It is rare these days that a listing gets on the eBay Pulse page
(http://pulse.ebay.com/) on it's own merit. It seems a number of
people have found ways to push their auctions to the top of Pulse
(most watched items on eBay)

What I want to know is, how do people get on eBay pulse?

I read of an exploit that was used in the past involving watching
items as a guest, but eBay claims to have fixed this.

I emailed 'Griff' (eBay's dean of education, hosts eBay radio) and he
replied with this:
 "I have heard of several ways that sellers "grab" watchers. All
involve third party web sites that promote individual listings and
encourage viewers to add listings to their watch list."

(I am asking about the main pulse page only, not the category specific pages.)