{"id":15124,"date":"2019-04-18T08:10:24","date_gmt":"2019-04-18T16:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2019\/04\/18\/news-8873\/"},"modified":"2019-04-18T08:10:24","modified_gmt":"2019-04-18T16:10:24","slug":"news-8873","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2019\/04\/18\/news-8873\/","title":{"rendered":"Explained: like-farming"},"content":{"rendered":"

Credit to Author: Pieter Arntz| Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2019 15:00:00 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like-farming, aka like-harvesting, is a method used by commercial parties and scammers alike to raise the popularity of a site or domain. The ultimate dream of every like-farmer is for his post to go viral<\/a> by accumulating as many likes and shares as possible from all over the world. <\/p>\n

Like-farmers rely on near-instinctual reactions from users by exploiting hot-button topics such as child rearing or animal welfare in their posts. From commercial parties such as web stores, you can expect giveaways and lotteries. <\/p>\n

The difference between legitimate like-farmers and scammers? Scammers will often transform those popular posts into completely different sites that trick users into giving away their personal information<\/a>, forking over money or credit card details, or clearing out their crypto wallets.<\/p>\n

Like-farming is performed mostly on Facebook, but it often expands to other social media platforms, such as Instagram and Twitter. <\/p>\n

Share and like<\/h3>\n

Like-farmers don’t care much how and why their post gets liked and shared, they only want the job done as quickly as possible. <\/p>\n

In the case of scammers, you will often see posts with memes, short movies, or shocking pictures during the like-farming stage that are turned around into a pyramid scheme, illegal casino, or a cryptocurrency Initial Coin Offering (ICO) when the site or domain has acquired enough likes to get a decent amount of traffic.<\/p>\n

When prizes are offered, the endgame usually goes in one of two ways. You end up being scammed into paying a fee to collect your prize\u2014and nothing ever arrives. Or, if the giveaway is legitimate, you might still have to pay for the delivery costs, besides providing the harvester with personal information. <\/p>\n

While larger prizes, such as iPhones or vacations, can sometimes be offered by legitimate sites, those looking to boost traffic in legitimate ways do not typically have the budget to afford such grand awards. Whereas smaller prizes are often given away by real web stores as an incentive to attract attention to their site. The latter are mostly legitimate and spread across a smaller audience. Next time you see a free car giveaway for completing a survey, it’s probably best to avoid it.<\/p>\n

Lotteries tend to attract people that like to gamble, and it makes sense that you will often find an, ahem, illegal<\/em> casino on the receiving end after the site has ascertained a good SEO rating.<\/p>\n

Small games can also be used in like-farming. Recognize this classic line? <\/p>\n

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Only a real genius can answer all of the questions correctly! <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Interestingly, there must be a lot of geniuses out there because everyone gets a score of 10 out of 10. These games get shared a lot because participants feel proud of their excellent results and are eager to let their Facebook friends know. In reality, like-farmers are using their answers and any other personal information they may have given as valuable data to either sell to marketers or use for their own purposes. <\/p>\n

Warning signs<\/h3>\n

Most of the posts created with the intention of like-farming have one or more of these characteristics:<\/p>\n