The Wordpress.org and Hot Nacho Scandal: A Tale of SEO, Hidden Links and Google AdSense

The story of Wordpress.org and Hot Nacho, Inc., is not important due to its impact on the World Wide Web as a whole. However, a study of this debacle can be very informative in the way that Google AdSense and search engine optimization (SEO) works, as well as things to avoid in your own SEO.


The Players


To those knowledgeable of the blogosphere, the name of Wordpress.org is most likely familiar. Wordpress.org is the official home page of the open-source blogging software Wordpress. Wordpress is used by bloggers around the world, and is an immensely popular blogging system. It is the creation of computer developer Matthew Mullenweg, one of the two major players in this scandal.


Hot Nacho, Inc. is a name less likely to be known to the general public. The brainchild of young entrepreneur Chad Jones, Hot Nacho's mission is to make search engine optimized content easier to create. The basic component of Hot Nacho's software line is called ArticleWriter, a basic word processor which automatically defines for the writer keywords for various topics, how many times those keywords must be used and how many words must be in the article as a whole.


Essentially, this is designed to allow anyone, no matter how new to the field of SEO, to be able to craft proper keyword articles with a strong (but not too strong) keyword density. This is complimented by Hot Nacho's Article Editor and Article Publisher software programs, which turn these basic articles composed in Article Writer and edit and publish them for the web. Although the well-known Wordpress.org lies at the heart of the scandal, Hot Nacho, Inc. is the driving force.


Background: Google PageRank and Keyword Optimization


Two important elements of the Wordpress.org-Hot Nacho scandal are Google PageRank and keyword optimization. Wordpress.org provided the former and Hot Nacho the latter.