Affiliate Marketing Blog: Had Enough Of Crappy Link Building Emails

Friday, 28 November 2008

Had Enough Of Crappy Link Building Emails

Come on, you know who you are! How the chuff is this relevant or accurate?

Hello. I`m Ciaron Dunne Director at mobile.broadbandgenie.co.uk. We are the UK`s most popular advisory website for 3G mobile broadband, with help guides, user reviews and up-to-date mobile broadband package and price information.

We have an idea which I hope you will find useful - we originally found leemccoy.co.uk by searching for `cheapest broadband` [really? I'm that good at SEO I make this AFFILIATE MARKETING BLOG rank for that phrase?] but in fact we have a wealth of independent help and advice and free tools for consumers, including our free comparison tables and broadband speed test, so we are looking for good quality, relevant partners.

We would like to have our editorial team research and hand write some unique content for you to add to a page on leemccoy.co.uk. We will agree a subject with you that is relevant to both of our sites. [That's hard because this site isn't about mobile broadband!] The content will contain a single unobtrusive text link in it back to a relevant page on our site. You would benefit from some unique, relevant content [you're pissing me!] to which the search engines seem to be attributing ever more value. We would probably obtain some long term benefit from the link to us -- which, as a relevant outbound link, would also be potentially helpful to you from a search engine perspective [you really are taking the piss now!]. We are not currently in the position of being able to exchange or return links so we thought this could be a good alternative. [Oh I wonder why?]

Naturally there are no costs for us producing this content for you.

If this isn`t appropriate for you, please accept my sincere apologies for having troubled you. [Nah! you made me chuckle!]

Hope to hear back. [You have]

MULTIPLE EMAILS
We really try to avoid sending multiple copies of the same email to you - we know how annoying this is. However, because of the way in which some email systems are set up, this can occasionally happen. If you have received several copies of this email, please accept our sincere apologies and our assurance that the email is genuine. We are always looking for ways in which to improve our approach and systems so please do let us know if this happens.

RELEVANCE, PRIVACY AND OPT-OUT
We only send partnership invitations requests to carefully selected partners [How carefully?]. We work hard to ensure that all requests are relevant and appropriate but no process is perfect. If our request has offended you in any way, please accept our sincere apologies [Try harder!]. If you do not wish to receive further invitations from us, please email us at linkunsubscribe@broadbandgenie.co.uk (IMPORTANT - WHEN DOING SO, PLEASE INCLUDE OUR ORIGINAL EMAIL TO ALLOW US TO UNSUBSCRIBE YOUR DOMAIN CORRECTLY). This will add you to our exclusions database. Your request WILL be respected (please allow up to 24 hours for our system to catch up).[Best do that then!] Please note that if you are an existing partner we may need to contact you with regard to the relationship from time to time.

I'm going to say any more, I 'm too busy doing link building PROPERLY! Surely you can't send me an email because I had a text file on my server with "cheapest broadband"? Is it in the first 100,000 results? And its in a fecking text file!

I'm not sure if this is related, I've just looked at sites being affected for using a possibly similar approach for obtaining links:

* MassiveLinks
* 10 Articles Discussing The GoCompare Google Penalty
* GoCompare Link spamming again
* What happens if your site gets 'blacklisted' by Google?

I've always said I don't like pay per post type things for getting links.

16 Comments:

At 28 November 2008 at 15:59 , Anonymous said...: Hi Lee,

Sorry man - no offence meant! We're just trying to promote our site in an ethical way by offering original editorial in return for promotion. I can see that this comes across a bit semi-automatic, though, so we'll try to refine it.

Soz again.

Ciaron
At 28 November 2008 at 16:01 , getvisible said...: lol Ciaron. no problems. Caught me on a Friday ;-)
At 28 November 2008 at 17:01 , Anonymous said...: Hi Lee

We're the search firm handling the campaign for Ciaron at Broadband Genie.

First up, I HATE it when we annoy someone and I apologise UNRESERVEDLY. We spend a LOT of time refining our approach. The number of mails we send has probably gone up 20-fold this year but the number of annoyed responses has actually reduced to a trickle over the same period so the improvements (and our exclusions system!) seem to be working.

The market is awash with ultra low rent link building firms – many of them offshore and often working on behalf of the bigger agencies. They make your life harder. They make our lives harder.

The reality is that unless you are some spotty geek in a bedroom looking after 2 clients and doing everything by hand, the only way in which you can get a DECENT response rate and thus create value for clients is by targeting in reasonable volume.

To do that, you HAVE to rely on the search engines to provide relevant results for specific search terms. Mostly they are pretty good but if, as in your case, you have a specific page ranked for a term that falls outside of your site’s theme, we will see what has happened here. These situations almost invariably involve web design, rival SEO firms or blogs with rankings for a broad spread of phrases.

Most will simply ignore the mail. If anyone objects we will immediate add them to our exclusions system – we promptly respect all opt-out requests (we have of course now excluded you -- so no more requests!).

So why, you may ask, don’t we hand review every site before targeting?

Simple – pure economics.

Add more bodies into the equation and our solutions will immediately be WAY beyond the reach of almost all of the firms we act for – ranging from one man bands through to corporates.

We think everyone deserves the chance to build link equity.

We get very strong results for our clients which takes a great deal of hard work. The initial email is just the tip of the iceberg – there is a LOT of work and staff time involved in producing the content (which is incidentally GENUINELY researched and hand written to the link partner’s requirements by our team of writers here in the UK – not scraped, auto-botted or in some other way a scam, unlike some!!).

Some clients are able to offer return links as an option, some are not for their own reasons – so we have campaigns running in various flavours including affiliate recruitment.

Now I realise that some people may see the content approach as ‘one-sided’. However, there are a LOT of webmasters out there that really struggle to get content produced with no time or budget. You know as well as I do that relevant content is VITAL to a site so for many partners this really is a win-win. Ciaron’s site, along with our other clients, is strongly ranked for its themes and a relevant outbound link within the content is also helpful SEO-wise (again, relevant outbound links are often ignored in SEO strategies).

Just one bit of feedback in return – we ghost write a couple of well-known SEO blogs – it would be really cool if the responses were on the same page as your original post rather than via a link – more balanced and in the spirit of blogging.

I haven’t included our identity in this because I don’t want you to think I’m using this as advertorial but I’ve emailed you separately with it so please feel free to include it if you want.

There are massively complicated systems and procedures in place here to refine and keep refining our approach as far as we can to minimise any annoyance and to ensure that we remain as we started out 5 years ago - a 100% white hat ethical link building and content firm (UK based – not off-shore!!).

I hope that’s helpful and wish you a good weekend – its GOT to be better than this rainy Friday!!

Simon
At 28 November 2008 at 17:41 , Anonymous said...: Simon again - saw your additional links - the GoCompare penalty PRE-DATES our involvement. They are now seeing a recovery as a result of a sensible number of relevant content-for-links. We don't 'do' paid links and have never been the cause of a client being penalised. Simon :)
At 28 November 2008 at 17:55 , getvisible said...: Hi Simon,

Many thanks for your response. I'm more than willing to be proved wrong and I always try and listen to both sides of the argument.

The issue is that I'm a link-building purest and that I try and keep to the letter of the law when it comes to client SEO and link building.

I fear we're at two opposite ends of the link-building spectrum. My approach is that link-building is about websites earning because of the intrinsic value of the web page (its information value, humour, uniqueness or whatever).

Its a subtle argument. The reward for the content of the webpage is the link from other webpages.

I believe the approach outlined above places the reward for the link on the ability to save webmasters time and effort for righting content.

My view is that links should be a by-product of good content and not the cause of good content.

The desire for the content should out-way the desire for the link.

I can understand the economies of scale approach to link-building.

However, I think we're have a sad state of affiars if website owners have to prostitue their websites to obtain content where often the best people to write content are the those present within the organisation as they have the expert knowledge of their niche.

Two of my clients have content writers for their blogs which contribute between 1 and 10 posts a month. They do this to offer a variety of content and approaches to their readers and not for any links - they're paid per article and are experts in their field.

What I disagree with is the case where a service in this space would write an article about toy robots for example, and then link to a clothing website (not even lego robot t-shirts!).

I believe Google agrees with me too.

If your clients are happy and continue to be happy - that's the main thing. However, I'll keep to creating content that will hopefully earn link-based praise of others. You're entitled to do your more volume approach.

p.s. weather still crappy!
At 28 November 2008 at 18:04 , getvisible said...: "We don't 'do' paid links and have never been the cause of a client being penalised. "

glad to hear it!

hopefully our dialogue can help improve the link building industry
At 28 November 2008 at 18:05 , getvisible said...: opps, forgot the ;-)
At 29 November 2008 at 16:31 , Anonymous said...: I just dont get link building in general which hinders me terribly in this game.:(

While in some respects the method Simon uses (would be interested to know who they are - is it a CN email?) seems quite ethical I can also see why its could be seen by the search engines as manipulating the results in the same way a paid link would.

That said - in a competative area are there really that many 'non commercial' sites who will link to you without some sort of incentive Lee?

Like I say - I dont get link building at all so this kind of discussion makes interesting reading when your trying to learn what to do and what should be avoided (although obviously you dont agree on that).
At 1 December 2008 at 11:16 , Anonymous said...: Hi Russell and Lee - I think I can confirm we are CN without giving the game away except to those 'in the know' ! I also own SS which co-owns CN. . . . ministry of initials lol :-)

IMHO there is space for both approaches and I think our respective firms are strong examples of each. We're as highly personalised and customised as you can get in the volume mail-based link building market and Lee is focused on link baiting with strong content. Both approaches work well and are suited to different client types and sectors - indeed they are probably more complimentary than competitive.

Because the content we produce for link partners is of decent quality, the content approach is a fair exchange of value which is within the spirit of ethical link building. Do a search for 'hosted web content linking' and you'll see a lot of respected SEO commentators agreeing that this is one of the few ways (other than link baiting which will only work for a percentage of more savvy webmasters) in which relevant inbound links can be attracted.

Inevitably because we rely on SERPs results, we will hit some sites that have an on-theme page but are not in themselves suitable partners -- which is how this dialogue started. The key here is that we hand review all sites that say yes and will only write the content for relevant partners.

The difference in the exchange of value here is that it is non-monetary: the search major engines strongly dislike charging for position (i.e. paid links) and have been known to punish it whereas trading useful content is at least adding something to both the partner's site and to the aggregate content of the web as a whole.

Hope that helps - Simon S :-)
At 1 December 2008 at 17:15 , Anonymous said...: Hi Simon,

I knew someone called Simon owned CN so put 2+2 together. Plus I know your tactics so figured it was probably you guys:)

I think a lot of this depends on your industry. I dont know Lees linkbuilding techniques (although i'd love some hints lee if you get chance - ideas @ mega.co.uk lol).

You mentioned that lee uses link bait a lot and I could see how it would work for him as his sites are often retail and focused on very new products. Because of this I would assume he gets links by keeping his finger on the pulse and being quick off the mark with new news. Then i'm not sure if he would email people with the news to get links or if he classes emailing as spammy and just waits for links to come?

Either way because his products are generally interesting and niche I imagine links can come organicly.

Looking at the two CN's clients tha have been mentioned (car insurance and broadband) they are both highly competative because they are high earners but they are fairly boring sectors (no offence) so I doubt link building for them is easy.

I remember reading somewhere that a lot of the top car insurance comps still have to buy/rent links (under the radar) as they really dont have many other options.

I guess in this case a solution like CN's is pretty much the only 'ethical' alternative.

I'd say the method used for link building very much depends on the subject.

I just wish I could get links in any way - i'm rubbish and i'm trying to hit a competative market. Wish me luck:)
At 11 December 2008 at 20:44 , Anonymous said...: Hi Russell - Simon again - it IS incredibly tough in most competitive sectors. In your case I can see a good broad spread of potential category partners but tough conversions because of site focus and rankings.

If you actively seek links via a direct approach you'll find it is a numbers game and if you try long enough and hard enough you WILL get relevant links and you should see sustainable ranking improvements as a result . . but it is incredibly tough.

All the under-the-radar stuff scares me - I have clients who know the right people and who actively report this -- and it does get punished. Deservedly so. "Do the right thing" is definitely the approach to take.

One thought if you want to go the linkbait and blog route -- search the blogs and forums for unsolved problems in your hottest sectors (you have the luxury of covering almost all retail sectors). "I need a comparison table for this . . " "I need a list of that . . " " Where can I . . ." etc etc. Loads of them won't have decent responses - generally lol-s and me-toos. Most people are lazy and don't go past the first few results. Dig deeper, get the books out, buys some mags and SOLVE the problem -- or get someone to do it for you - then post it up on your site and add some "found it here" responses . . . and repeat . . . The engines will like the content on your site too.

Hope that's helpful.

BTW Lee - cool move shifting the comments to the main post - nioce to see we're not the only firm that listens S :)
At 2 January 2009 at 16:49 , Anonymous said...: Lee,
Good to find your blog as I have also just received an identical email from Ciaron Dunne or, at least I thought it was from him - until I read the comments.

So, the email wasn't from Ciaron then - but some direct email marketing geezer called Simon S. The plot thickens - particularly as the only Ciaron Dunne listed in the electoral register lives in Liverpool.

So, is Ciaron Dunne really Simon S? I am confused.

Whatever, these guys have inadvertently marketed themselves as a bunch of shysters at the moment. So, common guys, drop the cloak and dagger stuff and tell us who you really are and what you really want from those who you are sending this email to.
At 2 January 2009 at 16:59 , getvisible said...: Hi Anon,

Nah Ciaron Dunne and Simon S are different people.

Ciaron allegedly hired Simon's company to build links for them.

I've posted my views and Simon has posted his views. They're different, but you've still got to have an open debate about these things.

Lee
At 11 January 2009 at 15:52 , Unknown said...: Interesting post, I've certianly eceived my fair sahe of these sort of em
At 11 January 2009 at 16:16 , Unknown said...: Interesting thread. You might want to delete this comment after a while as I don't want to get anyone in trouble. It's hit a bit a sore point with me and promted a bit of a rant!

I've certainly had my fair share of these emails though in defence of Simon this is one of the better ones I've seen! I've even used a similar service with some half decent results.

The comments promted me to take a look at the sort of backlinks being generated (Simon - I guess your client may be using more than one seo agency so apologies if this isn't you're work). I've recently had a site banned from google after paying for a link building campaign with a so called white hat agency and it looks like the same thing may be going on here (I'm currently considering legal action against the agency so can't name them right now). A quick backlink check reveals a shed load of low quality links to the from spammy off topic pay per post type blogs (along with some great on topiclinks too it must be said). This is exactly the tactic my previous agency used; it did result in an improvment in the serps for a numer of keywords but about 4 months into the campagin my site was penalised and now only ranks on page 5 for my own domain name with traffic at less than 10% of the amont prior to the link building campaign!!

My point is that so called white hat agencies don't always play by the rules and go for a quick win that will likely result in penalty sooner or later. I'd urge anyone signing up to an agency to get regular updates of the links they generate and really quiz them on their methods and ethics.

Again, Simon, if this isn't the work of your agency I apologies - if it is I think it's unetical to advertise as a white hat agency.

Rant over ;-)

Adam.
At 23 January 2009 at 10:30 , Anonymous said...: Hi Guys

Simon here – last response for a while – completely overloaded at the moment. I’ve posted a more detailed response regards our approach and on vetting link partners etc. under Lee’s other related thread (Lee can you insert a link to it here – thanks!)

To answer a couple of specific questions in this thread, because there are so many low rent offshore linking campaigns out there, approaching people as a link building firm is a no-no – response rates would go through the floor and the level of annoyance would increase. We therefore send all emails out as the client, mostly from the clients’ mail servers and handle all responses accordingly. Most link partners never even realise that we are involved in the process and end up with a good link relationship with the client.

Although to some this may seem deceptive, link partners feel more comfortable with this approach and the end result is exactly the same as if they were communicating directly with the client. It also means that they will sometimes enter into discussions regards wider business opportunities which we always pass onto the client -- and which I know on numerous occasions have resulted in profitable new business partnerships for both parties.

If anyone ever challenges us or objects to the emails in some way, we will of course always respond as us, explain our involvement and apologise where needed (I have included more information in the other thread on the subject of irate responses).

Hope this is helpful.

One last point – per my note on the other thread, we now have our imitators so if you see further emails of a similar structure, they are not necessarily from one of our client campaigns!

All the best - Simon