Why do you contact me to link to your site

a waste of time for what?

[JohnRoy]

I've bolded some of the text [and inserted some sidelines].

Greetings;
My name is [stupidio], and I'm in charge of getting links for my website. I have visited your site and I think a link exchange could benefit us both because they have a related subject. [The only relation I've seen is that both have a .net in the URL.]

I'm offering you the following: If you place a link on the homepage of your site [tuna-widgets.net], I'll place a link to your website in my site.
And these are the websites where I would place a link to your site:

pharmacy-widgets.net

As you can see, this site have a decent PR [lie] and have a related subject [another lie], so if you are interested, reply to this mail.

Best regards

The email address was not collected by a robot. Someone took the time and effort to find it manually.
Why did they send this email?

[tangor]

Fishing for backlinks. I generally ignore these requests...

[JohnRoy]

There's no way someone would exchange a link within a site on PR0 for their home page outbound.

[tangor]

Nobody said it was a smart request... but it remains what it is: "Link to me and I'll link to you..." and...

Why even entertain that request? As I said, I ignore these.

[g1smd]

I once replied to one of these mails, said I would provide a link, and directed then to the page the link was on.

The link was written to the browser window using javascript, and the text around the link said "never buy anything from this site, they are a bunch of crooks and criminals".

Said link builder then wrote at least once per week pleading for the link to be removed, which was ignored.

[topr8]

>>Why do you contact me to link to your site

i totally get your point JohnRoy and i assume it is a volume thing, no-one with any sense would do anything but trash the email, however not everyone has much sense

... hence direct marketing of all kinds works.

[JohnRoy]

the text around the link said never buy anything from this site, they are a bunch of crooks and criminals

Criminals?! Hmm. Just for asking something bizarre?

On the other hand, if they're indeed evil, I wouldn't engage in a fight. Crooks and criminals can take your site down.

[g1smd]

The site was somewhat dodgy anyway; not a fully legitimate B&M business.

[tangor]

How weird... I've gone at least three weeks without any of these irritating requests, and within twenty minutes of responding to the OP and now I've had five (5!) come through. Plague on you all! :)

It's just a game of numbers... spam it out and see who bites... and most of the ones who do are the youngest (in experience on the web, if not actually young). All they want per 10,000 tries is 1 in return...

[JohnRoy]

spam and get bitten...

Ok, but at least try it using some sense.
i.e. send out mass mail with a notice that their link is already there! [have the link written to the browser window using javascript as mentioned above] and put a permanent link for those who respond.

[Lame_Wolf]

JohnRoy, I receive similar emails. They all state they are related. None of them ever are. I really do think that they never even visit the site in question.

I've had them asking for drug sites, xmas trees, outdoor sports.

I did write to one of them once. They said that their site is PR4 and your link is on example.com/links.php

I had to explain to them that their homepage is PR4 and the page that you put my link on isn't even cached. I then told them that PR stands for page rank, not site rank. I never heard back, but similar email come... but I delete them from the server and do not even bother downloading them.

[leadegroot]

I sent out a (friendly, helpful) link request recently and got a reply back that 'my link is on page x which they are waiting for Google to index'.
This read oddly for the industry (small - hobbyist level), so I did a doubletake and realised that a) the response was from the website owner's seo company and b) page X wasn't linked from anywhere on the site.
Waiting for Google to index it indeed!
I didn't dignify them with a response - it was easier to get the bad taste out of my mouth that way.

So 'amateurishness' can go both ways...

[Lame_Wolf]

Waiting for Google to index it indeed!

<chuckle>

Just received another one this morning. Still claiming to be related... sunglasses this time. sigh.

Then there are the ones that want to exchange links with you. Their site is xyz.com and want to put your link on abc.com

Or... they write to you wanting to exchange links, but you have to add your link first, and then they will add theirs.

When I used to do link exchanges, I would add their link and wait for it to be cached by G. Then I would write them a personal email asking for a link and that it was cached etc. I would also find out who I am writing to, and not "dear website owner" type of thing.

Things have changed over the years, and not for the better. :(

[creative craig]

Why did they send this email?

Because he/she is an idiot! I could elaborate, but I gotta go I have 1,000 emails clogging my Outbox ;)

[travelin cat]

Responding to these requests is not only a waste of time, but it encourages them to do more of the same.

Just throw them out and get on with your day.

[matimer]

Do you guys respond if the email isn't a lie, if it's a genuine decent link to trade for? ...or is that not how things are done these days?

[ebound]

Responding to these requests is not only a waste of time, but it encourages them to do more of the same.

Just throw them out and get on with your day.

Agreed. If anything, a response validates the email address and will likely trigger more.

[buckworks]

Many of these emails use standard verbiage which your email could probably recognize and filter out so they never make it to your inbox.

It's unlikely that you'd be missing out on great opportunities by filtering boilerplate text.

If the person/company is not smart enough to customize the boilerplate link begging text, there's a good chance their site will be a dud too.

[Lame_Wolf]

Do you guys respond if the email isn't a lie, if it's a genuine decent link to trade for?

Yes, but it rarely happens. I cannot remember the last time when one was legit.

[JohnRoy]

> I cannot remember the last time when one was legit.
Agree.

[tangor]

Do you guys respond if the email isn't a lie, if it's a genuine decent link to trade for?

Dang few actually come through, but those which are legit are quite obvious... and often lead to fun, interesting and sometimes profitable relationships. Sorry if I gave the impression I don't look at these things... I just don't respond to them, though there's 1 in 10,000 spams that might actually be worth a second look. Pick your poison based on time/reasonableness and go from there.

[dvduval]

You can hire people from places like the Philippines and Bangladesh to do this all day long 40 hours/week for somewhere between $0.67-$4.00/hour. The problem of course is the quality is often lacking and the people don't care about their job. With some training, I would assume results can improve. I don't know though.

[hal12b]

.67-$4.00 per hour? Send me the contact details.

[Lorel]

Sometimes I get what looks like legitimate requests but when I check the site 99% of the time the page they intend to put the link on isn't even linked from the home page, i.e., an orphan page or it's full of no-followed links. I've been tempted to comment I'm not that stupid but then they'd sell my email.

[JohnRoy]

>>> $0.67-$4.00/hour. The problem of course is the quality is often lacking and the people don't care about their job.
As they say: you get what you pay for.

[austtr]

At the risk of seeming less than politically correct, is it only me that gets all this crap from people with Indian names using gmail and hotmail accounts? It makes me wonder if the entire sub-continent is involved in an email spam cottage industry.

Mind you with the countless millions I am about to receive from all my lotto winnings around the world topped up with some very tidy inheritances waiting to be collected, I won't need to worry about this internet stuff much longer.

[mil2k]

The link was written to the browser window using javascript, and the text around the link said "never buy anything from this site, they are a bunch of crooks and criminals".

lol.

At the risk of seeming less than politically correct, is it only me that gets all this crap from people with Indian names using gmail and hotmail accounts? It makes me wonder if the entire sub-continent is involved in an email spam cottage industry.

The way I see it, people in Indian subcontinent do it manually. Others write code and email harvesters to send in your lotto winnings or offer you best prices for pills or the best casino deals ;)

The email address was not collected by a robot. Someone took the time and effort to find it manually.
Why did they send this email?

Some rookie who was taught to browse websites or whois to find actual email ids . Also given a template to email. And probably has to submit a daily report of how many link requests were sent out. Guess what part of the world the person would be in ?

[JohnRoy]

> Guess what part of the world the person would be in

Good for nothings can be found in any part of the world.

[anallawalla]

Yes, Indians certainly send such emails manually and some rookies are paid to harvest email addresses manually, as mil2k says. But their nationality is not relevant.

The person harvesting isn't usually the one who sends the bulk emails, so neither knows the bigger picture. Neither of them could be remotely described as SEOs, although they might say they work for an SEO outsourcing company.

I rarely get such emails asking for a link, but I get at least two every day from the New Delhi area ("Noida\NCR" region - always with a backslash). They offer SEO outsourcing, link building and other services. The number of people in their outfit changes but the core message comes from a boilerplate. Occasionally they add the word "amazing" as part of their A|B testing, I presume.

I also get Indonesians sending me large spreadsheets with samples of their backlink sites each month. I keep all of these for research purposes. The current set usually shows a home page PR of 6 or less but the one from 3 months ago shows a greybar. Matt Cutts could have fun with these lists. Then again he could well be on the same email list? :)

When I feel so inclined, I block entire IP blocks for the particular ISP but eventually someone complains that they can't access my sites - I do have some friends in the country, so I unblock them. :)

I usually treat gmail addresses where the name is followed by numbers as spam and am seldom disappointed.

Once in a while I do get a genuine contact form submission for a cancer-related play site and I do reciprocate the link if appropriate. Such emails seldom mention PR or where they have placed the link. It's easy to spot such emails from the spam.

[ChrisCaptivate]

Sad to see what a bad name people like this is giving to Link Building...... One of the reasons why Link building is being frowned upon is because of these "template" link building mails. shocking... and sad :(