Wendy Laymon plus French Bulldogs scam – Scrub This!

I was bopping around on Twitter this morning, check out trending tags, when I ran into this tweet –

Further with reference to Wendy Laymon plus French bulldogs: .oPB http://t.co/Qaz2QVFvES

— David Young (@dyriwefi) January 27, 2014

What the what? A quick look at the @dyriwefi Twitter account shows a steady stream of tweets that seem designed only to promote certain brand or personal names, combined with pinpointed keywords. Looks like Wendy Laymon has hired a rep scrubber – more formally known as “Reputation Management” firms. These companies work by

..tracking what’s written about a client on the Web, then doing search engine optimization (BusinessWeek.com, 9/10/07), promoting positive pages, and creating other sites that will push damaging references off the first pages of search results.

What’s interesting is who people within the industry say use their services –

“The majority of inquiries that I get are from people who are looking to do a cover-up,” says Andy Beal, a marketing consultant and co-author of Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online. “They’re not necessarily interested in trying to fix the problem. They just want to make sure that other people can’t find it.”

Apparently, Wendy Laymon notorious French Bulldog puppy mill and scam French Bulldog rescue operator,  is trying to game Google into dropping all of those nasty stories about her way, way down the page. As anyone experienced with SEO knows, second page = death

With that in mind, let me remind you about the great report KOMO News 4 and reporter Jeff Burnside did on Wendy Laymon and her background as a convicted puppy mill, “Loophole lets accused puppy mill operator Wendy Laymon sell French Bulldogs online”

A controversial commercial dog breeder who has been repeatedly fined, had her license suspended, and served jail time near Seattle for animal-related violations continues to sell dogs over the Internet because of a loophole in federal regulations, a KOMO News Problem Solvers investigation has found.

In fact, Wendy Laymon, who has since moved to Missouri and opened a commercial breeding facility with as many as 100 dogs, according to government documents, also runs a website that purports to be a “non-profit, rescue adoption agency” for dogs in puppy mills. However, several sources say she’s selling her own dogs and others for $1,000 or more.

Find the whole story, with video, here.