Is Link Development Hazardous?

While doing some link development for a client of mine that sells personalized miniature hockey sticks, I came across a first: One of the people I emailed responded rather angrily. He said:

I don't know who you are or what this is about, but I damn sure
didn't not request you sending me any advertising.

Therefore, contrary to your supposed disclaimer, this is spam and has
been reported as such to your ISP.

I never do business with anyone who operates in this manner.

Please immediately and permanently remove this email address from any
and all spam lists you operate.

Also note that I charge a $5 fee for reading and processing
advertising emails. Any further mailings from you will constitute
acceptance of this charge and should include a method of payment that
is satisfactory.

As I have never had anyone complain because I sent them a link exchange request, I felt compelled to apologize and move on. I wrote:

Sorry for the misunderstanding, but we were not offering our services, just asking for a link exchange because the more links a web site has pointing to it the better it ranks on search engines. When you exchange links with another site, it benefits both of the web sites.

I figured this would be enough, apologizing for ultimately doing nothing wrong. Swallowing my own pride if you will. But it wasn't enough. He wrote back:

Then that's proof right there that you are arbitrarily spamming. What website do you think I run that would put up link to some hockey stick manufacturing site?

I don't see how you can claim there is a 'misunderstanding'. Look up
any definition of Unsolicited Commercial Email. Your sending me your
advertisement without me requesting it fully meets that definition.

This practice really does not reflect well at all about the way your
business operates.

So, out come the personal digs apparently. Of course, I will always defend my business, as we have done incredible work for a lot of companies... plus, I love a good debate. So I respond with:

What am I advertising? I am offering a mutually beneficial link exchange to boost the link popularity of both sites. No money is exchanging hands, no one benefits more than the other. Do a little reading on SEO. This is a normal and common occurrence on the WWW, globally, requesting link exchanges and by legal definition does not constitute spam. If you contact an ISP or hosting provider and they actually READ what you have to say, they'll tell you the same thing. Anyone who wants any hope of getting significant amounts of traffic from search engine results (which equals 80% of all leads to all web sites the world over - quite a market, I'd say, at least nothing you want to dismiss if you're a serious business person) welcomes quality link exchanges and my client's web site is of high quality. Both his business and my own are family-run, hardworking companies with the utmost concern for our clients and web site visitors. Be angry if you want, but I'd say it's a giant waste of energy.

Again, thinking this will be enough, I move on and continue with my day. Unfortunately, however, it was again not enough and I had this in my inbox this morning:

What are you advertising? You explicitly answered that in your
original email:

"I am doing some link development for Freedom Manufacturing -
manufacturers of personalized mini hockey sticks, baseball bats and
more and we were wondering if you would like to link to their web
site? See it here: http://www.freemfg.com"

You are now admitting you are running a haphazard and inefficient
marketing enterprise (regardless of whether you are working hard)
when you also say "P.S. I found your email on ualberta.ca - I can't
remember what page because I was doing a lot of surfing as I work
hard for my clients, but if it's up there in error, I would suggest
you contact them."

Your errors here are many, including:
- you have no clue who I am or what I do;
- you did not keep track of where you harvested my email address;
- you did not evaluate the source of my email address to determine
whether its subject had any relevance to your personalized mini
hockey sticks;
- you did not evaluate the source of my email address to determine if
it was at all the type of site that would include outside links (let
alone commercial ones - what makes you think a ualberta.ca hosted
page would be aenable to that?);
- you are refusing to admit that sending Unsolicited Commercial Email
(UCE) constitutes SPAM by any reasonable definition;
- you tell me to read about link exchanges and SEO and the first
three links that come up (http://linkmachine.net/
http://www.linkadministrator.com/ and http://www.link-assistant.com/)
all imply or explicitly talk about automating your harvesting of
email addresses and your marketing to them (see the previously
suggested definitions of UCE);

You mention the policies of ISPs. Ok, lets look at one.

http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=abalone.ca
"NS1-Hostname: cns1.canadianwebhosting.com"

So we go to http://www.canadianwebhosting.com/legal.asp specifically
item 7 titled 'Unsolicited Commercial Email'.

What part of that paragraph might I be misunderstanding?

Me being angry may be "a giant waste of energy", but what about the
effort you are wasting while on your clients payroll by your
inefficient marketing? Are they aware of how you operate while under
contract to them? I wouldn't want any business I was involved with to
have its name besmirched by being associated with such practices.

Now, this guy has a bit of a handicap in this debate, as he clearly knows nothing about search engine marketing or link development, but, as I said earlier, I love a good debate, so I had to respond again (his words are in white):

What are you advertising? You explicitly answered that in your
original email:

"I am doing some link development for Freedom Manufacturing -
manufacturers of personalized mini hockey sticks, baseball bats and
more and we were wondering if you would like to link to their web
site? See it here: http://www.freemfg.com"

I'm still not sure what I'm advertising. I am asking for a link exchange. How else would you have me ask? There are two other options here, one is to ask for a link exchange without mentioning with which site or with whom, which would be utterly absurd: "Hi, Would you like to exchange links? Bye" and the other is to not email web sites at all, ever, which would shut down a 5 year old industry that includes the likes of Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! . I can send you to pages on each of these companies web sites that outline how webmasters who want to reach a decent spot in the search results should request link exchanges with quality web sites, if you like. There are millions of SEO companies that do this every day. in five years of doing this job, you're the first person who's ever complained about getting a link exchange request.

You are now admitting you are running a haphazard and inefficient
marketing enterprise (regardless of whether you are working hard)
when you also say "P.S. I found your email on ualberta.ca - I can't
remember what page because I was doing a lot of surfing as I work
hard for my clients, but if it's up there in error, I would suggest
you contact them."

Your errors here are many, including:
- you have no clue who I am or what I do;

This is a side affect, we often find emails on web sites that don't belong to someone in charge of the site. Generally, these people just kindly direct us to someone who does and it's over.

- you did not keep track of where you harvested my email address;

I request thousands upon thousands of link exchanges daily. I offer my clients a competitive price. If I were to keep track of every page I emailed for a link exchange, it would triple the time it took me to do so, thus, creating a less effective and more expensive service for my clients. We only keep track of the sites that wish to exchange links.

- you did not evaluate the source of my email address to determine
whether its subject had any relevance to your personalized mini
hockey sticks;

I can tell you that if I emailed you, your email address was on a page that had something to with hockey.

- you did not evaluate the source of my email address to determine if
it was at all the type of site that would include outside links (let
alone commercial ones - what makes you think a ualberta.ca hosted
page would be amenable to that?);

I'm a professional. You'd be surprised where I can obtain links for my clients. In fact, I just completed a link development campaign in which I got links for my clients on over 3000 American Colleges and Universities, including Harvard and UC Berkley.

- you are refusing to admit that sending Unsolicited Commercial Email
(UCE) constitutes SPAM by any reasonable definition;

The word commercial insinuates money exchanging hands. No money was to exchange hands.

commercial |kəˈmər sh əl| |kəˌmərʃəl| |kəˌməːʃ(ə)l| (abbr.: comm.)
adjective
concerned with or engaged in commerce : a commercial agreement.

commerce |ˈkämərs| |ˌkɑmərs| |ˌkɒməːs| (abbr.: comm.)
noun
the activity of buying and selling, esp. on a large scale

The link exchange is simple the exchange of text on two web sites. Trust me, after fives years of sending these emails, I have researched the legality extensively.

- you tell me to read about link exchanges and SEO and the first
three links that come up (http://linkmachine.net/
http://www.linkadministrator.com/ and http://www.link-assistant.com/)

These are automated systems. No one harvested your email. I visit sites and email the addresses I find myself. Automated linking services are worthless. Any good SEO will tell you that a good linking campaign is done manually. These sites you visited know nothing.

all imply or explicitly talk about automating your harvesting of
email addresses and your marketing to them (see the previously
suggested definitions of UCE);

You mention the policies of ISPs. Ok, lets look at one.

http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=abalone.ca
"NS1-Hostname: cns1.canadianwebhosting.com"

So we go to http://www.canadianwebhosting.com/legal.asp specifically
item 7 titled 'Unsolicited Commercial Email'.

What part of that paragraph might I be misunderstanding?

The fact that my email was not commercial. I've only said it forty times... I've spoken with my hosting company about this before. In fact the hosting company itself engages in the same link development activities, because they are a serious internet business that wants search engine traffic.

Me being angry may be "a giant waste of energy", but what about the
effort you are wasting while on your clients payroll by your
inefficient marketing?

Inefficient? I have clients that rank in the top ten for 'cheap flights' on Google, Yahoo! and MSN - I have single-handedly saved businesses from bankruptcy, we have been invited to launch parties of new search engines and asked to speak at trade shows. I have had article after article published on the front page of Site Pro News and Web Pro News and many, many other industry publications. I have had clients so happy with my work they've flown me to their city to celebrate. The vast majority of my clients experience a massive increase in web site traffic within two months of my starting work. Inefficient...

Are they aware of how you operate while under
contract to them?

They are fully aware. Every good SEO company emails for link exchanges. In fact, I'm thinking of posting this conversation to my SEO blog because it's so humorous and my fellow SEOs will get an absolute crack out of "the guy who's never heard of link development".

I wouldn't want any business I was involved with to
have its name besmirched by being associated with such practices.

Well, then any business you're ever involved in will not have any search engine success.

I can somewhat understand where he's coming from, since he's is one of the many people in the world who don't know what SEO is. And we don't usually do a lot of link exchanging, we prefer to focus on one-way links, but I find asking relevant web sites for a link, opens up negotiations for finding some way to get a one-way link. But this guy is just over-the-top funny.

Just for some solid proof, The Official Google Webmasters Blog posted this just today:

Q: How do I increase the visibility of my site in search results?

A:There are many factors that can impact visibility of your site in
search results. We outlined just a few tips that can make a big
difference to increasing your site's visibility in Google search
results. First, you should ensure your site has quality content that is
unique. Second, have quality sites link to your site. Third, submit a
Sitemap to let us know about all the URLs on your site. Fourth, sign up
for a webmaster toolsWebmaster Central and Webmaster Help Center for more webmaster related questions and resources.

Have any of you ever had this kind of debate after a link exchange request?

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