H Street Media and the Shady Paid Text Link Buying
Its been awhile since I have blogged here. The network has grown quite a bit and things are coming together nicely at Bloguin.
However one thing has not changed and will not change is the murky business of paying for text links.
For those of you unfamiliar with the term, it refers to when a company or a third party representing a certain company, offers a web publisher money to hyperlink some copy to direct readers who clicked on it to their website.
An example would be if I wrote about making some football bets this weekend and an online sportsbook offered me to link the words "football betting" to their website.
I use online betting as the example because on a DAILY basis, Bloguin sites get hit up by the same 2-3 companies all of which want the same thing: Text links to their online sportsbook client.
Now let me start with why buying text links is controversial. First off, its not really that the advertisers likes your site as they claim when they contact you. Its not that they think lots of people will click on the link from your website.
The SOLE reason they are contacting you is that they are hoping to improve their clients SEO (Search Engine Optimization) ranking. In laymen's terms, more links from websites to one website improves where you show up on Google. To read more about this, check out this great article. (NOTE: I was not paid to link this article)
While link buying started usually on the siderails of websites, it has moved to the content areas over time as search engines has wised up to practice.
"Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and link-based analysis has greatly improved the quality of web search. Selling links muddies the quality of link-based reputation and makes it harder for many search engines (not just Google) to return relevant results. When the Berkeley college newspaper has six online gambling links (three casinos, two for poker, and one bingo) on its front page, it’s harder for search engines to know which links can be trusted.....The email later suggests “to use unique locations for ad links like within content.” At the point where people are recommending ways to make paid links less detectable (e.g. by removing any labels or indication that the links are sold)"
So here is my beef:
- These third party companies never tell you who their client is until you show them you are interested. Its shrewded in mystery and many bloggers begin to think a major advertisers like Nike or Gatorade has finally come to their senses to put ads up on their site.
- These companies NEVER want ad units......They don't want your readers to see the logo of the company or educate you about a certain product. They only want their client's ranking on Google and other search engines to improve.
- If I contact them back with a rate card, media kit, etc, they NEVER respond back because they know they are dealing with a corpate entity and not a blogger who may be easily duped. That being said, all of our bloggers have the right to make these deals happen independently, but they often ask us for our opinion.
- The companies spread out a WIDE net, emailing anyone and everyone who can help improve their client's SEO ranking. They pretend they like your site but chances are they have no idea what you blog about. They simply just want a link. Not only this, but they email you time and time again. Different employees, different pitches, all of which want the same thing. I would imagine its pretty much a boiler room of people sending out emails and that these companies have a lot of employee churn.
- Finally this one really grinds my gears. They often misrepresent their intentions or at very least, try to confuse bloggers into thinking they're being rewarded for their hard work. Below is an example using H Street Media, who has probably sent 50+ emails to the Bloguin network. Check out their sleek website. Notice the contact info does not give an address and there is no information about a single person associated with the company on the about us section of the site. Hmmm...
"Hi there,
My name is ----------l and I work for a company called H Street Media, an Internet Marketing firm in Vancouver, Canada.
One of our clients would like to make a donation to your company as they love it and have used it many times… They are big fans of the NBA community.
Would you be willing to accept something like this? If so, how can we go about doing this?
Notice how the email is vague saying a donation to your company....and have used it many times. Pretty generic. At least they got the NBA part right. Who the hell doesn't want money? After a quick reply by our blogger saying something to the effect of "yes, I like money for free, he received this response.
"Great! Yes there is one string attached.. Our client, BetUS, Would like to write a small testimonial praising your site that includes a single link back to their site......Is that doable?"
So yes the "donation" is not out of play, but really the pitch only got better......Now they want to pay me to write how awesome my site is. If only there were women that was as accommodating as the good folks at H Street Media.
Once again despite my thoughts on buying links especially to companies who operate illegally in the US (not that there is anything wrong with that), our sites are free to do this and it doesn't really irk me if they do. What does rub me the wrong way, is how they blanket the internet with these vague inquiries, never reply back if you ask them hard questions, and blatantly misrepresent what they do, how they do it, and who they work for. In closing this would be a much better pitch.
Dear blogger,
Sports gambling online is hundred billion dollar industry. My client would like larger market share of this lucrative industry and is hoping to achieve this by improving their google ranking by purchasing random links to their website. You seem to be relevant and we'd love to send you some random writing with links embedded that will hopefully improve their SEO. In exchange for this unsolicited offer we'll give you some money. Can we make a deal?
