How You Shouldn't Ask for a Link

Feb 11, 2008 - 9:25 am 4 by
Filed Under Link Building

Many people need links. It's what you do to gain favor in Google's eyes and get ranked higher. I get hundreds (?) of link requests every day. Most (all?) of them are completely junk. A WebmasterWorld thread goes into these junk requests in detail. These are user-contributed suggestions on how you shouldn't do when you ask for a link:

  • Don't mention anything nice about the person's site you are writing to. Keep the focus only on your site and how important your site is.
  • Address your email to "whom it may concern" even if the person's name you are sending your link request/demand to is in the title of his or her site, on the home page and listed again on the contact page. Remember your site is the important one, so it doesn't matter if you show an interest in the other person's name or web site.
  • Mentioning Google PageRank in every other sentence
  • Don't just ask for a link - prescribe *exactly* how the link must appear, with the most side-splitting text you can think of - or maybe a tasteless image.
  • Send reminder emails, including a scary warning that the useless reciprocal link WILL BE DELETED if the requested link is not added within X days.
  • If you don't get any response, call the site in question and ask for "sales". Salespeople will usually give a truly unique reaction to a call that doesn't have anything to do with selling stuff.

Oh, there are a ton of other funny "don't ask for a link this way" list items. But if I listed them all for you, you'd have no reason to visit the forum discussion. So, without further ado, forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

 

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