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Forum Index : Site News : How to spot a link request scam.
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Gizmo Admin Group  Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5078 |
I often get emails asking for link exchanges with my web site. Google ranks sites by the number of quality links to it, more is better. If your a business, its good to have a higher ranking, it means your web site is closer to the top of the search results list. Most of these requests ask me to add a link on my web site to web site "A", and in return they will put a link on web site "B" back to my site. This is a typical request from a budget SEO ( Search Engine Optimisation ) business. The owner of web site A is paying them for SEO. Web site B is usually a poorly put together web site with nill or copyright content, its there only to store reverse links. Site A gets a good link from me, and in return I get a a link from a web site that's never visited. Its a scam. Whenever I get a link swap request I look into the offer, search both site A, site B and the history of the SEO business to see if the links are relevant to my sites content, and if it even slightly smells of a scam. Today I got a interesting one. This is the email.... Hi there! I wanted to shoot you a quick email to tell you how my students and I came across your page, http://thebackshed.com/Windmill/Links.asp, while looking on resources on going green. Anyway, my students mentioned to me that they wanted to contribute to your list of resources: ******* Link to Removed ******* . (I also told them I'd award them some extra credit!) It'd be a great addition to your page. Do you think you could add their suggestion? They'd love to make a useful contribution! Sincerely, ***** Name and email removed ***** Looks a bit suspicious. Its a USA based Cheap Auto Insurance web site? The link she provided ( I removed it, dont want to give them links they dont deserve ), went to a page about improving car fuel efficiency, so it was slightly related to the content of this web site. I searched for her email address on Google, and found pages of back links started by her, with a similar feel to her email to me. All very different topics, suggested by her "students". I then went to her web site www.amoritacharterschool.org, its a multi page web site about a school, with time tables, teacher lists, etc. That's when I was convinced it was a scam. See the web site, while it looked OK, didn't have any contact information! Not a phone number or address, a bit weird for a school I think. Googling the school name only returned more back link requests, but not a actual school. So I'll ignore the email, its a scam, designed to harvest back links to a paying customer of the scammer. Instead of offering me a back link, they want me to think I'm helping the students gain extra credit. Always remember, 90% of what you see on the internet is a fabrication. Never trust anything. Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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