Minnesota Technology Law
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Attorney at Law - Practicing in Intellectual Property and Technology Law
WWW.KEVINSBRADY.COM WWW.KEVINSBRADY.NET WWW.MNTECHLAW.COM KEVINSBRADY.BLOGSPOT.COM
I'm always open to bona fide link exchanges. Having a solid base of organic back-links to a website is an essential search engine optimization (SEO) technique to help generate traffic and build search engine rankings. Accordingly, this article is not intended to discourage those seeking genuine reciprocal links. It's merely a way for me to manage the flood of requests I receive, and cull out the nuisance messages. But the reality is that link associations must be narrowly tailored to be of good use to any site. Aimlessly throwing links back and forth is not productive, and wastes time -- especially and most importantly, my time.
Sorry to be such a jerk about this, but I cannot count the number of spammy, black-hat SEO junk emails I've received.
My websites are varied in subject matter and objectives, ranging from professional information and articles relating to my practice of law, to hobby and personal-interest material, to commentary and satire. Despite the perceived disparity of topics between my sites, I have a crystal-clear understanding of what I want and don't want to include on them. These sites are a little slice of what I am about, and the 100-plus regular daily visitors know what to expect from them. Among the pages of my sites are numerous links, perhaps too many already. Nevertheless, if there is a site that may be of interest and value to my sites' visitors (read: it has a logical connection to the subject matter at hand), I will tend to add the link.
That said, I still must manage the numerous requests I receive, and the best way is to ignore the vast majority of them. I get most of these from unethical SEO types and spamdex promoters, asking for a hyperlink back to some site -- usually a scraper site or link farm. These requests are invariably (and quite obviously) machine-generated. I can spot 'em a mile away. By contrast, a few other people actually take the time to send individually-tailored requests, although those are extremely rare. So the question is: what to do with all of them?
(1) Make your email request to me. If you don't take the time to ask me personally, I won't take the time to add your site. Period. I won't even take the time to respond to your message, choosing instead to delete it and add to my spam filter. Lack of a proper salutation is a tell-tale sign of spam. I have a name, and it's plastered on all of my web pages. I expect you to address me by it. I have no patience for mass-mailed, spammed requests, and I will take no action other than to dispose of them. If it looks to me that it is spam, I will delete it without even having to read the message contents. Click--bye-bye. Crappy spelling and grammar and subject lines in ALL CAPS are also good indicators of spammy SEO requests. I seem to get a lot of them from India and Eastern Europe.
(2) Make sure that the subject matter fits. If you are simply asking for me to add a link to your site without a link back to my site, I may be amenable to adding it in rare cases -- IF AND ONLY IF I find your subject matter compelling, and your site doesn't annoy me with popup ads, flash-based splash screens, sound, etc. Please explain to me why my linking to your site would be compatible with the objectives of my site. If I determine that it's a good fit, I will be more than happy to add it.
(3) You wrote to me, so you go first. Be sure that you already have a functioning link on your site pointing to my site before asking me to reciprocate. Tell me in your message exactly where I can find said link. That's why they call it a link exchange. Quid pro quo. No link to me, no link to you. Think about benefiting us both. I don't care about our respective PageRank values. If your site has a lower or higher PR than mine, I don't care. It's a big issue for some people, but not for me. All I ask for is a clean, functional link from a relevant site.
(4) Links should be robot-friendly. This is a simple concept that webmasters screw up all the time. If you offer a link exchange, and you have placed a reciprocal link to my page, make sure you don't have "nofollow" or "noindex" tags in your HTML code or robots.txt file (I will check before adding your link). What good is a link to me if the search engines cannot follow it and index it? Your robots tags should read "follow" and "index." Otherwise, it's not a true "reciprocal" link, is it? All of my pages are set up to allow that SEO courtesy to you so that search engine spiders can follow links from them unencumbered. You need to extend the same courtesy to me. Quid pro quo.
(5) Formatting. All links on my sites are text only, using some brief, descriptive anchor text (typically the name of the entity). Sometimes, I add an adjacent sentence or two to further describe the site in my own words. I do not use anything beyond ordinary text-based links and content. I'm perfectly happy with my plain-Jane text -- it's readable and uncluttered. No graphics, scripts, banners, special fonts, buttons, colours, etc. So don't ask me to add them. Don't send a chunk of code or a logo that you expect me to paste in, or some long-winded string of text droning on about why you think your site is so special. A basic description of your site will do; otherwise, I'll just use your site's title. If I choose to place a link, it will be a simple, functional link, and little more. In return, I expect only the same: a text link pointing to my site. Don't cloak the URL with Javascript, use a redirect or doorway page, obfuscation techniques, or otherwise mislead viewers as to where the link actually points. Do not allow the link to frame my site in yours (who uses frames anymore?). An ordinary HTML link to my site is all I want. And above all, make sure the link is functional. Broken links are of no use to me.
I don't waste my time with black-hat SEO requests. Period.
If I choose to add a link to your site, I accept no responsibility for any consequence arising from the placing of said link. I reserve the right to add, remove, and alter links on my sites as I see fit, or to not place a link in the first place. The presence of any link on any of my sites linking to another site shall not be construed as a recommendation, approval or endorsement of the other site or its contents. I may change these policies at any time, and without notice. For more detailed information, please refer to my sites' Terms of Use.
If I already have a link to your site, and you want me to remove it, let me know. Be sure to specify which of my web pages the link is on. The current law does not require me (or anyone else) to remove ordinary hyperlinks, so please leave out the legal threats, citation of caselaw, statutes, etc. I won't be impressed. Just ask and I will simply remove the link to your site as a courtesy.
If you really feel the need to email me with your concerns, questions, comments, rants, etc., then by all means click HERE.
All of the content on my sites has been authored exclusively by me, and is posted for your information and enjoyment. I own the copyright to all of the content. I intend to keep things that way. Therefore, I am not interested in publishing anyone else's material. From time to time I receive unsolicited article submission requests, usually spam from those merely seeking to boost their own search engine rankings. Most of what I have seen is irrelevant to the subject matter and objectives of my sites, is poorly-written and overly simplistic in composition. I have no way of knowing who truly owns the rights to the articles. As such, I wouldn't touch it with a stick. It's simply black hat SEO from those too lazy to pursue legitimate avenues of website promotion. I immediately discard those requests and add the sender to my spam filter.
If you want to publish your articles, I might suggest Scribd, or Squidoo. Don't send your stuff here.
Geeks Aloud blog: Reciprocal link exchange scams.
The Robots Exclusion Standard.
Wikipedia: scraper sites.
Wikipedia: nofollow tag.
Wikipedia: noindex tag.
Search Engine Guide: Link farms explained.
About.com: black hat SEO techniques explained.