As I have mentioned here on the blog (and maybe even too often) I am right now involved in making the roadmap for and promoting a tool for getting better data quality by searching and mashing up available external information in the cloud and in internal master databases.
The tool is called iDQ (instant Data Quality).
In promoting such a solution we are interested in engaging in a dialogue with people who are searching for data quality.
So are a lot of other vendors in the data quality tool market of course.
In that quest vendors are looking for having a better ranking in search engines when people are searching for data quality, data cleansing and similar terms.
An often used technique for that is link building. Here you (over) use the terms data quality, data cleansing and so and every time you make a link from the term to your home page.
Examples are the blog posts form DQ Global and an endless stream of data quality news from Experian QAS.
However some vendors link building is done not only on own blogs and news lists but also on other sites for example by making comments on this blog.
Examples are this one linking to Experian QAS and this one linking to HelpIT.
It is my impression that these comments are made by SEO agencies hired by the vendors. The agencies make comments with a random name like in these cases “Smith” (ah, John Smith, I know him) and “Peter Parker” (or is it Spider-Man).
Methinks: This may help promoting tools when searching for data quality. But it doesn’t help with finding decency.
Liliendahl on Data Quality 
Please accept our apologies. Unfortunately – Spiderman does not work for helpIT systems but incidentally, neither does the new SEO company that we recently fired. Rest assured we would never approve of using such tactics for our SEO and we appreciate you pointing it out so that we could remedy the situation quickly.
Ironically though, Peter Parker does pose an interesting challenge with regard to data quality – ‘How can you use data quality software to automatically exclude comments from superheroes?’ It’s not easy though, because although excluding Spiderman is an obvious call – there must be thousands of Peter Parkers in the world. I think we’ve got Clark Kent in our table already. 🙂
Thanks a lot Chris for a swift response. I agree, there are probably lots of honest hard working Peter Parkers out there. Kudos for slamming the lazy SEO agency.
On a second note, iDQ (instant Data Quality) is actually all about checking if Peter Parker or Clark Kent is a real person on a real address.
Hi Henrik, just read your article and I would like to reassure you that all comments posted on Twitter and all responses made to blogs etc. are made by DQ employees – We don’t hire an SEO agency.
I can reassure you that we try to keep our SEO as organic/natural as we can!
Mary
Thanks Mary. I certainly haven’t seen any such activity from DQ Global. Keep up the good (home) work on your company blog.
Thanks Henrik.