How not to ask a high PR site for a link!

I had the same.. I just deleted it.

hands up any publisher that ever opened the mailing?

and then, hands up again any publisher who might have inadvertantly opened the mailing and got past "Dear Link Partner" before hitting delete?

I've never really understood the logic of this kind of spam as all it does is encourage people with no clue to form a little network of clueless people.

Who earns any money out of this?

lol - link building defo works if you do it properly!

Yes I use a template when requesting links but you make it as easy as possible for the person you're emailing to add the link and you never get cocky. Had a loans site contact me saying that if they couldn't find there listing my link would be removed. But did they check to see if the link was there??? NO, they sent the same email to everyone regardless if the link was present or not. THAT is how not to conduct a link building programme!!!

There is a view amongst webmasters that you shouldn't link to a site with a PR lower than yours - that is complete cr@p. They may have a low PR now, but 3 months down the line it could well be a 6/7!

Link for your users, if the link would be of benefit to your users then do it.

How times change.

I remember the heady days 3 years ago when I spent most of my time trying to swap links with people far bigger than me, basically through having some pretty unique and amusing content.

Now I rarely go link hunting. I have an affiliate program to offer instead of just an exchange although I offer both.

I get some really dreadful sites asking for links exchanges from me. I feel sad when I can't use their site for whatever reason but more often than not they have nothing I want to send my visitors to.

Why can't they get some decent content together? I'd link to something good.

I received couple of link requests starting:

Dear Feedback,

My name is......?

Could've changed Dear Feedback to Dear Webmaster.

Let me guess, they wouldn't by any chance sent the email to feedback@yoursite.com would they?

I had one similarly addressed to Dear Reviews - and the email address it was sent to - reviews@......

Someone obviously trying to be clever with their email address harvesting!

One of my sites is getting anything from 10 to 20 requests a day for links. And I thought I would share what these numpty’s are doing and why you should not try this at home

Quote:

---

Dear Link Partner,

I contacted you a few days ago about exchanging links with my search engine portal REMOVED. We share the same online audience but it doesn't compete with your website.

I'd give your site a prominent listing on my resource page at SOME CRAP PAGE WITH NO PR, if you would be willing to do the same. I already placed your link in our database: YOUR ON OUR SPAM LIST, which can be added very easily.


If you remember, I am offering you to place a text link on THOUSANDS CRAP NO CONTENT PAGES of our directory pages. This will expose your link to tens of thousands of visitorsto our directory on a DAILY basis!

Thanks for your time and assistance and I am looking forward to a mutual beneficial link partnership.

REMOVED OWNER NAME

P.S. Please place a simple text link (between the lines)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Computer and Business Directory
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
on your links page: PR 7/10 PAGE THAT COST ME THOUSANDS TO GET
Once we verified the link is there we will add your listing to our resource page as well as a text link to thousands of directory pages![/quote]

The comments is me adding in stuff LOL

Now the first problem with this types of email is they have bought some program that has me in the database so I end up getting loads of these emails daily that I just ignore.

Never use link partnership programs and never take a database and spam it, as loads of other will have done it before you. No serious link partnerships are ever developed this way.

2nd if you really want a link from another site, get off your lazy behind and add a link to the site you want one back from, and when you write point out where you have placed it, but don't use blackmail i.e. "I will remove this link if you don't link to me" actually if you have a PR 9/10 or PR 8/10 sites you can say that as any webmaster would be nuts to knock that back LOL

If you really want links you have to do your own research, approach the site owner with a nice chatty email, explain how you found them, why a link will be of benefit to both of you, show them you have a link in place, make sure it doesn’t look like a link farm as it's better to have a few quality link partnerships than to have hundreds of useless ones and keep your links on topic.

Couple of things you should note, people with PR 7/10 are harder to convince than PR 4/10s so be ready to offer that little bit more, for example you could say I will give you a link on front page, or 10 of my pages for 1 link off your site (that is a super bargain if you get a PR 7/10+ to link to you) if you asking a PR 8/10 then be ready to give a link from all your pages because they don't need the higher PR, they looking for more traffic at this stage as more PR is not really going to help them in Google but the single link back from a PR 8/10 going to help your PR 4/10 in ways you can't imagine.

Hope that helped, of course there is more to it then just what I said but overtime you will develop your own style.

Dear privacy is another one of my favourites but the most amusing ones are where they've bought a fifth hand database, which has been corrupted, and my domain catchall account receives mail addressed to previcy or wibmaster, etc, etc

you can't beat personalisation, when it's so beautifully executed!

i agree with most of what clarke said but i would point out one thing....

In geeral most people don't know what a lot of people on these boards know. Most webmasters aren't SEO specialists and i can guarantee that outside of this board 99.9% of people think PR just stands for public relations.

I would disagree that people with PR 8 sites will want different things than a PR4 site because i doubt they would know what that meant and if you offer them a link from a PR2 site they'd probably think their luck was in.

Having got Emporio to PR6 (home) and PR7 on internal pages - what should I be doing next? And don't say link to me :rollin:

Ben

What's the point in linking anyway? It's not as if Google will update my pagerank before I die anyways...

lol, i know what you mean. We're still on PR0.

I don't think i have the patience for this industry.