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Weirdest Link Exchange Request Ever?

Posted in: Link Bait,Link Building by Richard Hearne on June 15, 2007
Internet Marketing Ireland

I get a lot of those ‘we’ve linked to your site, please link back’ type of emails. This one is the weirdest I’ve seen though:

Gerald Gerbrone Here,

We recently started our blog here http://blog.yourseoconsulting.com and linked to your website hoping you would notice us and maybe link back. To be honest we don’t know what the fuck we are doing and are desperate god help us we arn’t even ranking for anything in msn , yahoo or google and need your help. And link would be of great help thanks again, Gerald.

Sincerely,

Gerald Gerbrone CEO
A-Built Computer Systems and Consulting
14781 Memorial Drive
Office 2464
Houston, TX
77079-5210

I’m in two minds as to whether this is the craftiest or dumbest link request ever. I’m erring toward the former.

What do you think?

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20 Comments »

  1. Excellent Richard – contact him back saying what he needs more than a link is some SEO Consulting which you will happily provide and here are your rates…

    Comment by Tom Raftery — June 15, 2007 @ 1:39 pm

  2. Hi Tom

    I have a feeling he knows exactly what he’s doing. Of course, it could be very far down the other end of the scale….

    Comment by Richard Hearne — June 15, 2007 @ 1:50 pm

  3. Ha! Well they got a link out of you, anyway…

    Comment by Eoghan McCabe — June 15, 2007 @ 2:05 pm

  4. Hi Eoghan

    Yeah I was thinking about that. Do I include the link? Well just so inquisitive types can take a look I put it in (suitably condomed of course – don’t want to be linking to any bad neighbours after all).

    If I am proven to be right then this guy doesn’t care though about the nofollow – he’s only after traffic (check out those high volume phrases he’s targeting with the links in the footer).

    Rgds
    Richard

    Comment by Richard Hearne — June 15, 2007 @ 2:11 pm

  5. hehe – nice use of the nofollow microformat Richard :)

    Comment by search engine optimisation ireland — June 15, 2007 @ 3:29 pm

  6. Hi Niall

    I was tempted to show you how I use that little rel attribute on some of the comment anchors that are left here as well… I have a very handy little tool that lets me add a nofollow to people who abuse the author anchor.

    But what the hey… I’m feeling nice. You just want to hope that I don’t start ranking for your company name :mrgreen:

    Comment by Richard Hearne — June 15, 2007 @ 3:41 pm

  7. D’oh! Forgot to include the <tongue-in-cheek> tag to my previous comment!

    Comment by Tom Raftery — June 15, 2007 @ 4:29 pm

  8. I am not thinking crafty, I’m thinking dumb. And again, if this is the way he is acting, I don’t think he is qualified to be offering SEO consulting.

    Comment by Dave Davis — June 15, 2007 @ 5:37 pm

  9. From his blog:

    Our Blog is Being Framed – http://url.ie/4f0

    Comment by Jason Roe - SEO SPAM — June 15, 2007 @ 11:41 pm

  10. “class action lawsuit”. Ehhh, right. Doesn’t seem to look like he knows what a class action lawsuit actually is.

    Comment by Dave Davis — June 16, 2007 @ 4:37 am

  11. That’s just plain weird.

    I’m now beginning to change my mind and go along with Dave.
    This is one of the weirdest things I’ve come across in a while.

    Rgds
    R

    Comment by Richard Hearne — June 16, 2007 @ 4:40 am

  12. Poor damage control in my opinion. I wouldn’t have given them the link.

    Comment by Dave Davis — June 16, 2007 @ 4:45 am

  13. http://www.google.com/search?&q=yourseoconsulting :cool:

    Speaks volumes. As they say, there’s a fine line between genius and insanity. Or in this case between genius and stupidity.

    I reckon though it’s a great email template for a link request (if it weren’t for an ‘SEO’ related site).

    Comment by Richard Hearne — June 16, 2007 @ 5:00 am

  14. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_marketing

    Comment by LT — June 16, 2007 @ 11:32 am

  15. I read the “we’ve been framed” post on their blog and giggled. An SEO using frames on their own site?
    And what’s with all the affiliate links etc., ?

    Comment by Michele — June 16, 2007 @ 11:43 am

  16. Liam – maybe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spammer

    Michele – I think the google search in one of my comments above sorta sums it up

    Comment by Richard Hearne — June 16, 2007 @ 12:02 pm

  17. I don’t know what’s better, Richard’s post featuring the weirdest request ever or Richard’s burn on Nial (comment 5 & 6) :)

    Comment by Cormac — June 16, 2007 @ 7:39 pm

  18. Great email! I have received a few very similar ones recently… I wish I had kept them now so that I could post them up here! Maybe you should write a post where everyone can comment/post the funniest link requests they have received, I am sure enough of us get them!

    Comment by Marc Levy — August 31, 2007 @ 6:24 pm

  19. Hey Richard,

    I’m fairly new to blogging and came across your site hoping to create a useful backlink to my struggling domain and had this great pitch to grab your attention and S**T! someone has beaten me to it!

    I’ll have to go away now and think of another suitable request to lay at your door. Could take some time as I’m a slow thinker.

    Cheers,
    Neil.

    Comment by Neil — May 4, 2008 @ 11:06 am

  20. Thats brilliant,, at least he got a link out of it!! and we will all remember the way he did it!

    Comment by Dylan Murphy — November 3, 2008 @ 3:23 pm

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