What kind a linking scam is this?

[MrSpeed]

Lately I ave been getting a lot fo email requests for link exchanges. The email nicely says that they have already added my link and that they appreciate a return link.

Sure enough my link is where they say it is. However none of the pages have PR and there is a list of over 100 "keyword stuffed" navigation links on the left hand side.

At the top of each page is a "Keyword Home" and "Add URL" link. Sometimes there is a graphical logo at the top of the page.

Has anyone else seen this? I have no intention of joining this little scam but I am curious what it's called. I don't think it's FFA. There must be some new $50 software package that promises top rankings which scrapes the SE results pages and blasts out emails.

On the other hand the emails may be harvested by hand since I use javascript to try to disguise/cloak my email address on the site.

[martinibuster]

Not a scam. Just mass produced.
Sounds sloppy.

[coconutz]

Mass produced and very sloppy. Far from what I'd consider a link exchange, more like a link farm.

[chrisgarrett]

Using javascript does not hide your email address - if it is in your page source in a way that can be read then it can be read by a bot, no matter how obfuscated. Especially if the email address hiding script was found on a free scripts site :)

(There are even scripts that can read CAPTCHA Images, so far no one has a public script that can read mp3s though ;) )

[tonyww]

a good way to disguise your email address is to convert it to ascii - the browser renders is correctly but it may still look like a scramble of characters to a harvester. I have a free tool that does this if you want to send me a sticky.

[MrSpeed]

The js code to hide my email address splits the email into 3 or 4 variables and then concatenates them together. I used to code posted someplace here. The problem is that for my email address I use [e-mail]. Which would be my first guess at an email.

I was looking at this site that requested the link and to a spider it looks just like any other directory out there.

It just bugs me there is no PR and it is a sloppy attempt at some kind of an authority site. The link text for the categories looks stupid to a human.

[funandgames]

You can have the Java as an off-page script to foil the harvester.