I regularly get emails from site owners asking me to link share with a post on their site. But one link sharing request I got recently was a doozey…
I received an email from the “Chief Editor” at WPCity (wpcity[.]com) asking me if I’d be interested in sharing a link to a post on their site within my Gutenberg custom colour palette post. The email said the following:
My link sharing reply
Now, this kind of email grinds my gears at the best of times, but this one took the biscuit. Mainly because the author has not only bothered to put the most basic of info in there, but also tried to fob me off with adding a link to my site in some random URL as a thank you.
I’m mean, c’mon! I don’t expect him to have researched my life story, but at least use my bloody name!
Most of the time I ignore these emails and move on, but this time around was different. I click on the reply button as fast as my index finger will allow, and hit our mate Jarrod up with a response to his “kind” request. Here’s what I said:
It’s a one-way street
A couple of weeks ago I asked a question on the Blogging for Devs Community about responding to these kind of queries. There was some good discussion on there (sorry it’s a private community, so I can’t share the link – you should join though ) which centred around this all being a one-way street.
You see, it kinda goes like this:
- Person A (in this case our pal Jarrod) reaches out to the site owner of a site that usually has more presence than theirs, asking for a link to be added to their site.
- As a thank you, Person A will share your link on their social media channels which usually adds little value.
- Person A gets a link on a site that has more impact, thus improving the reputation of their site in Google’s eyes.
- Person B gets absolutely nothing from the transaction.
Now this isn’t always the case, of course. There are times where sharing links with Internet compadres makes sense. These can be mutually beneficial; but like I said at the top of this post, I receive multiple emails similar to Jarrod’s every day. Of all those emails, there have only been a couple of occasions that I’ve felt there would be anything in it for me.
Closing thoughts
So my amigo Jarrod hasn’t bothered to respond to my email (shock horror). I think I’ll continue to go about my business and not worry too much about him.
If you’re an internet compadre and feel the need to reach out to other site owners requesting a backlink, here’s some Quirky Top Tips™ :
- Do some research on the site owner and, you know, use their name.
- Make sure your link is in the same field as they are, and that you can actually add value to them in some way too.
- Don’t try and scam them out of a backlink by offering up an obvious spammy domain. 🤣
If you’re on the flip side of that coin, or are relatively new to blogging, you’re likely to start seeing these kind of emails hit your inbox at some point. So as word from the not so wise – just be careful as they’re unlikely to benefit you all that much. Plus, if you get it wrong it can seriously hurt your search rankings.
If you have ever had a good experience after receiving one of these emails, I’d love to hear about it. Use the button below to get in touch.
Internet Cold Callers & Their Link Sharing Emails is original content by Kev Quirk.
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