Top 5 Link Request Red Flags
June 30th, 2010 | Link-Assistant.Com
Guest post by Donald Farber
If you have a blog or a website chances are you're going to get a few link exchange requests.
Most of these emails are pretty mediocre. Some are actually good but then there are the bad ones, the ones that make us cringe, and the ones that get sent straight to the trash bin.
Here are 5 warning signs that an email link request might be a waste of your time:
1. You sell Christian books but my blog has videos of 2 girls and a single cup
Completely unrelated link requests just don’t work.
It's apparent you're sending mass emails because nothing is personalized. You probably haven’t even looked at my website. I guess it serves me right for signing up for all those garbage free directories. I’ve been banished to a lifetime of SEO related spam emails… a fate worse than death!
2. Your website is a travesty
I'm not a web designer so if it looks like I could have designed it then that's a bad sign.
Other warning signs:
- no inbound links
- 550K inbound links, no page rank
- your WHOIS information doesn't match your listed address
- http://www.your-URL-has-like-10-dashes-in-it.info
3. And, and, and
If you're requesting a link exchange then request a link exchange.
Don't ask for a link exchange and if we're selling links and if we're accepting guest posts and if we're hiring and if I can help your uncle by accepting a $2,300,000 wire transfer payment so that he wont get killed by his government.
Set your priorities and then email me back when you get it sorted out. If I were you I would help my uncle before I worried about building links for some spammy websites.
4. Me, me, me
Just like "and, and, and" this person is all over the place but they're not offering my website anything in return.
So, you want me to give you a link, sell you another, give you a guest post, and a job, and you want my banking information to help save your uncle?
Are you going to do anything for me in return?
I didn't think so. So your email goes in the trash bin.
5. Fake hot chick personas
Does this actually work?
I'm new to SEO but I can't believe that the fake hot chick persona ever worked. Every time my SEO friend "Susan" starts flirting with me on MSN it makes me feel uncomfortable.
She keeps telling me that she is from Baltimore but my analytics software says she's located in Hyderabad, India. The weirdest part is that she/he forgot to change her profile picture on MSN so I’m pretty sure that Susan has a beard.
About the Author
This was a guest post from Donald Farber from LifeCover.ca – a website that provides life insurance quotes for Canadians.
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'your WHOIS information doesn’t match your listed address'
Why does this matter? Just about all webmasters hide their address from the WHOIS because of spammers and other lowlifes who can use sensitive information like that to their advantage.
Hiding the address is a good thing unless you're a large corporation who doesn't have to worry about things like that.
This is still the Internet, sensitive information can be abused in ways some can't even grasp.
Whats next? We gonna complain about people not putting their social security numbers out on the open as well?
I should elaborate on that one...
I was referring to the fact that some of these link request emails will have one address on WHOIS, a second address on the actual request email, and then a third address on their website. Analytics will sometimes say they're located in a totally different location.
Hiding your information on WHOIS is a great idea if you don't want competitors or "spammers and other lowlifes" to be able to see who you are and how to contact you. But what you say in your link request email should match what I can easily find out from checking my analytics and taking a look at your links and WHOIS information. It's just another red flag to avoid if you want to get a higher response rate on your emails.
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