Eandaen.com - Gaming Blog

I’m pretty sure everyone who gets involved in online gaming communities will know who Leeroy Jenkins is.  A Warcraft character made famous by a video released on Youtube, Leeroy famously destroyed his Guild’s raid plans for the evening by rushing head first into room full of mobs, wiping the raid (and as a former raid leader, I can tell you that people do this stupid shit all the time, but not quite as spectacularly!).

For those not familiar with the video - here it is:

OK, so it is most likely a setup - a pretty funny video that a few guys decided to release during a time that Youtube popularity was increasing exponentially.  Kudos to the folks behind it - I, like many people, did get a chuckle from watching it. That said, I’m certain none of the people behind the video thought it would become quite as large a phenomenon as it did.  And as with any fad - there are those who decide to try and cash in on the game… A little background first…

• The Leeroy Jenkins Youtube video has had almost 2 million views since it was uploaded.
• Leeroy Jenkins has his own Wikipedia page now.
• He was the centrepiece for a PC Gamer UK article.
• He has been added to the WoW trading card game.
• Leeroy also had the honour of being an answer on the TV show Jeopardy!

Needless to say, a home grown video essentially made the big time (relatively speaking) through the power of the Internet.  It is this popularity that has brought the leeches in though - the arse end of the Internet marketing industry.

Have a look at a Google search for “Leeroy Jenkins“.  You have the usual suspects in the results - the Wikipedia pages, some articles, some videos.  But up the top we see www.leeroyjenkins.net - which at face value would seem like a good result.  But this isn’t the home of the lovable rogue - this is essentially a link farm for a MMO gold selling company.

You see, the online gaming industry has spawned an unfortunate sibling - gold farmers.  These are companies who employ people (or use automated means) to earn in game currency for games such as World of Warcraft or EverQuest - currency that is then sold on for real life money. The online gaming companies don’t like this practice - their games have an economy which has been managed and planned as a key part of the game.  Flooding the economy with “cheap gold” means that this system becomes unstable and part of the game is essentially broken.

That’s where LeeroyJenkins.net comes in - the domain has been used by one of these companies and is using search engine optimisation techniques to ensure that the site is number 1 on Google when anyone searches for the term “leeroy jenkins” - which many people do, due to the popularity of the video.  While searches can indeed find the video on the site, they also find themselves surrounded by links to gold selling companies.  These aren’t simply “adverts” - they are plain text links which helps the target site (the gold seller) rank on Google for other gold selling related terms - which are much more lucrative.

The site is essentially a link farm capitalising on a popular search term - the site gains “link weight” through people linking to the video on the site - that “link weight” is passed onto their business site, which eventually ranks for gold selling terms.

The irony is that most of these links come from gaming sites - people who agree with gaming companies that gold selling is a bad thing - they innocently link to the site, unaware that their link actually helps propagate this industry.

Is Leeroy Jenkins a spammer?  Well, no.  His name is simply being used by search engine optimisation savvy gold sellers to help bolster their business.  But I thought it was an interesting issue and was worth explaining.  Being a blogger, I’m familiar with the SEO industry and I know that there are many sides to it.  One person’s spam is another’s fair game.  As gamers and Internet users I think it is important for us to know at least a little about these issues.  Personally, I don’t want anyone ruining my enjoyment of a game and if I can go a little way to prevent that through seeing what a website really is, then I think that’s a good thing.  Hope you agree. Some things you can do to help prevent search engine spam:

• If you link to sites you are unsure of, add the rel=”nofollow” element to the href link.  When search engines visit your site, they won’t count the link towards the rankings of a site you link to.
• Try and find some good sources to link to rather than just a random site - Youtube, Wikipedia and official game sites are a good start.
• If you come across a site that is plastered in advertising or has loads of links (particularly odd keywords or within the main navigation) to other sites, then think twice about linking to them.

Eandaen

Most Commented Posts

• Leeroy Jenkins - Zero to Hero to Spammer
• World of Warcraft - Wrath of the Lich King announced!