The Power of Fantomas

1 April 2003
Christina Buu-Hoan

Fantomas has a problem. Its dominance on the top-20 results on search engines for its clients' keywords opens Fantomas to the charge that it holds a monopoly on search engine results and is the only SEO company worth doing business with. Angry SEO companies have complained bitterly to engines such as Google and FAST/AlltheWeb to no avail.

There are rumors on the WebmasterWorld grapevine that Google is in discussions to buy Fantomas outright in order to study and control its proprietary cloaking technology that has damaged the prestige of the Google algorithm. Keep in mind that the Fantomas' dominance is purely a word-of-mouth insider's secret as no companies will directly admit to using Fantomas technology.

How reliable are such rumors? Yours truly had to sign several NDAs in order to research these claims and verify conversion rates of companies using the Fantomas services. We can reveal that our source for the Google purchase of Fantomas is the same source for the advance leak that Google would offer a commercial-free version of its search tool via a paid monthly subscription of under $10. As you know, the official Google press release came out two days later.

"It hurts the industry as a whole when any one company's unethical acts continue to be rewarded on engines such as Google," said a spokesperson for SEMPO (leading organization for search engine marketing professionals).

Ralph Tegtmeier responds, "What's unethical? Google has made no direct complaints nor have their users that the results are non-relevant or less relevant. Neither has FAST. I think we can interpret 'unethical' here as jealousy of the success of the Fantomas technology."

Because it now controls the majority of top positions for its clients, I believe that Fantomas has responsibilities (moral if not legal ones) to be careful about its power to direct traffic and influence purchases; and to post some sort of public declaration that it will not deal with potential clients such as the North Korean government (who I happen to know have approached Fantomas repeatedly with requests for top presence on keywords such as "best leader of the free world" and "most enlightened government". Who knows how long Fantomas will remain on top or what would happen if Google bought Fantomas? We're keeping a close eye on the situation and hope Fantomas will make the right choices.

Next week: Google rumored to be buying Microsoft (who still reigns supreme for keywords "evil empire" and "company least trusted by IT professionals for the security of its products")...

Important Note: You've guessed it. Happy April Fool's Day from SearchEthos!