An email asking me to sell a link, what to do?
Hi guys, I receive an email asking me to sell a link from my post to his post, both posts are talking the same topic. He told me that he is doing some SEO and offer me $10 for it. I am interested to get the $10 considering that my blog is very young (less than a month old), but I have some concerns.
- Should I respond the guy via my email address, I mean, is it a good practice to expose my email or should I set-up an email program on my site so that my response will not expose my email. I ask this because I am not sure if the guy really wanted to buy a link or just wanted to know my email address.
- Do I need to trust this proposal considering that I am a new blogger and the request is from a veteran blogger? His email address is actually trusworthy; it is his-username@his-domain.com, I visit his blog and it is very informative.
- Are you doing this for SEO?
- Is the price right?
Additional insights are greatly appreciated.
Megan posted this at 18:56 — 9th April 2009.
She has: 11,282 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
He already knows what your email address is, no need to try to hide it. Or did he send it through a contact form?
You are aware of the dangers of selling links, right?
Megan
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Bishoyking posted this at 03:02 — 11th February 2010.
They have: 2 posts
Joined: Dec 2009
You are absolutely right, the risks are high.
RTFVerterra posted this at 00:02 — 10th April 2009.
He has: 110 posts
Joined: Dec 2008
Yeah he contact me via contact form. I trust the staff of TWF, the TWF community and TWF herself, that's why I signed up and I show my email address, anyway my email address is hidden from the public.
I am not aware of this, can you give me some links?
Civil Engineering Review
greg posted this at 00:33 — 10th April 2009.
He has: 1,558 posts
Joined: Nov 2005
Have a read of this
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66736
Not sure how effective they are on being able to spot paid links, but what is this offer worth to you?
What will you get out of the link being on his site? A few hits? Is it worth all the worry about their intentions, why they are willing to pay, what negative things might come from it, etc.. all for a few hits?
Personally, I'd have replied immediately stating "no thanks". Simply because I'd have asked myself the question: "Why would HE pay ME $10 when my site is new and his is popular..?"
And concluded that for the result of doing this - a few hits - it isn't worth all time and thought to investigate his intentions, negative impacts and why etc.
Also, I'd rather maintain good quality and HONEST links and presence from good content etc. Then if anyone ever accused me of anything or asked, I can honestly answer I don't engage in bought/paid links.
Signature links on this forum are NO-follow! - This means spam is futile!
RTFVerterra posted this at 02:13 — 10th April 2009.
He has: 110 posts
Joined: Dec 2008
Hello Greg, thanks for the insights and for the link. I was able to decide on what to do because of your response. I am actually doing linking to websites that I like and care nothing about penalty or gain or whatsoever. In fact I blog about TWF because I like this site. I also featured two others, the sachachua.com and selaplana.com and linking to them of course, they don't ask me for that or paid me for that, I just like their blog, that's all.
Since this man is asking me to link to his post for a $10 and I will be hypocrite if I will say I am not interested with that $10 (hey man I am from third world country, and $10 is real money for me). I made a decision and allow me to post my response to him. His blog is actually worth linking, it is far better than mine.
I think I made the right thing in dealing with this, this may not be a big issue in your part since you are used with online transactions but this is my first one.
. And thanks for the new knowledge about linking.
Civil Engineering Review
voguehit posted this at 08:44 — 6th August 2009.
They have: 12 posts
Joined: Aug 2009
Hello,I'm interested in buying your blog links. Can you show me your blog site?or email me by dorisdum@gmail.com.
teammatt3 posted this at 03:13 — 10th April 2009.
He has: 2,101 posts
Joined: Sep 2003
There's nothing wrong with selling links. But Google gets a little pissy when you don't add the rel='nofollow' attribute to the link. If you want to protect yourself from Google's wrath, then you should add that attribute. But again, you can sell links, and it's perfectly ok.
If you don't put the nofollow on the link, does it really matter? How would Google know? If you hadn't posted here, no one would know. And so what if Google penalizes you, you don't have much to lose since your website is new. And if you did have something to lose by being blocked by Google, then it's probably not in Google's best interest to block your website.
Even if you were blocked by Google, you could plead ignorance, and file a re-inclusion request.
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RTFVerterra posted this at 12:55 — 10th April 2009.
He has: 110 posts
Joined: Dec 2008
Hi, I already received the payment. I do the link to his post, his review is actually worth linking and I did not add rel='nofollow' in the link, it's not because I got paid but because I don't practice it to site that are worth linking. Here are our post.
My post:
http://www.rtfverterra.com/blog/making-money/17/i-am-now-chitika-premium...
His post:
http://www.duoblogger.com/chitika-review/
Civil Engineering Review
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