Forum Moderators: martinibuster
The link request I got this morning top part of the message made me cringe, heres a snip it.
To....I have just visited your website and found it complimentary to our own.
I would appreciate the opportunity to exchange text links with you in
order to help us both toward a better ranking on Google.com.Your link will be placed on our website directory at...
Two things with this, the mention of google PR sticks me the wrong way, ill link anyone else who asks for it not mentioning google. Should I penalize the guy just for saying google or because he only wants to put me on a 'links' page should i refer him to my top sites like I do with everyone else who doesn't get the serious links on my site.
When you guys and girls get email like this what do you tend to do? Im not hording my PR but this email spooked me :D <<plus the site is a e-comm site and doesnt offer me affiliate program options ;0 >> And if this is someone on WebmasterWorld ;) Hi! Should sticky me vs. e-mail, it then lets me know were on the same page and im more than willing to help out the locals to me!
I like to hear linking stories, though I'm afraid one of my pseudo names will pop up ;)
Come over and tell me your vote for what makes a great link partner,
[webmasterworld.com...]
teeceo.
The thought > if I need to ask someone else whether to link to someone or not > that's is a darn good indication that your first impression was a correct one.
If the site itself is of good use to your visitors > share some knowledge or at least advise him that WebmasterWorld helps to define what is a good approach to requesting links, pitfalls to avoid, etc.
In the end, if > he follows your advice you will get a better deal out of it and so will he.
...but something that doesn't often get mentioned is the quality of the other outbound links from the requesting site.
I know exactly what EliteWeb is talking about in this case - that kind of email often typifies a link request where you find the link page to be stuffed full of hotel directories and plastic surgeons from around the world. So if you want a link from me, then you'd better be careful of the company you keep. ;)
On the other hand I do have links with another site which raised some automatic "flags" with me ("iffy" part of world, e-commerce, not directly related). So why did I link? Because they look like they know what they are doing and both our linking systems were flexible enough that we could create a fit for one another. I keep an eye on them, as I'm sure they keep an eye on me.
Even assuming very strict criteria for inclusion, I must say templated links to third parties make me somewhat nervous.
I offer a link exchange for those who want to do the serious links, these links show up on every page (templated) and then I offer a top sites feature with tons of people on it.
In other words... "a link farm".
A better approach... a link on every page going to a internal web page and then that page links out to the linking partner site.
This way the quality of the link is improved and the quantity of outbound links is reduced... and no link farm.
a link farm? i dont have many ant on my farm :)
This seems to be the "standard" email sent by a certain link share program.
I other words the email itself is a template and sent automatically to the list of url's that the perpetrator feeds in.
I would doubt that they would ever know whether you replied or not!
