And like Alanis’talent, there is some controversy around my claim that link spam is indeed spam. Here’s the question in a nutshell… Can it be considered spam if someone pays you to post a link to a spam term? Is it advertising or spam?

It’s the latter. It may not look like the Nigerian-viagra-big titted whores-HYIP spam you get in email, but it is spam. When someone asks you to post a link on your blog that links to ads about Viagra or [insert your favorite spam phrase here], it’s spam.

But, they’re going to pay me for the link, so it’s advertising, right?

Wrong. It’s spam. Instead of cluttering up your in-box, they’re cluttering up your — and my! — search results. Every time you link back to a page, you are enhancing a site’s page ranking. Better page rank means higher search rank. Over time, it has the insidious effect of crowding out other legitimate pages. If you scan the terms that the spammers are using…

… you notice that they’re normal words that link to spam terms. The next time you do a legitimate search for vitamins you may find a spammer’s page about Propecia (which, come to think of it, I could use ).

Will it work? Yes, over time. When enough people link back using these terms and URLs, it will have a cumulative effect. I think it will be very difficult for even the brilliant developers at Google to weed out these spam links via a search algorithm.

Therefore, please, just say no to link spam.

Hi,
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?