In addition to drafting unpaid "interns" to write these articles, Privila
typically preyed on sites whose original owners had forgotten to renew the registration--capitalizing on the existing domain's authority and possible PageRank. And according to John Leyden, the
company promoted its sites like wallofdove.com and soccerlove.com through link exchange spam.
But Privila got the smackdown, as Google dropped all 329 of the sites from its listings, following an exposé written by researchers at Cambridge University's computer lab. Steven Murdoch, a Cambridge computer security researcher discovered the sites via a link invitation spam email he'd received, and proceeded to highlight them in the University's 'Light Blue Touchpaper' blog. Guess they should have been more careful about who they advertised their scam sites to.