[coditor]

It's no different in the iphone/android app businesses. There are many companies that promise to push you up to #1. We tested one and it worked for 3 days, but it's useless for most apps. They pay or give freebies to people in Asian or African countries to download your app and try it once. For $10,000 it worked like a charm, we went from 100th+ to 1st in the category in one day. Three days later we started dropping and in a few more it was back to the usual. It's a really crummy way to get real customers but I know other people pay on a regular basis to stay in the top 10 just so they keep visible. We won't do that again since the customers aren't real but it was an eye-opener. There are more sophisticated companies that can create the same buzz with better customers but they all cost a lot more $. You can game anything if you are willing to spend the cash.

[babuskov]

I never thought such services could really work. Can you give the name or URL of the one you used? I'd really like to see how they present the whole idea, and whether they believe it is a right think to do.