Putin's Troll Factory

Western claims

 * Salutin' Putin: inside a Russian troll house - Shaun Walker, The Guardian, 2 April 2015

Search Engine Optimization
Sputnik exposes Putin's Troll Army
 * It's Worse Than You Thought: The 'Kremlin Troll Army' Exposed - Sputnik, 28.03.2015
 * ''Radio Liberty did discover something, but it's quite the opposite from an ominous troll army which works around the clock to convert the entire world to a Putin-based religion. They found a search engine optimization (SEO) company, likely subcontracting for a political consultancy firm.
 * ''Considering the extremely low impact of such posting, the goal appears to be not to convert public opinion, but rather search engine optimization (SEO): search engines such as Google crawl the web for keywords and links, which are then used to give weight to certain web pages when search terms are entered.

Analysis

 * Manufacturing Consensus: Why the Western Media Fears 'Russian Trolls' - Sputnik, 04.04.2015
 * The Kremlin’s comment trolls are real — as is the media’s amnesia about them - Mark Ames, Pando, April 2, 2015