I received this unsolicited email a few days ago.
I develop a data wrangling tool, Easy Data Transform. It not really a ‘data extraction service’. Also, they are implying that they will put you in the top 5 for whatever category you want. If you pay, presumably. Sounds sketchy. I decided to email them back, to find out a bit more.
I got a long reply. But the key bits are:
So basically ‘Top 5’ is actually ‘Top 5 most willing to pay’. Ugh. I feel dirty just reading the email.
Bear this in mind next time you see a ‘Top X of Y’ article. They may not all be pay-to-play. But I suspect a lot of them are.
Successful Software 
Hi Andy,
Another technique I’ve seen people use is to write this type of articles on their own blog, mentioning higher ranking competitors and then including their own product in the top.
So not all of them are for direct pay bad I agree with you that most probably.
It will be interesting to see how LLMs will affect this type of content. If LLMs will generate their own tips based on multiple sources or just be susceptible to training manipulation.
Bogdan
>Another technique I’ve seen people use is to write this type of articles on their own blog, mentioning higher ranking competitors and then including their own product in the top.
And that’s fine. Because everyone knows that sort of comparison is made with an agenda. It is much more problematic when it is a supposed tech journalism site, which you might (naively perhaps) expect to have some independence and integrity.