I wanted to call this blog something else...

!@$# @#%&#!

Okay, I've wanted to  start a series of blogs on this forever, and someone just gave me a reason to start.  So this came into our sales email today:

Dear webmaster,

I am seeking out possible link partners that our visitors would be interesting in visiting.
I've found your website information and advice to be a very good fit for our visitors so i would like to exchange links with your sites.

We would greatly appreciate it if you could provide us a link from your below mentioned web site :-
http://netvantagemarketing.com/experience

Here is our linking detail :
====================================================================================
Title: DUMB LINKBUILDING SITE
URL: CRAPPY SITE
Description: CRAPPY COMPANY NAME the SEO link building company from India brings unique oneway link building service globally offering quality link building services to SEO companies in USA, UK and Australia.

====================================================================================

Add my site and send me your site details which you want to be added and I will be glad to place your links at good pr and relevant link page...
I hope for an early and positive response from your side . We respect you for your time and effort…..

Thanks in Advance!!

Warm Regards,
Roger,
Linking Expert & Link Builder
Email:EMAILWITHHELDBECAUSEI'MNICE.com

"Together We Can Create Future"

Note: This is not spam mail. If you think it is not appropriate for you, just send me reply with "Unsubscribe" as subject. If you are not the concerned person to handle this mail then please forward it to your "Webmaster" or just ignore  it.

Why this is (BLEEP)-y, let me count the ways:

1. WE'RE A LINKBUILDING COMPANY!  If you wanted to write a guest blog sharing some useful information, then sure, we'd be happy to link out to you.  But you just want a link exchange with no context?  Ugh...
2. Roger wants a link on our experience page.  The companies listed are companies we've worked with.  This doesn't make any sense.  Five seconds of reading this page would tell you that.
3. You claim you are a "linking expert".  Perhaps you can make a human chain with some of your spammy friends, but no, you are not a linking expert.  You may even build links through this annoying tactic, but I doubt any of them are any good and you most certainly should not be running around flaunting that title.  I won the standing broad jump in third grade, so I suppose that means I am a world class athlete, right?
4. Roger sent this to our sales address.  Is this a sales request?  I would think a linking expert could have found one of our staff's email addresses.  You know, do something like Google one of our staff's names (easily found on our site) and add something like "email address" to a search.  Too complicated?  I guess I overestimated our linking expert...
5. This is "not spam".  According to who?  Sure, Wikipedia may be a lame source, but let's just run with their definition:  "Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems (including most broadcast media, digital delivery systems) to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately."  You can find that defnition here.  Considering the person didn't seem to do any research as to who they were sending this to, paid no attention to what it is that we do, that seems like the very definition of indiscriminate to me (full definition here).

Related articles

• Notorious S.E.O.: The 10 Crack Commandments of Link Building (webpagefx.com)
• Stupid Link Requests (Webmaster's Woes)

(BLEEP)-y SEO: The (BLEEP)-y Link Request Adam Henige

About Adam Henige

Adam Henige is Managing Partner of Netvantage Marketing, an online marketing company specializing in SEO, PPC and social media. Adam heads the SEO and link building efforts for Netvantage and has been a contributing blogger for industry publications like Search Engine Journal and SEOmoz.

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