How nVidia blacklists review sites: example Hardware Secrets

[thescreensavers]

Wow... I love Hardware Secrets Reviews, on anything. They always seem honest and the reviewer(s) are always extremely knowledgeable.

 

[yh125d]

Anyone know where to find page visits and such for a website? Kinda wanna compare AT with other tech sites

 

[jvroig]

Anyone know where to find page visits and such for a website? Kinda wanna compare AT with other tech sites

Easiest (but not exactly the most accurate) would be Alexa.com

EDIT: Added some cliffs: (Alexa has some refined rankings per country, I merely got the generic global traffic rankings; lower is better since this shows ranking)
Tom's: 1,222
Ars Technica: 1,877
AnandTech: 4,358
Hexus: 13,943
HardwareSecrets: 24,837

 

[yh125d]

Hmm, Ars is bigger than I though

 

[ZimZum]

Edit: Was looking at the numbers wrong N/M

 

[JSt0rm]

why is tom's so high? I like anandtechs content way better.

 

[evolucion8]

I think that nVidia's marketing team should be shot and who ever is managing nVidia's assets and image. nVidia's technology is awesome and doing stuff like blocking PhysX, renaming stuff, bad marketing crap, TWITMBP dishonest tactics, lying with benchmarks like they did with Alienware M17x comparing a GTS 280M SLI vs a disabled HD 4870X2 and now this. nVidia doesn't need to do this, they can simply impress us with their technology prowess and products. This kind of attitude reminds me so badly about Apple... Is Steve Jobs and Jehn Hsung brothers??

 

[zerocool84]

I voted with my wallet. Got sick of Nvidia bs and got my first ATI card and been very happy with it.

 

[Dark4ng3l]

I think that nVidia's marketing team should be shot and who ever is managing nVidia's assets and image. nVidia's technology is awesome and doing stuff like blocking PhysX, renaming stuff, bad marketing crap, TWITMBP dishonest tactics, lying with benchmarks like they did with Alienware M17x comparing a GTS 280M SLI vs a disabled HD 4870X2 and now this. nVidia doesn't need to do this, they can simply impress with their technology prowess and products. This kind of attitude reminds me so badly about Apple... Is Steve Jobs and Jehn Hsung brothers??

Don't forget the focus group. Seriously out of all that I think the focus group stealth marketing crap has to be one of the shadiest business tactics ever employed.

 

[Voo]

Don't forget the focus group. Seriously out of all that I think the focus group stealth marketing crap has to be one of the shadiest business tactics ever employed.

Stealth marketing? I mean you can say lots of things, but I think the large sig rather gives that "secret" away

 

[Dark4ng3l]

Stealth marketing? I mean you can say lots of things, but I think the large sig rather gives that "secret" away

Maybe you need a small history lesson.

http://consumerist.com/2006/02/did-nvidia-hire-online-actors-to-promote-their-products.html
http://consumerist.com/2006/02/nvidia-focus-group-member-details-hidden-program.html

 

[Lonyo]

Easiest (but not exactly the most accurate) would be Alexa.com

EDIT: Added some cliffs: (Alexa has some refined rankings per country, I merely got the generic global traffic rankings; lower is better since this shows ranking)
Tom's: 1,222
Ars Technica: 1,877
AnandTech: 4,358
Hexus: 13,943
HardwareSecrets: 24,837

clubedohardware.com.br
* Alexa Traffic Rank: 5,324

That's the other site the guy says the reviews go up on (global rank as well). So maybe NV will reconsider?

 

[Dark4ng3l]

clubedohardware.com.br
* Alexa Traffic Rank: 5,324

That's the other site the guy says the reviews go up on (global rank as well). So maybe NV will reconsider?

Well i'm sure that anandtech reader represent a bigger market for high end cards than the viewers of that site though. Anyways it would be hilarious for them to blacklist Anand. That would definitely show everyone what they are all about.

 

[happy medium]

They should blacklist all of them. The gtx 465 reviews were just horrible. No one was getting results comparable to another site. Simply nothing to compare it to.

They should take all there PR money and make there own stealth review sites.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Stealth marketing? I mean you can say lots of things, but I think the large sig rather gives that "secret" away

Not sure if you lurked or had a different account back in the pre first ban Rollo days? I wondered why this guy always, I mean ALWAYS, found a positive spin for an Nvidia card in any 'which is better' type of thread. He is a compensated Nvidia employee but did not display that information. I don't know if AMD has tried this stuff too, but we know for sure Nvidia has.

*EDIT - http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2063999&highlight=

There is an example. It seems fairly obvious that soeone affiliated with Nvidia created an account and tried to promote Nvidia/downplay AMD. Seems kind of shady to me. Who knows if AMD does the same, but we canc clearly see Nvidia does this kind of thing.

 

[Voo]

Not sure if you lurked or had a different account back in the pre first ban Rollo days? I wondered why this guy always, I mean ALWAYS, found a positive spin for an Nvidia card in any 'which is better' type of thread. He is a compensated Nvidia employee but did not display that information. I don't know if AMD has tried this stuff too, but we know for sure Nvidia has.

No firsthand experience at AT, but yes I remember that on other sides, but that's rather old news and it's not that Ati was always an angel (anyone who didn't try to cheat on benchmarks with driver "optimizations"?).. though I'm hard pressed to think of any recent events where they did something - maybe their're just lucky or cleverer than Nvidia, but I like to think that they're really just on their products.

Don't think that that thread falls into the same category as that marketing trick back than.. rather unprofessional and I'm hard pressed to think that Nvidia would be THAT unskilled, also there are lots of fanboys who'd do something like that without any incentive, but who knows.


@Dark4ng3l: Yep, 4 year old news, I do remeber that, but I think in that case you should use the past tense, since that's old history and the current focus group members really don't try to hide their affiliation... ff you meant it that way, fine we agree.

 

[gorobei]

I suspect the stealth marketing is still going on in less official/contracted ways.

A thread back when the 5870 came out asked what was more desirable Eyefinity or 3Dvision. When i posted my opinion favoring eyefinty some new member posted a response that mirrored almost exactly the talking points that nvidia was using to counter AMD's release momentum(i.e. we[nvidia] have no new product, but here's why you shouldn't buy the new radeon 5800 series).

That person only ever made that 1 post and has never shown up again. Not saying he was definitely on the payroll but he was part of some agenda.

 

[taltamir]

They should blacklist all of them. The gtx 465 reviews were just horrible. No one was getting results comparable to another site. Simply nothing to compare it to.

They should take all there PR money and make there own stealth review sites.

at first I thought you were joking... but after your defense of the DRM in drivers disabling physX if an AMD IGP is detected as legitimate business practices I am not too sure anymore...
So, are you joking or are you serious?

 

[Voo]

That person only ever made that 1 post and has never shown up again. Not saying he was definitely on the payroll but he was part of some agenda.

While that's suspecious, there's always the problem to distinguish Nvidia fanboys that act on their own, from really payed (or otherwise "favored") stealth marketers. Though I mean last time they did that, it was rather fast revealed wasn't it? After all they need to find those people somewhere, at best someone who's already lots of posts in some forums and I don't think that they could keep that secret.. though I assume it's not like they would learn from their old mistakes, so who knows?

Hard to say, but I think even if Nvidia has the appropriate history for that stuff we can't just throw suspiciouns around as if they were facts.

 

[taltamir]

While that's suspecious, there's always the problem to distinguish Nvidia fanboys that act on their own, from really payed (or otherwise "favored") stealth marketers. Though I mean last time they did that, it was rather fast revealed wasn't it? After all they need to find those people somewhere, at best someone who's already lots of posts in some forums and I don't think that they could keep that secret.. though I assume it's not like they would learn from their old mistakes, so who knows?

Hard to say, but I think even if Nvidia has the appropriate history for that stuff we can't just throw suspiciouns around as if they were facts.

translation: you don't need to pay someone money to have him act stupid.

 

[JSt0rm]

Though I mean last time they did that, it was rather fast revealed wasn't it?

uh, no. In fact rollo had people banned for accusing him of being a stealth marketer. No he flew under the radar for a long time.

 

[jvroig]

Though I mean last time they did that, it was rather fast revealed wasn't it? After all they need to find those people somewhere, at best someone who's already lots of posts in some forums and I don't think that they could keep that secret

That's not how it happened, exactly. They (AEG, the marketing agency nVidia contracted) had employees/agents to register into several forums, and they were required to post many times everyday in each one of those forums - that was their job. Eventually and swiftly, they would garner much post count, and in the (not very accurate) estimation of "forum" people, they would become "credible" due to the post count (perhaps >1,000 posts). Then, when they have garnered some amount of trust or influence in the forums, they would then bombard the forums with nVidia talking points.

And likewise, it was not "fast detected". Until news broke out about the shady AEG tactics, these people were polluting the forums (here and elsewhere), and infuriating those who knew better about the tech. The shills even often managed to get legit members banned since they (shills) knew how to abuse the rules and were quite level-headed since it was a job to them, nothing really that evokes passion from them as it would from real enthusiasts. It was only until the news that admins (even here) finally banned the shills themselves, but before then it was mostly the members that got infuriated and baited into flame wars that got the ban stick.

I was not here myself, but that topic intrigued me a few months ago, and I read the reports on news sites, and reviewed old threads here before and after the AEG news broke out.

EDIT: jstorm01 beat me to it as I was typing this narrative

 

[ronnn]

They should blacklist all of them.

They should take all there PR money and make there own stealth review sites.

Certainly don't understand why kyle still gets their stuff.

The pr money has bought significant influence on a couple of forums and they all present as such honest fan boy users.

 

[taltamir]

Back in the day people got too happy about accusing people of being shills. I would be accused of being an nvidia shill about 3 times a day, and an ATI shill about 2 times a day... often accompanied by flaming.

Oddly enough, it has been a very long time since anyone accused me of being a shill at all. months

 

[3DVagabond]

This is why, unfortunately, you must read all of the reviews (or at least a lot of them) and then distill it down to make a decision.

Besides the underhanded stuff, you can have honest mistakes as well as bad reviewing habits creep into the equation. Some sites, who like to give you huge laundry lists of model comparisons, don't actually retest the cards. You'll see results from 6mos. or longer ago, sometimes even with different test equipment, directly compared.