
No, I Won't Link to Your Spammy Article - weinzierl
https://www.troyhunt.com/no-i-wont-link-to-your-spammy-article/
======
onion2k
I understand where Troy is coming from, and I agree with his point of view,
but how is it that the community aspect of the web has atrophied away to dust?

Many years ago sending links to site owners and asking for a "linkback" was
part and parcel of how you grew your website on the internet. When I got
random emails they tended to be a bit less obvious than the brash "I think
this would be good for your blog" and more "If you like this _please_ link
back.", but the fact that commercial SEO has ruined the process entirely is
just so depressing.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
> Many years ago sending links to site owners and asking for a "linkback" was
> part and parcel of how you grew your website on the internet.

Man, that was really a long time ago.

~~~
dylz
I doubt he would mind linking to an actual, good article that was part and
parcel of how you grew your website on the internet.

Based on the list of titles, they are all literal blog spam - worthless,
useless trash that contributes nothing other than absolute rubbish on the
internet, largely affiliate links, fraudulent VPN reviews for whoever is the
highest bidder, etc.

------
apatters
The concept is interesting, that he thinks he can penalize spammers by A)
having a popular blog and B) shaming them.

In general I agree that hiring a bunch of digital marketers who go out and ask
hundreds or thousands of sites to link to a blog post is not really a
productive sector of the economy. I think most marketing is an unproductive
sector of the economy. But it is necessary because of the way the economy
works and in a lot of ways the business which shouts its vaguely targeted
message into the void the loudest tends to win.

Maybe there is something to Troy's idea of "if you shout too many times and
too loudly I will shame you." Wouldn't it be a better world if most business
growth happened through organic customer referrals, as opposed to paid
marketing?

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _But it is necessary because of the way the economy works and in a lot of
> ways the business which shouts its vaguely targeted message into the void
> the loudest tends to win._

That isn't really necessary, it's just a zero-sum game the economy is stuck
in. A world of good could be done by enlightened regulators, if they would
start curtailing the worst aspects of marketing and advertising space.

In today's world, you need a megaphone to have even a tiny chance of being
heard in a space where everyone else is already shouting through megaphones of
their own. If someone could step in and take everyone's megaphones away, maybe
then we'd have a chance at having a conversation.

------
mattmein
I wouldn't classify those emails as spam, as spam is unsolicited bulk email,
ie untargeted emails going out to a large amount of people.

Personalised unsolicited email or any other type of contact can be an
important way to make new connections, at least in my opinion.

~~~
jlgaddis
For many of us, the fact that it is "unsolicited" means it is spam. I really
don't care if it was an e-mail sent out to 1000 random people or it was
"targeted" to 20 people just like me.

If it's commercial and unsolicited, it's spam and I will treat it as such.

------
janpot
Totally get it. I wonder if diluting his page with irrelevant titles is going
to have a negative effect on his own ranking.

------
alkotronikk
I've heard about it. It's actually a SEO "strategy" called link building. You
just spam sites with articles related to you, asking for a link to your page,
which in return raises your credibility in search results and yields better
position... in theory.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Yup, and they have to do it like that because spamming links in comments no
longer works because most commenting systems add a meta tag to the links so
that search engines won't follow / consider them for ranking.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Also, blog comment systems these days often feature automated spam filters.

(Or petty bored admins like me; back in the days I had a wordpress blog, I
once looked at the spam links I was bombarded with, identified the SEO company
responsible, then went around them and mailed a customer of theirs, informing
them of how their business is being promoted. It ended up with that customer
dumping their SEO provider, which I found immensely satisfying.)

------
maallooc
Wow, I hope I have self-esteem like him to react to a simple mass-produced
spam like this.

~~~
gkoberger
He's not really writing it for the bots emailing him, he's saying "this SEO
growth tactic sucks, marketers should stop it!" in a creative way.

------
WrtCdEvrydy
Someone has upset troy today.

------
TheDesolate0
Then why is this spam here?

~~~
lolc
One of us solicited it!

------
osobo
No, I won't read this low effort blog post.

------
airnomad
A guy from a company with probably the worst history of unethical or even
illegal behavior in the industry, got all worked up about guys doing link
building outreach.

~~~
gumby
He is unethical?

------
Rallerbabs
I'm an SEO. I build links all the time.

SEOs like me don't give a rat's patoot if some guy throws a hissyfit about
other SEOs contacting him for backlinks.

Whenever I do outreach, people reply with a quote on how much it costs. This
is business, and I'm willing to pay.

I agree with him that those wanting a backlink for free are parasite moochers.

But the reality of the situation is that you can build great content and
nobody will ever visit it if you don't build at least a few backlinks to
yourself.

Build it and they will come?

Show me where, because it's certainly not in SEO.

I still gotta eat. So paid backlinks it is.

Troy can execute his evil plan. It'll fail. You think you're gonna get
rankings & traffic from just including a few terms on an otherwise unrelated
blogpost?

It isn't 2005 in SEO anymore.

If only it were!

------
teddyuk
He just comes across as an arsehole, this sort of nonsense has stopped me
listening to whatever else he has to say.

What we all do with spam is ignore it.

~~~
barnabee
No, he doesn’t, he comes across as someone who is helping by trying to react
to a serious problem in a way that, if we all did it, might go some way to
solving it. I wish everyone would/could do something like this.

If you send me an unsolicited email you/your company goes on an avoid list and
it would take a very strong, very personal recommendation for me to work with
you after that.

Unsolicited email is targeted (or in some cases, pretty untargeted)
advertising. It’s unprofessional, unpleasant and a hassle, and should be
called out and heavily penalised whenever possible.

~~~
zdkl
And how would I go about contacting you in a professional, pleasant and
unhassling way if I genuinely have good reason to reach out _and_ we have no
prior connection?

What I hear from your conclusion is "screw anyone who isn't already in my
network", and that sounds... sad?

~~~
barnabee
If only people with a genuinely good reason made contact it’d be a lot easier.
If someone has a such a reason then they ought to be able to explain it well
enough in an email, and given that the process of avoidance isn’t automated,
it’s more than likely going to get seen.

Collaborations and discussions are always welcome and it’s not hard to get in
touch with me, it’s generally very easy to separate this from the spam.
Twitter is a better place than email to kick off a non-spammy relationship
with someone you don’t know.

That said, half of the people who send this spam _think_ they have a genuinely
good reason and I have no doubt some of them even believe it. 99% of the time
there isn’t a good reason, they are after something. “I saw you do after X and
we provide Y which is necessary for X” is not a good reason. For instance,
even if I’m hiring, unsolicited contact from recruiters who think they can
fill that role is entirely unwelcome, etc.

I can count on one hand the number of fruitful outcomes from completely cold
contact that I’ve experienced in >15 years.

