Dear Sir, I liked your site - Which one moron!

I get a lot of link requests on email, most of which I delete.

Something that bugs me is they don't usually mention which site exactly they are talking about.

How am I supposed to know what site they want a link from?

Unless the email clearly states:

1. The page on my site you want a link from
2. The page on your site that you link to mine

It's an automatic DELETE.

I'll forgive people who call on the phone because I want to do business with them, but it pretty much always goes...
G'Day, I found your number on your website.
We have a few websites, which one are you calling about?
Um...

 

Spam...delete them.
Unless an email has a full name, a site url, and a contact, you are right, just delete them.

 

Same here, constantly deleting these daily.

 

the link exchange emails have dropped WAY off from last year though. I think people are trying to find new ways of doing it.

 

Yeah, I get those as well:

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=15282

And from http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=56395

Those people writing these requests are not the most clever ones...

 

I get things like this when answering support tickets.

"It's broke" and I think, who are you and what is broke?

 

AOL people do that all the time. I hate that.

They never ever include the whole thread and when it takes 3 days to write back, you are like what is this about again?

 

I then reply asking what it was about and keep them going in circles... I HATE those AOL enquiries.

 

I'm getting lots of them too, earlier I was answering and even linking, now I'm too lazy, I see the title and delete it

 

I have a form letter that I answer on all link exchange mails in which I promote my link building services to the guy that sent the e-mail.

 

Just posting to defend the morons!

I don't send many emails such as that out, but I can see how some people may assume you only have one site. Until I started posting on forums such as this one, I never realized how many sites some people had. I am not a programmer or designer and I only have one site.

I am not saying the email is not spam, it may be, but from a newbie point of view it may be a ligitimate request from a website owner not aware that you have a lot sites. They may not necessarily be a moron, they may just be uninformed.

I will definately remember your post if I ever send out link exchange requests. I personally never thought to reference the site in the email. I do include my name, url and contact info, though.

Thanks for posting.

 

This the perfect example on how you are supposed to do it:

http://www.seomoz.org/blogdetail.php?ID=862

 

My latest tip on this is - get as personal as possible, one by one.

That's what has worked for me.

If a link is a personal recommendation - seek them out in the same way. Get personal and focus on each request, don't throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks - get real personal and real specific.

I've got lots of one way links in to my websites this way.

 

lol funny thread, the requests are automated, done by a program.
Don't bother to reply, either add their link, or don't add

 

I've used this example for my link building efforts:
http://www.yourseoplan.com/link-building-letter.html

It does most of the work for the webmaster at the receiving end of the request (the description and link text is in the email) and it keeps it personal.

 

Loooks like an old thread to me

Anyways, do you get the emails directly to your mail box? or through some form on your site. If they are coming through a contact form, you can easily change its email address and Subject so that when you get the email, you are able to identify where its coming from.