Anyone who has a website, or does SEO work for one, has likely run across reciprocal link builders. Heck, Matt Cutts gets requests. Even after numerous changes to reduce the value of their links the internet is still full of them.
The other day I got the following, and decided to check it out. Unlike most, they do nothing to hide who they are, in fact they seem to be marketing their own site (or set of sites).
Dear webmaster,
I have added your site to our site here [removed] . Our site have good PR3 and We assure it will have a PR higher in the near future.
You can be find your site at: [removed]
Under title: [removed]
Exchanging links will benefit with both of us. And a way link is very important with increase traffic and search engine ranking. If you are interested in link exchange, Please feel free to insert our site to your site with the details as following:
Title: Mekong delta tours, tours to Mekong Delta, tours in Mekong delta, cruises in Mekong delta, Mekong Delta Tour, Mekong Delta Travel, Tour Mekong Delta Vietnam
URL: [removed]
Description: Mekong delta tours, tours to Mekong Delta, tours in Mekong delta, cruises in Mekong delta, Mekong Delta Tour, Mekong Delta Travel, Tour Mekong Delta Vietnam, Travel Mekong Delta Vietnam, Mekong River Cruise, Cruise Mekong River, Boat Cruise Mekong River, Mekong Delta Floating Market Tour, Mekong River Indochina Cruise, Mekong River Border Crossing, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia Cruises, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia Border Crossing Tours, Mekong River Upstream Cruise, Chau Doc-Cambodia Border Crossing Cruise, Indochina Cruise, Mekong River Cruise Tour, Laos Tours, Vietnam Tours, Cambodia Tour, Siem Reap Angkor Watt Tour, Tonle Sap Cruise, Xieng Khouang Tours, Laos Kayaking Tours, Laos Trekking Tours, Cambodia Adventure Tours, Laos Adventure
Or you can to use the code by copy then paste into your site:
Your site will act in the 5 day. If our site is not lived at your site, We will remore your site.
I will be wiating your reply.
Thanks and regards,
[removed]
I can’t get over how many things are wrong here. Even ignoring the wealth of hilarious writing, obvious template email, and linkdirectory “swap” request, you’ve got the following:
- A linkfarm of 35 pages containing 696 links
- at the time the page was uncached (I notice now that all 35 pages are cached, good job guys!) meaning that Google wouldn’t even know it was there. Though in retrospect that might be a positive thing given that this isnt exactly what you want to associate your website with.
- misformed HTML code for their link
- harsh ending tone
- and the title, my god… “Mekong delta tours, tours to Mekong Delta, tours in Mekong delta, cruises in Mekong delta, Mekong Delta Tour, Mekong Delta Travel, Tour Mekong Delta Vietnam”, followed by a ‘description’ five times as long. Talk about red flags.
This lead me to look at their page. We all know the mantra of ‘keywords in title’ right? Apparently so do they:
In fact, their entire header is hilarious:
]]>
Of course they don’t rank well at all for most of those terms, despite having several thousand links in an uncompetitive market. The initial reasons are obvious, but also they just seem to lack any quality links, and as anyone in the SEO world will tell you: quality over quantity.
You just can’t rely on a bad link.
