David Fiske A subtle blend of affiliate marketing and web development

Well done Chris (gedgec@gmail.com) for trying your hand at link exchanges but you need to learn a few lessons.

I hate emails that aren't sent through the proper channels. I set webforms up to be used. You're lucky I picked your two up but on the other hand, that's now caused you to be named and shamed here!

So what's Chris done wrong?
 
Here's the first email Chris sent on 4th July:

My name is Chris and i am working on behalf of godfrey-diy.co.uk.

We are looking for relevant, related sites to exchange links with and I came across your site, davidfiske.com and wondered if you would consider exchanging links with us?

The reason this email is named and shamed is because Chris believes this website is all about DIY. Nice try but if Chris had even approached my website, he would have quickly realised it's completely unrelated.

If you are looking for link exchanges, please, please, please only link exchange with related websites. It's good SEO practise to do this.

Also, check your emails before you send them. Later in the email, Chris says "ill add you to the links page". Ill and I'll are substantially different!

You would have thought that was bad enough but alas, Chris has done it again.

You are probably familiar with my video collection website Make Us Happy. It's where all the videos linked at the bottom of my posts are displayed. The website therefore deals with videos.

Chris feels that this is not the case:

My name is Chris and i am working on behalf of petlifeonline.co.uk.

We sell the best in pet care products specialising in Harkers pigeon care products. We are looking for related sites to exchange links with and I came across your site, makeushappy.co.uk and wondered if you would consider exchanging links with us?

Pet care? From videos he gets pet care?

Again, this is another case where Chris has probably used a piece of software, queried a term and produced hundreds of sites that would consider link exchanges. It's unfortunate that I rank for some pet term.

But here's another rule of thumb. If this is how you do link exchanges, check the websites in question first. You wouldn't buy something from Tesco without checking the label first. How would you know what you've picked up?

Hope you learn from this Chris.