Webwork - 9:24 pm on Mar 27, 2009 (gmt 0)

Makaveli2007, perhaps we'll be blessed by the appearance of a few expert link developers in this thread . .

I wouldn't contextualize the idea as a "joint venture". I prefer to think in terms of mutual advantage, mutual benefit or synergistic linking. These would be links that enhance the visitor's experience or the benefits visitor derives benefit from visiting SiteA and SiteB. It would be the type of relationship that would be calculated to bring the visitor back to both sites, i.e., bookmarking both.

I'm not a link development expert, so perhaps I shouldn't "pass judgment", but FWIW some of the most sanguine guidance/advice I've read on the topic of "unpaid" link development has focused on a) personalized link seeking/exchange emails; b) explaining why there may/will be a benefit for both parties; c) perhaps indicating that you have already linked to their site; and, not forgetting the "call to action", which I might call d) asking if they would consider linking back to your site on a specific page on their site and leaving the wording of the link to them.

I'm sure there are folks very well qualified to either thump me on the head or to validate whether such an approach works.

The other "best advice" I've seen is "if and when" you consider engaging the social media world make it a point to add value to the discussion before dropping a link. Surprising how often that rule is ignored. I can understand bots but people who act like link dropping bots are just lazy, stupid or incompetent. When such people drop links you already know the quality of the website their "no value added" linking will take you to. I've learned my lesson and no longer even bother to look out of curiosity. No value added comments, with links, invariably lead to no value added websites. You get that? ;) Don't do it!

[edited by: Webwork at 9:44 pm (utc) on Mar. 27, 2009]