Everyone who is popular gains detractors along the way. And detractors tend to flock together and vote for other people who share their opinions. That trend virtually guarantees any valuable brand will have dirt ranking somewhere in the search results. The more valuable the brand gets the more people who will gun to unearth the dirt.
Popularity: unranked [?]
What is worse, when Matt Marlon’s Traffic Power cold calls people selling SEO services or when Wal Mart offer SEO services for $25 a month? Both of them carve away at the profitability of real SEO by creating a market for lemons.
Given that many of the industry associatiations are hollow vehicals for self promotion and that services are not as profitable as running your own sites it is going to get harder and harder to find an SEO worth hiring that will actually want to optimize a website for what is deemed a fair market price.
Popularity: unranked [?]
Many Thin Affiliate Sites Look Real
Some of my friends publish fake review sites which organize product recommendations by using the following quality measurement and rating system (affiliate payout per conversion * conversion rate). If people buy it, it must be good. 
I have other friends who do real in-depth reviews, but they use such poor formatting that their content looks less trustworthy and more advertisement-like than fake review websites.
Popularity: unranked [?]