What is it with the BS "review" articles and blogs?

[Kano383]

I had noticed for some times that on the Net there are many "reviews" that are clearly the result of some poorly cobbled-up ghost writing by non-english speaking people who moreover don't have a clue of what they're talking about.

Today I was searching about DPM recoil systems, going through reviews, videos, comments and so on available around the Net.

I read an article about the DPM system in a Glock 22 on mountplus.com, a blog. Right after that, I got another article on shootingmistery.com, a blog as well.

Only that... Shootingmistery is an elaborate fake. The "article" was a badly cobbled together plagiarism of the original mountplus article, fruit of some ineffective algorithm used by someone who clearly doesn't speak english. The "author" is supposed to be one Christopher Wade, whom I strongly suspect doesn't exist as such. The site is full of similar fake reviews, that can probably be traced to original articles or posts on the Net. Moreover, Christopher must be working on amphetamines, because he's produced a dozen or more articles in a couple of weeks, all in June this year...

These are the links. The original review:

http://blog.mountsplus.com/dpm-mechanical-recoil-system-for-glock-review/

The bogus one:

https://shootingmystery.com/dpm-recoil-reduction-system-review/


What is that scam about? Generating hits, then getting ad revenue?

 

[LiveLife]

What is that scam about? Generating hits, then getting ad revenue?

From top of the web page:

"Shooting Mystery is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more"
​

From "Learn More":

"... is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program ... earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com ... may contain advertisements, sponsored content, paid insertions, affiliate links or other forms of monetization ... The compensation received may influence the advertising content, topics or posts made in this blog. That content, advertising space or post will be clearly identified as paid or sponsored content."​

 

[Old Dog]

so Christopher Wade (from the shootingmystery.com site):

Christopher Wade is a true outdoorsman. After spending most of his career as a firearms expert and instructor in Nebraska, he retreated to the great outdoors to enjoy retirement.

Christopher’s expertise in handling firearms and hunting gear are what propelled him to create the Shooting Mystery blog. He hopes for all readers to gain useful and practical knowledge for enjoying their time outdoors.

Yes, I guess we can all proclaim ourselves to be a "firearms expert" and "instructor" (of what?)... then retreat to the great outdoors after living in Nebraska? What the heck does that mean?

Good on ya, Chris. Always neat when we learn about more experts... of whom we've never previously heard, but that's okay. No, actually, it's not okay.

From the website review:

And the Glock is one of the most popular auto pistols that you can see and hear in the world. Uh, say what? If that's not an awkward use of language, I don't know what is...

And how's this for some strange sentence structure:

You can shoot your Glock 22 in semi-auto at around one shot per second while you still maintain an excellent accuracy. And, um, is there any other way to shoot a Glock 22 than semi-auto?

OP, I think you're on to something.

 

[Kano383]

so Christopher Wade (from the shootingmystery.com site):
You can shoot your Glock 22 in semi-auto at around one shot per second while you still maintain an excellent accuracy. And, um, is there any other way to shoot a Glock 22 than semi-auto?

That's because the original reviewer was shooting a Glock 22 with full-auto switch (and front vertical grip...). If you read the mountplus.com review, you'll see where dear Christopher copied, threw it in the blender, and pasted.

From top of the web page:

"Shooting Mystery is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more"
​

From "Learn More":

"... is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program ... earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com ... may contain advertisements, sponsored content, paid insertions, affiliate links or other forms of monetization ... The compensation received may influence the advertising content, topics or posts made in this blog. That content, advertising space or post will be clearly identified as paid or sponsored content."​

Here you go... I had not bothered reading the rest of the page's content. An Amazon scam, where they scam Amazon, the Amazon supplier, the guy who wrote the original article and is trying to put useful content on the Net, and the reader who wastes his time trying to make sense of that stupid "article".

The only hope is that Amazon goes after them... If they lose money in the scheme, they will.

 

[Odd Job]

I recommend reading as many reviews as possible, before making a purchase. Place more value on reviews from trusted sites and authors.
Actual user feedback from sites like THR is valuable, in my opinion.