for instance, nudity, but do not have the Adult Content Qualification
• HITs asking Workers to solicit third parties
• HITs that generate "referred" site visits or click-through traffic
• HITs that ask Workers to take action to manipulate a website's behavior or results
• HITs that violate intellectual property rights of any party
• HITs that require Workers to download software

[PeterAlexLeigh]

Fair point Keri - didn't even realise that they had such policies in place. I wonder how well enforced they are...

[KeriMorgret]

I attended an SMX Advanced session on using crowdsourced tools, and there was a rep from Mechanical Turk there. They are well aware of SEOs and are active in monitoring the tasks that are written up.