# Webmasters & web-savvy types: confirm or dispel my deepening suspicions... **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 12, 2010, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/webmasters-web-savvy-types-confirm-or-dispel-my-deepening-suspicions/532242 "2010-03-12T15:13:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2010, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/webmasters-web-savvy-types-confirm-or-dispel-my-deepening-suspicions/532242/1 "2010-03-12T15:13:04Z")
I got an email yesterday from someone at [linkbuilding.net](http://linkbuilding.net), saying they had a client who wanted to place some text and a link on one of the more popular pages on my personal website. I responded saying I might be interested, provided it could be achieved within the constraints of my advertising policy ([linky](http://www.atomicshrimp.com/st/content/about/#adverts)) - in particular, the fact that I won’t place paid-for links inside my content, and I won’t entertain ads from just any and everyone. I got a broken-English response from a different person, saying the policy was OK, and that they just wanted text to the effect “get your [supplies of some kind] from [the linked supplier]”. I checked out the linked site and it’s an online hardware supplier and all looks completely above board. Usually, it’s online gambling sites that these offers are about, and they want me to insert the ad text as a paragraph in my article, but this one looks legit. Then I got another email today from someone else at the same domain, basically repeating the first offer (as if they knew nothing about yesterday’s conversation). So… There isn’t anything objectionable about what they’re asking me to do They’re asking me to place a hard-coded link (not embed something that they could change at source) They’re offering to pay me But Their operational methods seem a bit spammy and flaky I don’t see any guarantee that I’ll get the money I know Google sometimes demotes the rank of sites that are the target of farmed links, but do they take a similarly jaundiced view of the referring sites? At the moment, I’ve got that George Lucas _Really Bad Feeling About This_ - and I don’t need to be told to trust my gut - if nobody can convince me otherwise, I’ll just be avoiding any further dealings with this - so is there anyone out there that can offer a positive testimonial for [linkbuilding.net](http://linkbuilding.net)? For the record, here’s a copy of their latest email message: > [@](#): > > Hello [my name], > > We have a client that wants to advertise on the home page of > > [alink to page on my site] > site. They would like to place a short sentence with a link in it. Our client’s site is a Supplies company similar to [link to example supplier\*]. We are ready to move forward immediately, please contact us at your convenience so we can send additional information and prepare payment. > Thanks, > Ellen > Link Manager It just reeks of scam, don’t you think? \*the example site and the actual site they later specified were different, but both quite benign online retailers. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2010, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/webmasters-web-savvy-types-confirm-or-dispel-my-deepening-suspicions/532242/2 "2010-03-12T15:52:04Z")
If it feels dodgy, it probably is dodgy. A polite refusal is in order. ---
**Author:** ![Turble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Turble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turble)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2010, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/webmasters-web-savvy-types-confirm-or-dispel-my-deepening-suspicions/532242/3 "2010-03-12T16:58:41Z")
Sounds to me like they are just looking to place links with their affiliate account number … they’ll get a percentage of the sales made by people who click the link on your page and they’ll pay you some money to allow them to put the link on your page so they don’t have to have their own website … kind of farming out the link farm and flying under the Google radar by not showing up as hundreds or thousands of basically identical pages or many domains owned by the same person or company. ---
**Author:** ![MrFloppy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@MrFloppy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrFloppy)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2010, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/webmasters-web-savvy-types-confirm-or-dispel-my-deepening-suspicions/532242/4 "2010-03-12T17:07:10Z")
I have received this as well. My business website is very highly ranked for electronic repairs. I received an email asking me to place a link on my home page lol. The anchor text was to read ‘Buy Plasma TVs’ and the link went to a legit website. I declined but was offered $50. Google uses an algorithm that rewards web sites with high placement if they have inbound links that match the search criteria. So if this agency is able to place 100 inbound links all anchored with ‘Buy Plasma TVs’ and all located on reasonable high ranking electronics websites, the web site being promoted will in turn rank higher. Google will not penalize you at all for placing the link. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2010, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/webmasters-web-savvy-types-confirm-or-dispel-my-deepening-suspicions/532242/5 "2010-03-12T18:44:22Z")
If it is legit then tell him, YOU WILL PLACE THE LINK. I bet he runs. If you place a link then all it will do is move business to his site. Perhaps if his link is good it will help your visitiors. But if he wants to place a link on your site with HIS CODE, then he is almost certainly trying to get one of those “make money by clicking links” on your website. Unless you have 100% control over the link, skip it. You don’t want one visitor to your site to become mad 'cause his link opens pop-ups or redirects. Remember he can change that link at will. Perhaps the first 12 times it’ll go to his site than the 13th it goes to a porn site, then it goes back to the regular site. It’s too “iffy” unless you make the link which should be a HTML (not javascript) link of “href” ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2010, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/webmasters-web-savvy-types-confirm-or-dispel-my-deepening-suspicions/532242/6 "2010-03-12T23:22:27Z")
I emailed back asking if it could be just an HTML link and how payment would work - they’ve responded saying that a plain HTML link is fine and that the first payment will be made as soon as the link is checked, then monthly afterwards. I don’t really see what I’ve got to lose by trying - the site they want me to link to is [http://www.uline.com/](http://www.uline.com/) - which seems perfectly OK. I guess we’ll see what happens next… ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2010, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/webmasters-web-savvy-types-confirm-or-dispel-my-deepening-suspicions/532242/7 "2010-03-13T04:25:19Z")
I can’t dispel any suspicions. I’ve got a PR7 site, so I get such emails every few days. I trash them. Most offers are from India. Buying links is a white hat SEO technique, which certainly beats the forum spam India is known for, but I’d still be wary of paid links from such a source. Affiliate ads, odd Javascript - all things I’d be concerned of. For third party ads, I only have Google Adsense banners, because it’s the only advertising partner I’ve been able to find that will display ads that are relevant, given the subject of the site. Otherwise, I’ll accept relevant advertising directly from an advertiser. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2010, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/webmasters-web-savvy-types-confirm-or-dispel-my-deepening-suspicions/532242/8 "2010-03-13T04:34:31Z")
[Linkbuilding.net](http://Linkbuilding.net) registrar information: Registrant: Domains by Proxy, Inc. [DomainsByProxy.com](http://DomainsByProxy.com) 15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353 Scottsdale, Arizona 85260 United States Anonymous domain registration. Not good IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2010, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/webmasters-web-savvy-types-confirm-or-dispel-my-deepening-suspicions/532242/9 "2010-03-13T12:59:57Z")
I guess about the only things that could go wrong now would be: I don’t get paid. (maybe they just try to get people to put the links up in the hope they’ll forget and leave them there) The target site suddenly gets replaced with something other than an online store The payment itself turns out to be the opener for some kind of advance fee fraud ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2010, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/webmasters-web-savvy-types-confirm-or-dispel-my-deepening-suspicions/532242/10 "2010-03-13T18:09:49Z")
> [@elmwood](#): > > Anonymous domain registration. Not good IMHO. I wouldn’t say it based on the anonymous thing. I have and have built a lot of websites and I always recommend anonymous registration to my clients. If you use 1and1 to register it’s free so why not? As long as Mangetout does not allow javascript on his site, and HE places link, using his own HTML (which is a simply HREF attribute) and he checks the link every so often he should be fine. What else, perhaps someone could follow the link to the online store, order something and get ripped off. Well that is always a possiblity. But he could simply put a feedback link on his webpage and he’ll find out about it soon enough and remove the link. You should always have a feedback link on your site anyway. The worst is he won’t see any money. But in my opinion that should be second any way to placing a link. If he feels that the link could benefit his readers it should be placed there even if he doesn’t get paid. I am very appreciate of websites that have useful links on them. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2010, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/webmasters-web-savvy-types-confirm-or-dispel-my-deepening-suspicions/532242/11 "2010-03-13T18:21:02Z")
I went ahead and looked at the address on [Google maps](http://maps.google.com/maps?q=2200+S.+Lakeside+Dr.++Waukegan,+IL+60085&hq=&hnear=2200+S+Lakeside+Dr,+Waukegan,+IL+60085&gl=us&ei=ENabS8rrDsG78gbjkuX4DQ&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CAcQ8gEwAA), just to see if it looked like a real place. I’d feel a bit more comfortable if it looked a little better and was beside other places, but hey. ---
**Author:** ![yoyodyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a9a28c/32.png) [@yoyodyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yoyodyne)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2010, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/webmasters-web-savvy-types-confirm-or-dispel-my-deepening-suspicions/532242/12 "2010-03-13T19:04:41Z")
The worst thing would be your site’s potential loss in Google page-ranking (if that means anything to you), combined with no payment. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2010, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/webmasters-web-savvy-types-confirm-or-dispel-my-deepening-suspicions/532242/13 "2010-03-13T19:10:42Z")
I have some paid links on my site. It took a bit of negotiating before they accepted that I insisted that they be clearly visually marked as advertisements, but we worked it out and I got paid quite well. They never asked for more than simple text links and a sentence or two of copy. The point, as I understand it, is not to get clickthroughs, but to raise their site’s Google ranking. (My site has low traffic, but quite good ranking.) BUT A month or so ago I got an email quite similar to the one in the OP, inquiring on behalf of a client, but rather coy about who the client was. (In the other cases I had dealt directly with the owners of the linked sites.) I delayed a few days before replying, expressing tentative interest, and my reply was returned as having been sent to a non-existent account name on gmail. Odd. A week or two later I got two more emails almost identical to the first, but apparently signed by two different people (although one had the same surname as that on the first), and this time the return address was not at gmail but at the company that all 3 emails had claimed to represent. I replied to both, again expressing interest and stipulating my terms, and specifying how much payment I would require for one year. I got a reply from one, agreeing to my terms and suggesting some text for the link, but saying they could only pay me for one quarter at a time rather than a year in advance. I wrote back agreeing, and said I would put up their link as soon as they told me the URL to link to. That was a couple of weeks ago, and I have not heard anything more. It seems very weird, but if it is a scam, I do not get it. Nobody asked for, or recieived, any money from me. ---
**Author:** ![sharding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90db22/32.png) [@sharding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sharding)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2010, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/webmasters-web-savvy-types-confirm-or-dispel-my-deepening-suspicions/532242/14 "2010-03-13T19:11:59Z")
Regarding paid links: [Spam Policies for Google Web Search | Google Search Central  |  Documentation  |  Google for Developers](http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66736) ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2010, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/webmasters-web-savvy-types-confirm-or-dispel-my-deepening-suspicions/532242/15 "2010-03-13T19:47:23Z")
What do they mean by ‘pass pagerank’? ---
**Author:** ![aaelghat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c5a1d2/32.png) [@aaelghat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aaelghat)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2010, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/webmasters-web-savvy-types-confirm-or-dispel-my-deepening-suspicions/532242/16 "2010-03-13T19:48:04Z")
Uline is a well-respected, legit company. I have been to the warehouse that was in the Google Maps link above. I do own a PR5 web site, and although I don’t accept advertising, if I did, I’d allow a simple static html link, and I’d just check it every so often. I can see a scenario where Uline contracted with some SEO company, whose tactics is to pay for links with their anchor text. As posted above, I imagine the goal isn’t to have people click the link, but to have Google associate Uline with the anchor text mentioned, such that they rank higher in searches. One slight downside, is that including the link will decrease the “link juice” of other links on that web page. Just as your web pages gets page rank by having other people link to you, you give page rank to others by linking to them. But, the more links you have on your page (both internal and external) the more they get diluted. You could always put a [nofollow](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nofollow) tag on the link, but then the advertiser wouldn’t get the link juice benefit. ---
**Author:** ![aaelghat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c5a1d2/32.png) [@aaelghat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aaelghat)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2010, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/webmasters-web-savvy-types-confirm-or-dispel-my-deepening-suspicions/532242/17 "2010-03-13T19:57:53Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > What do they mean by ‘pass pagerank’? PageRank is an algorithm that made Google unique in search engines. It’s the idea that your site is more important if other sites link to it. Here’s an (overly complex) [description](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank) But, if Google thinks you are a spammy site, or use less than orthodox techniques, they can put you in the sandbox and artificially lower your search engine rankings. In my opinion, you really don’t have to worry here, if you really are just linking to Uline. Even if it was a spammy link, one link won’t make a big impact. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2010, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/webmasters-web-savvy-types-confirm-or-dispel-my-deepening-suspicions/532242/18 "2010-03-13T22:49:06Z")
Thanks, but that still doesn’t explain the meaning of the specific phrase ‘pass PageRank’ - from context (in the page linked in post #14), it sounds like passing pagerank is what happens if you do nothing unusual and leave the link unadorned, but the way it’s written makes it sound as if passing pagerank is an explicit action - hence my confusion. ---
**Author:** ![aaelghat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c5a1d2/32.png) [@aaelghat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aaelghat)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2010, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/webmasters-web-savvy-types-confirm-or-dispel-my-deepening-suspicions/532242/19 "2010-03-13T22:59:20Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Thanks, but that still doesn’t explain the meaning of the specific phrase ‘pass PageRank’ - from context (in the page linked in post #14), it sounds like passing pagerank is what happens if you do nothing unusual and leave the link unadorned, but the way it’s written makes it sound as if passing pagerank is an explicit action - hence my confusion. If you just place a link on your site it will pass PageRank - nothing explicit needs to be done. If someone pays you to put an advertising link on your site, you’re technically supposed to include the rel=“nofollow” tag so that it doesn’t pass PageRank, so that search results don’t get distorted. When Google says, _“Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines”_ they mean if someone pays for a link, and that link doesn’t include the rel=“nofollow” attribute, you are technically breaking the rules. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2010, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/webmasters-web-savvy-types-confirm-or-dispel-my-deepening-suspicions/532242/20 "2010-03-13T22:59:41Z")
> [@elmwood](#): > > [Linkbuilding.net](http://Linkbuilding.net) registrar information: > > Registrant: > Domains by Proxy, Inc. > [DomainsByProxy.com](http://DomainsByProxy.com) > 15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353 > Scottsdale, Arizona 85260 > United States > > Anonymous domain registration. Not good IMHO. Curious - how did you get that information? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/webmasters-web-savvy-types-confirm-or-dispel-my-deepening-suspicions/532242.md?page=2)