The SEO parasites buying, exploiting and ultimately killing online newsbrands

I can't say that this story is surprising, but it does show an intense scale that is startling. Even more disturbing that Clickout Media/Finixio are tactically clever enough to abuse the Google copyright claim system. Thankfully the abusive DCMA claim was reversed (no doubt due to pressure on Google), but it seems like a bad sign for the capabilities of smaller outlets to cover these sort of fraud issues.

Clickout Media trades as Finixio. In the year to 30 September 2024, the most recent data available, turnover was £40m, although the company declared a loss of £3m and thus paid no tax.

This is such an old-school SEO hack, it's hard to believe that it still works, but I guess a big part of why it does is the scale, and the AI generated articles constantly being pumped out. It helps that it sounds like it is powered by gambling money.

Multiple freelance writers and employees at gambling, tech and football sites have described how their sites were sold to Clickout Media and rapidly transformed into casino review sites.