Wanna Trade Links?

I sometimes get calls and emails from clients who were solicited for a link request through their website contact forms. The request generally goes like this:

"Dear Sir/Madam. Your site is informational and it would be mutually beneficial for us to place links on each others sites. This is my site. Here is the information you can put on your site. Once I have seen that you have added my link, I will add a link to your site.
Sincerely,
Dude or Chick"

After receiving this request, the question I get posed is 'will this help my SEO efforts'? Because the search engines take who links to who seriously, credible relevant links can play a major role in a websites visibility on the search engines. Unfortunately, a lot of these requests come from Link Farms.

What is a Link Farm you ask?

A link farm is a site that is created for search engine ranking reasons only and contains numerous unrelated links. These types of pages will get recognized and penalized by almost all search engines once they are found.

Things to be cautious of if you get one of these requests:

1. Notice if it is addressed to anyone in particular. If it just says "Hi" they are just trying to get in touch with someone who will listen. These types of unsolicited requests for business relationships can be shady.

2. It is not a good idea to respond to these requests, even if you say "don't contact me again." If you respond, they have your email address and can bother you further with these requests or resell your email address for spamming lists.

3. Be wary of anything that doesn't look immediately credible.

If you have questions about whether a request is legitimate, forward it to your account manager. We see things like this all the time and will be able to help you determine if it is worth your time.