{"id":1695,"date":"2025-11-17T23:34:23","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T19:34:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/how-jeffrey-epstein-used-seo-to-bury-news-about-his-crimes\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T23:34:23","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T19:34:23","slug":"how-jeffrey-epstein-used-seo-to-bury-news-about-his-crimes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/how-jeffrey-epstein-used-seo-to-bury-news-about-his-crimes\/","title":{"rendered":"How Jeffrey Epstein used SEO to bury news about his crimes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On December 11th, 2010, Jeffrey Epstein was fretting about what came up if you Googled him. By this time Epstein had already pleaded guilty<\/a> to soliciting prostitution with a child and was a registered sex offender, and just a few days earlier he had been photographed in Central Park<\/a> taking a stroll with Prince Andrew.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Epstein emailed an associate to complain. \u201cthe google page is not good,\u201d Epstein wrote, according to documents released last week by the House Oversight Committee. He also took issue with tens of thousands of dollars of payments, which appear to have been made to \u201cclean up\u201d results. \u201cI have yet to have a complete breakdown of payments. and the results , are what they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Someone named Al Seckel \u2014 perhaps Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell\u2019s sister\u2019s late partner \u2014 responded later that evening, sharing what he was seeing. The results included Epstein\u2019s Wikipedia page, a New York <\/em>magazine article<\/a>, a \u201cjeffreyepsteinscience.com<\/a>\u201d website, a hair transplant surgeon with the same name, and a story correctly naming him as a sex offender.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is BEFORE the next big sweep. I UNDERSTAND your point about \u2018one thing kills me,\u2019 but the daily beast article is gone, the other ones, including the powerful Huffington Post, are about to be pushed off. And, out stuff is on top.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Epstein and others discuss how to use technical SEO tactics to bump news articles from Google\u2019s first page of results<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

Within the documents released last week, we see Epstein and his circle strategize how to bury unflattering coverage of him on Google and elevate what they want \u2014 search engine optimization<\/a> to try to whitewash the reputation of a rich pedophile with powerful friends. Throughout the documents, Epstein and others discuss how to use technical SEO tactics to bump news articles from Google\u2019s first page of results, cozy up to reporters they perceive as focused more on business than Epstein\u2019s crimes, and how to get a crisis PR machine in motion to launder his digital presence. To those familiar with SEO, these strategies will look familiar \u2014 it\u2019s the same playbook used by everyone from restaurants to news publishers to companies selling tennis shoes and photography services online. Everyone knows Google Search is the gateway to the internet; it\u2019s just that this time, these same practices were deployed as cover for perhaps the world\u2019s most infamous pedophile.<\/p>\n

A few days after Epstein complained, Seckel followed up with good news: All but one \u201cnegative\u201d article \u2014 from The Huffington Post <\/em>\u2014 remained on the first page of results.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Huffington Post is extremely hard to move, because it is so powerful, has millions of links to it, and uploads massive new and original content it on a daily basis with posting from out\u00a0side readers,\u201d Seckel wrote. \u201cWe managed to push it down the page, as it used to be at the\u00a0Top.\u201d Seckel discusses SEO tactics like regularly adding new content to Epstein\u2019s newly created philanthropic website, \u201c[promoting] the other jeffrey epsteins,\u201d getting non-mugshot photos toward the top of Google Images, and manipulating search queries so Google\u2019s suggested search terms are not \u201ctoxic.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many of these practices \u2014 regularly publishing new content, or getting mentions in authoritative publications \u2014 these days are acknowledged by Google itself as good SEO strategy. \u201cI would say they were generally mostly best practices,\u201d Rand Fishkin, a longtime SEO consultant and cofounder of the digital marketing firm Moz, tells The Verge<\/em>. \u201cThere was a decent level of sophistication, although it seemed to me that there could be more done there, and it is very possible that there was more being done that wasn\u2019t discussed in emails.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

One point in the documents that stuck out to Fishkin were claims of manipulating Epstein\u2019s Wikipedia page. The weight Google has given to Wikipedia in search rankings has ebbed and flowed over the years, but Fishkin says there was a period beginning somewhere between 2008 and 2010 where Wikipedia became \u201cabsolutely dominant\u201d for rankings.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis was a big success.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

In the December 2010 email, Seckel claimed an \u201cimportant victory\u201d on Wikipedia: \u201cThe head lines do not mention convicted sex offender or pedophile. Instead, Philanthrophic work, Epstein Foundation, Promotion of Scientists,\u201d he wrote, possibly referring to Wikipedia section headers on Epstein\u2019s page. \u201cWe hacked the site to replace the mug shot and caption, and now has an entirely different photo and caption. This was a big success.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear what Seckel meant by \u201chacked,\u201d but Fishkin theorizes that Epstein\u2019s associates may have had connections to Wikipedia editors, perhaps paying them to edit his page. In March 2020, Wikipedia published a blog post<\/a> outlining some of the edit wars on Epstein\u2019s page over the years that raised questions of paid editing; The New York Times <\/em>in 2019 reported that a Wikipedia editor with a username tied to Epstein<\/a> had gone on an editing spree<\/a> beginning in 2013 and exaggerated details about his charity. The Wikipedia article proved to be significant: According to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology report<\/a> on Epstein\u2019s connections with MIT\u2019s Media Lab, staff at the institution cited Wikipedia as they discussed whether they should accept Epstein\u2019s money. The MIT report indicates that at the time, the Wikipedia entry included details about Epstein\u2019s crimes but also \u201cincluded statements that could be read as undercutting the strength of some of the allegations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese Epstein-related accounts were not enough to prevent the Wikipedia article on Epstein from alerting MIT to Epstein\u2019s offenses, but they did soft-pedal the story enough that MIT managed to ignore the alert long enough to accept Epstein\u2019s money,\u201d a Wikipedia editor wrote in the blog post. \u201cWikipedia\u2019s editors performed their work well in a difficult situation.\u201d Wikipedia didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Wikipedia\u2019s own assessment doesn\u2019t cover the months leading up to the December 2010 emails, but the site\u2019s public record of edits<\/a> offers some hints. One account<\/a> began editing in October 2010, making dozens of changes to Epstein\u2019s page including adding paragraphs of details<\/a> about his charity, removing the \u201cAmerican sex offenders\u201d category from the page<\/a>, and changing the word \u201cgirls\u201d to \u201cescorts.\u201d<\/a> The first edit made by the account was on the Wikipedia page for Al Seckel; the editor added a link to an interview between Epstein and Seckel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By March 2011<\/a>, Epstein\u2019s page had two sections: \u201cLife\u201d and \u201cSolicitation of prostitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Fishkin estimates that a job of this magnitude would cost $100,000, plus monthly maintenance fees<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

The Epstein documents \u2014 with the strange, indecipherable typing style and abrupt endings \u2014 are haunting when you know the depravity they represent. They are also at times deeply pedestrian: In an exchange after the \u201csweep\u201d of Google, Epstein complains about what he\u2019s being charged for SEO services. \u201cI was never told never, that there was a 10k fee per month\u201e you inittaly said the project would take 20.. then another 10. then another 10\u201d he wrote in one message. Fishkin estimates that a job of this magnitude would cost $100,000 initially, plus five-figure per-month maintenance fees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe prices just looked insanely low to me,\u201d Fishkin says. \u201cHere\u2019s a billionaire who supposedly is worried about his reputation as a fucking pedophile coming out in public, arguing over a few thousand dollars. Honestly, the chutzpah is insane.\u201d<\/p>\n

Optimizing search results to fit a client\u2019s narrative is a standard practice for PR agencies \u2014 SEOs are hired to maintain a client\u2019s reputation even when they aren\u2019t scandal-ridden. In a document dated June 14th, 2011, the PR firm Osborne & Partners LLP<\/a> lays out a game plan: minimize mentions of Epstein in US and UK tabloids, establish him as \u201ca pioneering supporter of science and technology,\u201d \u201cclean up\u201d Google, and get him in front of select editors and writers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have hired an excellent team of Israeli experts for other clients, and there are many firms that claim to be able to optimize results this way but fail to deliver,\u201d the document reads, regarding controlling Google content. \u201cI cannot overstate the importance of this, because it is the initial source of information on you for many people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later that year, in December 2011, Epstein\u2019s publicist Christina Galbraith emailed him a summary of tactics to push down bad press from the top of Google results, recommending that they hire Reputation, a company that advertises services to help businesses manage their online reputation. Among the steps Galbraith names: \u201cEliminating the bad information using prevalence and proprietary algorithms; redirecting the way in which Google sequences your information (reassociating it with the positive content).\u201d<\/p>\n

For Reputation\u2019s services, Galbraith tells Epstein it will take approximately a year to be \u201csolidified,\u201d and cost $10,000 to $15,000 a month. Reputation didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment about whether the firm ended up working with Epstein.<\/p>\n

Epstein and associates also flooded Google with flattering articles, taking advantage of the often poorly vetted contributor networks that exist at various digital media outlets. The stories \u2014 removed after The New York Times<\/em> inquired about them in 2019<\/a> \u2014 followed the playbook laid out in the newly released documents, touting Epstein\u2019s business and science interests.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Epstein\u2019s efforts to sanitize his reputation online seem to have worked, at least for a time: In a 2019 story by The New York Times<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>the president of Bard College defended accepting more than $100,000 in donations from Epstein. \u201cIf you looked up Jeffrey Epstein online in 2012, you would see what we all saw,\u201d Leon Botstein told the Times \u2014 <\/em>an \u201cex-con who had done well on Wall Street,\u201d was friends with the Clintons, and donated to academic work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Epstein files are a labyrinth of possible conspiracies, collusions, and networks of abuse and cover-up that happened for decades; it is hard not to get lost in the documents, to fall into rabbit holes and start following threads. But occasionally there will be a reminder that the worst of what happened is not in the files at all \u2014 an email chain will end suddenly and you, the reader, are forced to fill in the blanks of what the parties are talking about, or tiptoeing around.<\/p>\n

In a December 16th, 2010, email, Seckel and Epstein were briefly arguing about pricing for the Google cleanup job \u2014 Seckel told Epstein that he was \u201ctrying to fix up [Epstein\u2019s] mess,\u201d just trying to be helpful. But at the end of the email, it takes a turn.<\/p>\n

\u201cI must talk to you about the island thing asap,\u201d Seckel writes. \u201cWhen can we do that?\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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