Don’t screw your friends
by Randall McCarley
August 31st, 2007
This is true though dramatized a bit…
A friend of mine - we’ll call her Jane - was having trouble understanding why a link exchange partner was shooting up the SERPs while she was left standing still. A little investigation revealed that the partner was exchanging links all over the place and adding nofollow to the links on his site.
What would you do?
You could:
- Demand he remove the nofollow on all the links
- Demand he remove the nofollow on just your link
- Let his other link partners know what’s going on
- Remove the link on your site
In a fit of blind rage Jane removed the link on her her site and then fired emails to his other link exchange partners explaining how they were being used.
Jane later reported that the people she contacted were glad to hear from her and that they were now interested in working with her.
Things worked out for Jane and I think this story brings up some important issues and carries some great morals.
First, link exchanging in low doses is considered natural and ok but link exchanges in large doses is considered spam… even though it works.
If you are going to exchange links (or do anything in business) be forthright about what the other party is getting. The man in this tale now has a bad reputation in his industry and the odds of his site staying at the top are not good.
When you engage your passion you can accomplish great things. In this case Jane’s passion reached out and engaged the other victims enrolling them in her campaign. This could also be “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” - take your pick.
I’d like to thank “Jane” for her story and for teaching me a few things along the way.
Next Article: The best show on advertising you probably aren’t watching Previous Article: Final Round of Free Links
September 1st, 2007 at 4:03 am
Good thing I have two Firefox add-ons that highlight all nofollow links on a page
SearchStatus & SEO for Firefox
September 1st, 2007 at 8:45 am
I wouldn’t find myself in Jane’s position: preferring instead to earn my links the old-fashioned way.
September 1st, 2007 at 5:40 pm
When people say they did something the old fashioned way like that, I want to vomit, what this translates to is “I did it the way I’m used to because I’m slow and behind the game and don’t want to go to the trouble of learning a better, but newer, way of doing it, but I’m going to justify this with some abstract ethical bullshit.”
As far as linkbuilding, or any other SEO, goes: if it works, USE IT! You better, because I will and if you don’t then you’re the one at a disadvantage.
September 4th, 2007 at 10:19 am
Andrew I’m inclined to agree with you… though maybe not so emphatically. There are areas for caution like mom & pop sites that rely on their online income. In those situations it is better to move slowly and be consistent than try all the new tricks out there.
And there is never a justification for not keeping up your end of an agreement. Or trying to be tricky. Especially in this industry… link scams will be caught and exposed.
But doing it old school just for the sake of “ethics” is not good, especially if Google is your moral compass!