viral campaign

I read with interest about Dean Hunt’s bizarre Google request where an online store owner threatened him via email since Dean’s blog ranks better than the store for a particular keyword term. He writes for a partial SEO-themed blog, yet he needed more advice from individuals on a number of forums (with a link to his story, of course, one of which was removed).

I wrote about the story myself (since I think it’s a good lesson regardless), but I can’t help but wonder if this was all a scam. I mean, after all, Dean wrote on October 4th that he will be creating a viral campaign with the intention to promote his site via related sites. And since his site is still really in its infancy (138 blog posts in 6 categories since June), I don’t think that his blog could truthfully rank better than an established online store.

Without providing the search terms in question for verification, nobody is really able to believe that Dean is actually telling the truth.

Well, maybe Matt Cutts can — if Dean really told him.

So — which is it?