Marketing & SEO Discussion List - LED Digest

January 26, 2006

Hi fellow LED-ers,

In recent weeks, I've had several supposed requests for link exchanges.  All I have to do is send in my information.  That might sound "normal" except that the requestor leaves no clue as to his / her own website.

The first few times I saw this, I figured it was just some poor soul overwhelmed with the task of promoting a website without any clear idea how to proceed.  After that, when more "sites" requested these link exchanges, I started wondering if this is some new form of scam.

Any ideas out there?

Tom Anson

Anson Aromatic Essentials

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Written by Vicki Lambert

Actually I was just going to send in the same question.  I don't even sell anything on my site, its just informational and I am getting requests to do links.  Any info would be helpful here.

Vicki Lambert

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Written by Dirk Johnson

Tom,

Without knowing the details, I'll speculate. More than likely this is a "service provider" who has collected email addresses, one way or another, for the purpose of link exchange, and is using them on behalf of their unsuspecting clients. Or it is a site conglomerator who has a lot of their own spammy sites to promote.

If you do accept link requests, then proper linking protocol requires that the requesting site link first, and that the requests include the exact site (with description and title) that is requesting the link, and, preferably, the location of the link back to your site.

You can somewhat "defend yourself" in advance. If you provide an online submission form, they should be using it. If you accept your link exchange requests via email, then set up a separate email address for that, and require them to use it, and not just scrape any email address from your site. If they inadvertently used an email address that you previously used for link exchange, then they should be willing to switch.

Sites that fail to follow accepted protocol are either misguided, or worse. Either way, it's an indicator that they will link to just about anybody, without regard. They are not really good link partners, and they give legitimate link exchange a bad name.

Best regards,

Dirk Johnson, Partner - Operations