Just saying no to link spam
20 12 2007Hi,
I am interested in purchasing permanent textlink advertising at some specific pages of http://blogbitesman.net/
let me know if interested so that we can discuss it further. I can make a good offer to make it worth your time.
Let me know!
Someone wants to advertise on my blog? Is this guy on crack? Either the blog stats I see are wrong — and I have 100x the traffic I think I have — or I have my first groupie! Or, bloggie, I suppose.
Neither is the case. Curious, I asked for more information (seriously, what are you smoking and can I have some too?). Two days later, I received an email with a $100 offer to put text ads on five blog posts. He had sent me two examples of sites that had complied with his offer for easy cash. Here’s how the ad — on a site about cooking — reads:
Viagra, anyone? Clearly it was a spammer that was looking to build a good linking strategy.
It’s going to be incredibly tough for search engine algorithms to filter out these spam links. The paragraphs are written in perfect English and the text links go to various different websites. While the example above is incongruous with the rest of the site’s content, in another example, the spam paragraph actually relates perfectly to the rest of the page. ie, it’s contextual and much more likely that someone will click on the links, giving greater validity to the ads as far as the search engines are concerned.
I did a quick Google search to find out how one can report spammers, but what’s interesting about this model is that this guy is not a spammer in the classic sense. It’s a different class of spammer, the same way a honeybee is different than a wasp; same order (Hymenoptera, in case you wondered), different species and degrees of sting. I would be paid for the ads. It’s no different an arrangement than the advertiser Text Link Ads, the latter of whom is a member of the BBB and SEMPO and who only places ads on sites that have signed into their network.
Why am I blogging about it? Is it a bad thing or much ado about nothing? I think it’s insidious. This type of linking strategy makes it harder for legitimate business owners to get decent search rankings for their companies or products. As someone trying to market great products, the last thing I want is to compete with this species.
My reply to this offer:
Sorry, dude, I just say “no” to link spam.
His reply:
About the sites I work for, they’re not spam sites. I’ve worked for some edu sites as well as for gov sites. If requested, I can also arrange a replacement for a site you don’t want to link to :).
In my terms, its not spamming. You might have a different definition for link spam :).
I’m not convinced. You?
LOL. Of course it wouldn’t be link spam in his terms! He really didn’t try very hard to give you a creative answer here.
Needless to say, after getting several inquiries like this myself, I’m not convinced either.
I got this same exact email and I’ve only had my blog for a few months and don’t get much traffic. I answered back to see what the offer was and this was the reply -
I’ve haven’t emailed the person back - 7 pages for $70 - sure I could use $70 but it just doesn’t seem legit.
Yep. It’s spam. I found your blog by googling the exact message. It sounded fishy. I told him off. Thanks for your helpful post though, it confirmed my thoughts.
[...] http://blogbitesman.net/2007/12/20/just-saying-no-to-link-spam/ [...]
me too. found your post by googling “Hi,I am interested in purchasing text link advertising at some specific pages”
thanks for the info.
me three… only what’s curious is that I’ve received two messages from different individuals that have some of the same content but some different wording around it. Makes me think there’s a site somewhere offering people a ‘fold @home’ type of opportunity to go out and send email to sites. very strange.
I really think one has to expand their idea of what spam is. It’s not just emails offering Viagra. In this case, it’s part of a search engine optimization strategy. Instead of selling Viagra directly, they’re pushing Google searches in that direction.
As to your point — more than one individual making the same offer — I think it’s the same with email spam. There are more than one spammer sending out similar emails.
I too received the EXACT same email and was interested to see what kind of ads he would come up with. After all, what could it hurt? When the ads came back having nothing to do with the content of my post, I asked him to re-write. I eventually rejected the offer because of too many “flags.”
Two things here:
1. In corresponding with the person, they inadvertently signed a different name in one of the emails, leaving me to wonder who am I REALLY dealing with?
2. In attempting to search for an identity, I’ve yet to find anything about the person (apart from multiple posts reporting the same offer), leaving me to wonder .. will this linking strategy end up associating my site with a site related to porn, gambling, or something else completely inappropriate to my site AND reputation?
I don’t care what your definition of “spam” is, if you don’t know the dealer, you’re asking for trouble. Responsible blogging can be a double-edged sword: provide valuable content, including your links.
If you’re willing to take money from a stranger for admittedly low-level link association (my blog isn’t exactly #1 either) … you’ve just been pimped! (excuse the analogy, but I feel violated)
[...] new face of spam 17 04 2008 Many months back, I got an offer from someone to pay me for posting spam. Today, I receive this email. If it’s not spam, then it’s from a really stupid writer [...]
hey all. i just got the same email and thanks to this post, refused the offer. it was a company called link star - http://www.linkstar.co.uk. they offered a link ad for an online poker room. my site is about indie filmmaking. this is a really interesting new sort of spam and people should know about it, so thanks again for making my decision for me.
Hmm.. I just one of those emails from limkstar.co.uk about an hour ago. This is why I am here, investigating them.
Their domain was only registered on 03-Mar-2008, and they only have a two page website - (one of the pages - http://linkstar.co.uk/team.php - looks like they have hired a small airline’s entire stewardess crew) but the domain is registered as an individual (Michael Shanks).
The claim on their front page that they “..are the worlds leading link acquisition company with the experience and expertise” - Wow! All that since 3rd March 2008? I am impressed!
I will definitely be saying No to them.
I don’t care if it’s link spam or not. I got the same email for a finance site to be linked with my finance site, and they paid me $60 for a one year link. So spam, scam, or whatever, I pocketed $60. I didn’t make that much in two years in Adsense. So, go to hell Google.
Strange things about linkstar:
- if they are a market leader in links it is odd that their web site source code does not even have a header, let alone any keywords - the source code is basically illiterate;
- they offered to pay me in US dollars even though they are .co.uk;
- in order to pay me they asked for my Paypal account details (I told them to go to paypal and follow the instructions - they only need my email address to pay me - suspicious, no?);
- I receive replies that have been sent at 3am UK time.
I also looked at my Google stats for the page which they want to use - not anywhere near one of my most popular pages, and with content entirely unrelated to the link.
I asked ‘Xycris’ why (s)he sent out emails at 3am and (s)he replied, “I am just eager to do my job, I am still new here.” Whether ‘here’ is Basingstoke or perhaps in some other continent remains to be established.