Web Design News

As you may or may not know inbound links can be very important to the success or otherwise of a website but getting those links is not always easy.

Sometimes they’re given because the ‘giver’ sees some real value for the people who visit his website. At other times links are given because someone writes begging for a link exchange and today I got one of those begging emails imploring me to exchange links with some website in the United Kingdom that I’ve never heard of.

The request came from Media Run Search … a search engine optimisation company and their employee was begging for a link exchange on behalf of a client. I’m afraid they won’t be getting it.

You see, they forgot to tell me which site they hoped I would place their link on and they also didn’t bother to tell me how any of my Australian sites could be the least bit relevant to a company that sells van roof racks in England.

So David from Media Run Search no link for you old son … for a link to be of any value it to your client or to me it needs to be relevant and it also needs to be somewhere other than buried on a links page. God I thought that idea disappeared before Noah set sail.

Every person who owns a website will get silly link requests sooner or later and almsot always they will want a link to them on a nice juicy page while they want to bury their link to you on a page that no one in their right mind will ever visit.

My advice when you get emails like that is to consign them to the trash … instantly …  because that’s the only place that they belong.

What is your advice to clients who want to buy links for their website?

Do you tell them about the warnings that Google has issued? Do you tell them to concentrate on purchasing quality links from places like the Yahoo Directory or do you tell them to go out and buy as many links as they can get their hands on?

Sometimes desperation drives people to buy links from neighbourhoods that Matt Cutts would consider as bad and their clients would too. Would you buy a link that put your business on the same page as links to some shady websites?

Sometimes buying cheap links does far more damage than you might think … but then, as a professional web designer, you should know that.