Pot Calls Kettle Black

THE NAME-NAPPER BAIT AND SWITCH.

Last year, at Recruiting.com, we were all aware that an innovative marketer was buying other bloggers' names as Google Words for his own site. If, for instance, you searched Ragan Jones, an ad appeared linking you not to the Hiring Revolution where she was then writing but to our friend's blog.

I had to laugh, therefore, when I recently saw this wily thought-leader complain that people are hijacking his brand. He was so mad he called them parasites.

So, I googled Ragan. No sponsored links are attached to her right now but Gerry Crispin has one. Google his name and you'll see it at the top of the page.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with this. Just as your daily paper hawks pictures of celebrities to promote itself, we use the celebrities we write about to guide readers to us.