Written on February 21st, 2008 at 12:02 am by Darren Rowse

Conversations with an Underground Text Link Seller

Miscellaneous Blog Tips 184 comments

Since Google have cracked down on the selling of text link ads on blogs text link selling has gone underground (as I wrote back in October last year).

One example of this is the semi regular request that I get from text link sellers offering to buy in post text links on single posts on my blogs. Over the last week or so I had an exchange with one such text link seller and thought I’d share it for a few reasons:

1. to highlight the tactic

2. to show the persistence of those selling these links

3. to give those of you considering selling links in this way a tip - play hard to get and hang out for a higher offer

4. while it’s a frustrating exchange at times it was almost comical and I thought others might appreciate a giggle

Before I share the emails - I should say that I get these requests at least every second week and they almost always go in a similar fashion to this conversation. As a result I’m getting more and more blunt in my responses.

I should also say that I choose not to participate in this activity mainly because I don’t want to put paid, non disclosed links in my posts as I think it compromises my content. I’ve written more about why I reject this type of offer at the end of this post. That’s my personal stance on it but I’m interested in yours.

Here’s the email exchange:

======

Hi,

I am interested in placing paragraphs on your web site http://www.problogger.net only on internal pages (not on home page) . Please let me know if you are interested then we will discuss more in detail. I can offer you best to make it worth your time.

Thanks

Shawn

======

sorry but I don’t do this type of thing

Darren

======

Thank for your reply but I am going to send you proposal may be you influence by my offer.

I am interested in placing paragraphs on specific pages. An example of this can been seen at bottom of

http://www.lindseywebdesign.com/

Below the “small business webmaster design tips”

another example

http://www.fingersdontfing.com/

below the blog post.

The paragraph will be custom written to match the content of your website and you will have the right to edit anything. The text links will go to non spam and related websites.

However, since these links are on specific pages. I would be paying only one time fees and the paragraphs will stay permanent i-e as long as the page stays however, I would be purchasing many of these and it would be a good amount.

Let me know if you are interested and I am going to offer you the following price for the specific pages.

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/02/05/what-is-a-blog/ - $150

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2006/02/14/blogging-for-beginners-2/ - $150

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/04/02/blogging-is-about-writing/ - $150

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/05/07/top-5-group-writing-project/ - $150

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/01/06/about-darren/ - $150

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2006/06/27/a-z-of-professional-blogging/ - $150

This will brings the total of USD 900

If you place my all paragraphs on your pages i will give you 1000$(100$ bonus).

PS: Please send me your paypal ID or any other?

Kind regards

Shawn

=====

sorry but I’m not interested

Darren

=====

I can give you $200 per page

Shawn

=====

I’m sorry but I don’t do this type of advertising - it compromises the quality of my content to have you insert paragraphs of information to my posts.

Darren

=====

you can write my paragraph by yourself

and I can give you $225 per page per paragraph

let me know if you are interested

Have you nice day

Kind regards

Shawn

=====

thanks for the offer shawn but I just don’t do text link ads.

Sorry - it’s just not something that I do

Darren

=====

Thanks for your time

I can give you $250 per page per paragraph if you are interested.

Have you any other website where you can easily place my paragraphs

Kind regards

Shawn

=====

sorry shawn but I’m not interested.

Darren

=====

how much you want for per page?

Shawn

=====

I try a new Tactic

At this point I decided to try ignoring him. I thought it had worked because for just over a week I had no more emails. I rejoiced! But then…..

=====

Hi,

I am interested in placing paragraphs on specific pages not on home page (only on internal pages). An example of this can been seen at bottom of

http://www.lindseywebdesign.com

Below the “small business webmaster design tips”

another example

http://www.fingersdontfing.com

below the blog post.

The paragraph will be custom written to match the content of your website and you will have the right to edit anything. The text links will go to non spam and related websites.

However, since these links are on specific pages. I would be paying only one time fees and the paragraphs will stay permanent i-e as long as the page stays however, I would be purchasing many of these and it would be a good amount.

Let me know if you are interested and I am going to offer you the following price for the specific pages.

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/02/05/what-is-a-blog/ - $200

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2006/02/14/blogging-for-beginners-2/ - $200

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/04/02/blogging-is-about-writing/ - $200

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/05/07/top-5-group-writing-project/ - $200

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/01/06/about-darren/ - $200

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2006/06/27/a-z-of-professional-blogging/ - $200

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/08/15/search-engine-optimization-for-blogs/ - $200

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/12/06/how-bloggers-make-money-from-blogs/ $200

This will brings the total of USD 1600

If you place my all paragraphs on your pages i will give you $1700($100 bonus).

If you agree then please send me your paypal ID or any other?

Kind regards

Shawn

=====

Hi Shawn

we had a full email conversation about this last week. We sent emails back and forth. The conversation was me saying I’m not interested and you upping your offers.

I’m still not interested in doing this. I have a website in which I pride myself on providing genuine and transparent advice. I don’t take money to link to sites as text ads.

Darren

=====

Thanks

you can write my paragraphs by yourself according to your page content only place my link.

I am again up my price to $250 per page per paragraph, a paragraph contain 4-5 links

If you have any question please ask

Kind regards

Shawn

=====

I’m not interested.

Darren

=====

$300 per page per paragraph

You have to right to cancel my any link if you don’t like anyone.

Shawn

=====

No thanks - I’m not interested

Darren

=====

last and final price

$400 per page per paragraph

Shawn

=====

do you promise that this is the last one?

In that case - no - I’m not interested.

Darren

Why I Wasn’t Tempted

This ‘last’ message was just an hour or two ago - so whether it’s truly over I’m not sure (I certainly hope so, it’s been distracting). It’s certainly been an interesting ride though - he went from $150 per paragraph to $400 a paragraph. While this sounds a lot I wasn’t even tempted for a few reasons:

  • For starters it’s too risky. The examples that he gave of what he’d done show ‘paragraphs’ that to me obviously didn’t ‘fit’ on the pages. They stuck out like a sore thumb to anyone looking at them.
  • Secondly it’s too cheap. $400 for a paragraph with 4-5 links in it makes it $80-$100 a link. This isn’t a monthly payment - it’s a one off for an indefinite period. Text links on pages with page ranks as high as the ones he’s targeting go for a lot more than this kind of rate when you consider that they often pay per month. Over time his $80-$100 a link is nothing at all.
  • Thirdly it compromises the quality of my content. Even with the offer to write the paragraphs myself I’m not willing to link to sites that could have a dubious quality. This kind of thing can impact you on numerous fronts - SEO for one and reader experience for another. The sites you link to impact not only your bank balance but potentially your reputation.

But again - that’s just my thoughts on this - what do you think?

Update

But wait there’s more…. just now I got this email:

=====

How much you are willing for per page?

Shawn

=====

$10,000

Darren

=====

Lets hope that ends it :-)

Update 2

one more email from my ‘friend’:

oh

i cant give you that price per page

anyway thanks you give me time

Have you nice day

Kind regards

shawn

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184 Responses to “Conversations with an Underground Text Link Seller”

  • Yaro

    February 21st, 2008 12:20 am

    Lol, this cracked me up. Kudos for replying so often - that’s more than I would have done.

    $10,000 is a fair price :-)

  • Jamie Harrop

    February 21st, 2008 12:26 am

    Looks like you forgot to close a link, Darren. :)

    That’s a riot. I guess we all know the way to stop those emails. Just ask for a $10,000 fee.

    I can’t believe how persistent he was. He reminds me of AOL trying to stop me cancelling my account all those years ago.

  • Stephan Miller

    February 21st, 2008 12:27 am

    I just delete these most of the time.

    One: I am an affiliate marketer. I will have the tendency of looking at how much a person is willing to pay and the links he wants. Knowing he has done his research, I will take his suggestion and find a product I can promote with the same links. Hey, it’s research I didn’t have to do.

    Two: They usually want a lifetime link. Screw that.

    Three: I make more from affiliate marketing. So you would have to come at me with a hefty price to even make me blink.

  • Ali from the Office Diet

    February 21st, 2008 12:28 am

    That’s a brilliant exchange of emails! Kudos to you for staying patient, Darren — I think I’d have been swearing at him by the end of it…

    Ali

  • Chris

    February 21st, 2008 12:43 am

    LOL! It looks like the time this guy has spent underground has affected his language abilities - the phrase ‘No thanks - I’m not interested’ clearly doesn’t translate well for him.

  • Sergio Rebelo

    February 21st, 2008 1:00 am

    would you accepted to compromise the content for $10.000 a page?

  • Contamination

    February 21st, 2008 1:04 am

    Why not just take his money and link to the pages with NOFOLLOW?

    Scam the scammer….

  • Jay

    February 21st, 2008 1:08 am

    That was a great email thread. I have had declined similar requests but my patience ended a lot sooner than yours.

  • Geeks are Sexy

    February 21st, 2008 1:15 am

    I get these kind of offers at least once a month… and strangely enough, they’re written in **EXACTLY** the same way..

    This guy probably comes from the same TLA company :)

  • Jeff

    February 21st, 2008 1:32 am

    I have received the same set of emails from this guy to have his paragraphs published on my site. I tried telling him no, but much like you, he wouldn’t take no for an answer. I was amazed by his persistence in upping his bid, but also frustrated that he would just counter offer without listening to what I was telling him (i.e. I’m not interested). Great post and it’s great to see that I’m not the only one with these propositions….

  • CompuWorld

    February 21st, 2008 1:33 am

    BOOM..

    when I read that 10,000 bucks thing I thought the next para email will say can we make it 9000?? ;)

    it was acting like some script..

  • Ashish Mohta

    February 21st, 2008 1:38 am

    Haha I did make one person like this. I offered him like 5000$ per page and he was like are you kidding and I replied him back….NO You had been kidding with me till now.

  • Brian Clark

    February 21st, 2008 1:49 am

    I get these too, and the key is to never respond the first time. :-)

  • Wendy Piersall

    February 21st, 2008 1:49 am

    ROFLMAO.

    “Shawn” has tried to pitch me as well. But “he” was a “she” named Cindy. The similarities in their emails is too close to have it be anyone else.

    I think you’re being too nice - I just ignore them, though $10K might be worth a conversation or two.. ;)

  • Michael Wales

    February 21st, 2008 1:50 am

    I had a guy exactly like this. My first time receiving one of these emails I was somewhat interested in the offer but he was definitely going to have to be competetive ($10 per page, for 4-5 permanent links, on a PR4 domain? Don’t think so!).

    Nonetheless, when I responded with my counter-offer, he ran away quickly like yours did, Darren.

  • CatherineL

    February 21st, 2008 1:54 am

    This is so funny Darren. I can’t believe the guy expected to advertise that cheaply for the life of your blog.

    I guess some people would be tempted by it though, but it’s certainly not something that’s worth ruining your blog or your reputation for.

  • Dan Cole

    February 21st, 2008 2:01 am

    “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” ~Albert Einstein

  • Make Money Talks

    February 21st, 2008 2:10 am

    lol, maybe he pay you 10k $ at end :)

  • Mark McGuinness

    February 21st, 2008 2:19 am

    Sorry to hear you lost the deal.

  • Guillermo

    February 21st, 2008 2:20 am

    One thing is real… That guy’s a tough seller! Excelent for a used car lot!

  • Karen Sugarpants

    February 21st, 2008 2:23 am

    I had the SAME email exchange with him but it sure didn’t go on as long and the prices weren’t anywhere near that. I did laugh though.

    You know what shut him up for me, Darren?

    “My content is not for sale.”

  • Amanda

    February 21st, 2008 2:24 am

    Darren, I don’t know why you replied, but I’m glad you did — this post made my morning. Seriously, I very nearly had coffee coming out of my nose.

  • Sam

    February 21st, 2008 2:25 am

    Darren,

    I agree that the price isn’t tempting at all for one-time payment. Perhaps monthly, but certainly not one-time.

    I don’t think you should have outed his customers though, it’s kind of mean. =)

  • Jul

    February 21st, 2008 2:28 am

    Wow, I have to say I’m surprised that you bother replying at all to such requests, Darren (although the results certainly were worth a few laughs).

    I get these types of requests quite often and never reply. In general, non-specific business propositions go right into my trash. I only consider legitimate those requests which are specific, personal, and which contain complete contact information from the get-go.

  • Ian McKenzie

    February 21st, 2008 2:33 am

    I’m glad to see it’s not just me. My tactic is to repeatedly respond with links to places they can buy advertising on Ian’s Messy Desk. The net effect is about the same as you have posted. ;)

  • ramayadi

    February 21st, 2008 2:36 am

    last week i got 2 email like shawn sent to you. the different only on the price, that guy only offer me $10 / post , and i kick him from my mail. May be if i got offer like shawn offered your post, i will say, alright shawn…deal!

    hehehehehehhehehe

  • Everett

    February 21st, 2008 2:39 am

    “Thanks you give me time”… I have to just picture Borat when I read that.

  • noemi

    February 21st, 2008 2:40 am

    lol $10,000

    like you, I refused. It just wasn’t worth it for an indefinite period of time. They happen to use the same words too from some template.

  • Mike

    February 21st, 2008 2:41 am

    Thanks so much for this tip. I received a similar email recently, which was surprising to me since the blog in question is only a month or two old and is only averaging about 45 visits a day. The whole idea seemed pretty deceptive, so I rejected on grounds similar to your reason number 3 (It compromises the quality of my content). Now I know how to quickly end the back and forth. I’ll just give them the $10K number to their second offer and be done with it!

  • Tomas

    February 21st, 2008 2:43 am

    And what if he agreed to pay $10,000? Would you do it? :)

  • Jim O'Donnell

    February 21st, 2008 2:44 am

    Wow! I encourage my students to ask for the sale more than once, but Shawn knows how to take that advice to the extreme! I think Dan Cole’s quote fits like a glove. Insane Selling!

  • PChere

    February 21st, 2008 2:45 am

    I often get such requests. I guess this $10000 tip will work to discourage them.

  • Hot Librarian

    February 21st, 2008 2:45 am

    This post is completely hilarious and you didn’t even have to try. I personally DETEST ads within posts - it’s a surefire way to lose me as a reader.

    $10,000.

    Ha.

  • John Hewitt

    February 21st, 2008 2:48 am

    I had a similar exchange with a guy named “Brad”. For me it worked the same way as you. As soon as I told him what it would take he went away. For the record, my offer was a serious amount that I thought was fair. I was willing to deal if the price was right but I also knew the risks involved in link selling so I made an offer that in my mind made it worth the risk. I never heard from him again, not even a no thanks.

  • Kyle

    February 21st, 2008 2:52 am

    Thanks for sharing. This is just hilarious. The level some people will stoop to get a link. I really hope “Shawn” reads this post.

  • TheOzz

    February 21st, 2008 2:54 am

    Darren,

    This is great. Your timing on this post worked out so that you answered my specific concerns as if you were my personal blog consultant. Please don’t get any ideas about billing me ’cause I can’t afford you. Being a small blogfish, I have just started to getting these emails.

    Question: Since you don’t do text link ads in your content, why do you allow banner advertisements from TextLinkAds?

  • Tom Beaton

    February 21st, 2008 2:55 am

    At least you have a technique for next time eh?

  • nathan

    February 21st, 2008 2:56 am

    his grasp of english doesn’t seem too hot - he probably just didn’t understand what you were saying.

    i’ve gotten a few requests that were similar, and oddly they all seemed to be foreign too, but of course, they weren’t quite as persistent as ‘Shawn’ :)

  • dan

    February 21st, 2008 3:06 am

    I got the same offer from shawn and told him now because I wanted to keep the page rank that I have, he sodded off fairly quickly on that tactic, but then I pretty much so ignored what he was saying after no, my page rank is more important.

    I feel honored though that shawn would talk to both of us. LOL! Good job well done, much humor.

  • FT

    February 21st, 2008 3:12 am

    LOL, awesome final message Darren. I’ve also stopped selling “follow” text links on my site also, but I still get messages from people like “Shawn” all the time.

  • Sue @ TameBay

    February 21st, 2008 3:19 am

    Just because I have this theory that everyone has a price for everything - if he’d said yes to the $10k, would you have done it?

  • Dan

    February 21st, 2008 3:19 am

    I was actually offered reasonable money from one of these guys, for several links on several blogs, for a fixed time period.

    But just when I thought we’d finalised everything, he buggered off!

  • Mrs S

    February 21st, 2008 3:19 am

    Oh my - that’s crazy - let’s hope he’s now got the message! Why on earth anyone would take him on this offer I don’t know (I wonder if those sample sites really have or if they belong to him)

  • Shannon Lilly

    February 21st, 2008 3:23 am

    All I can say is… Some people never learn :D If they would just read the ProBlogger blog and see that they can have as much as they want by putting time into their blogs they would understand!

  • Hunter Nuttall

    February 21st, 2008 3:30 am

    And I thought your AdSense love letter was funny. This is incredible!

  • Iantrepreneuer

    February 21st, 2008 3:30 am

    HAHA LMAO - this is great - nice to see some humor on your blog darren - this was great. I would have probably stopped at email 3. he has great persistance I wonder how well he does if he was selling cars…lol

  • Tejvan Pettinger

    February 21st, 2008 3:30 am

    But, it made a great post. Made me smile!

  • Ron

    February 21st, 2008 3:31 am

    Darren, that is so funny! I spoke with, who I would assume is the same “Shawn” on numerous occasions. I get those stupid emails constantly as well and you can tell by my site link above what we do! It seemed odd that someone would peddle text links to a link broker, but I engaged him in conversation.

    Even though he was emailing me through our company email, he still had no idea he was talking to a broker. You’d think he could gather this, but I finally had to tell him what I did and he suddenly grew defensive. I enjoyed it. (good idea posting it!)

  • Davis

    February 21st, 2008 3:34 am

    Some peoples just don`t want to understand something that is obviously. Maybe he was thinking that you want a bigger and a bigger price for the link, and that is the reason for what you are telling him that you`re not interested.

  • Rob Lambert

    February 21st, 2008 3:40 am

    Hillarious stuff, Darren.

    You gotta give the guy an ounce of credit for persistence :)

    Would you have really taken him up on his offer if he accepted your $10k offer?

  • Anthony Lawrence

    February 21st, 2008 3:43 am

    Yeah, I’ve been through that with this same guy. Persistent, stupid, and very annoying. I think he started at $50.00 with me, we went through the same nonsense, and I do not remember now how high he finally got. Very, very annoying.

  • thesavvyboomer

    February 21st, 2008 3:44 am

    Your counter offer reminds me of the joke about the guy who had offered a woman $1mil to sleep with him and she accepted.
    Then he said “Well would you do it for $100?”
    She replied “$100 what do you think I am?”
    He said “Well we just established what you are, now we are just negotiating a price.”

  • Mike

    February 21st, 2008 3:44 am

    Hey, you can’t fault a guy for persistence. I’m sure the few yesses he got were worth it though.

    It is nice, however to see just how much leeway these guys have on their price. Sounds like you knocked $300 off of his commission.

    I also have to wonder about how smoothly the payment would have gone - I read about a PP disaster on another blog related to similar work and damn, seems like it would be easy for the guy to reverse payment and get his cash back.

    Also, since you have no control over the pages he’s linking to and no guarantee that he’s not going to swap out content at a later date, having so many links sounds like it would be an absolute pain to check back on….

    How prevalent is this practice?

  • Rehuel aka Stretsh

    February 21st, 2008 3:45 am

    I wonder how many people fall for this.

    I think they prey on people who are desperately looking for ways to make money, so I find it strange that this Shawn person was so persistent with Problogger.net

    Maybe he saw a chance to make big bucks, and hoped the person running this blog was like him: stupid!

  • Michael Martine, Blog Consultant

    February 21st, 2008 3:47 am

    I had received an offer like this in the past, and I took them up on it. I made a nice chunk of cash, and then after a while I removed the links. It looks like I should have negotiated a little better!

    The company gave as examples of their work a couple sites, including Smashing Magazine. Smashing is not a no-name site, so that (and the money) is why I accepted. But after looking at the sites that were linked to, I saw they were all garbage. My PageRank was never damaged (they weren’t on there long enough), thankfully.

  • Blogfeld

    February 21st, 2008 3:50 am

    Hey send him over to my blog. I’ll gladly accept $400 per post. For a new blog that price is well worth it.

    You can always sell the blog later on and let the guy deal with the new owner for keeping the links and content on.

    Who am I kidding? $400 is chump change on any blog. I’ve had people like this contact me as well. When I gave him my response he replied with a LOL.

    At least he stopped writing.

  • Hammer

    February 21st, 2008 3:51 am

    Unfortunately we did find out that you do have a sellout price. What if he had agreed. Would you have said, “Sorry, I was just joking” or would you have ended up doing something you claim you won’t do?

  • Bradly

    February 21st, 2008 4:03 am

    I haven’t gotten offers for paragraphs yet but I have gotten offers for single paid links to be added to the bottom of certain posts.

    The last one I get wanted me to place the link on a category page and not actually on a post.

    I’m sure this sort of thing is only going to get worse as Google cracks down on paid links.

  • Sly from Slyvisions.com

    February 21st, 2008 4:05 am

    I got these emails too but after checking out the spammy links I just had to reject it like you did. Oh and since they were lifetime links, there was no doubt in my decision.

  • Derek Wong

    February 21st, 2008 4:15 am

    I think that this same Shawn contacted me.

    Amusingly, I was much nicer than you were and simply asked for more details of the offer. He never got back to me, and I wasn’t horribly disappointed.

    Way to stick by your principles. Of course, my content isn’t nearly as prized as yours so I’m not in the same boat as you. Plus I’m not a pro blogger!

  • Vyoma

    February 21st, 2008 4:19 am

    Ah. This post came in at the right time.

    I got my first email few days back and the response is eeirly similar. I though am corresponding with a person named “Mark”.

    Thanks for the heads-up.

  • Ritu B. Pant

    February 21st, 2008 4:25 am

    I will have to give you credit for replying that many times. I would have just marked it as a Spam. I think I would give some credit to the text link seller as well for his desperation to get you to do this.

    Thanks for sharing this with us. It made my day. I am pretty sure it was quite stressful for you to deal with this minute after minute but this is pretty funny :-)

  • squawkfox

    February 21st, 2008 4:25 am

    This is a very entertaining exchange, thank you for sharing. I think you were very polite and kind to this fellow. I may have just ignored him after while and flagged his email as spam. :)

  • VikingBlogger

    February 21st, 2008 4:27 am

    Hehe - thanks for the laugh Darren! :) You gotta give the guy credit though, not giving up on you. :)

  • shawn

    February 21st, 2008 4:34 am

    $410?

    Have you nice day

  • Rhys

    February 21st, 2008 4:39 am

    I have exactly the same guy do exactly the same thing with me! He again offered me $400 per paragraph per page. Now, as much as I hate to admit it, my blog is nowhere near the readership of yours. I was slightly more tempted than you, but I can make that in 2 months, rather than permanently.

    And I value my content, no matter how rubbish it is!

  • Madiator

    February 21st, 2008 4:44 am

    LOL! $10k reply was awesome! The guy learnt a lesson..

  • Jim Kukral

    February 21st, 2008 4:44 am

    Darren, that’s exactly what I do. I respond back with a HUGE number and they never respond.

  • OknooRap

    February 21st, 2008 4:50 am

    Hello, everybody, I’m Newbie here
    Thanks for sharing this tutorial darren
    Nice Posting.

  • The How-To Geek

    February 21st, 2008 5:00 am

    I get these same emails constantly… they are all “freelancers” working for the same small set of companies. You might be surprised to know that a lot of fairly “large” sites actually do this…

    I’ve found that even writing back is pointless, just mark them as spam in Gmail. If we all mark them as spam, eventually their emails won’t even get through because Gmail will realize they are nothing more than spammers.

    I completely agree with Darren, the problem here is that you should never sell a LIFETIME link to anything or anybody.

  • Ebony

    February 21st, 2008 5:09 am

    I’ll give you $750 and that’s my final offer!

    Just kidding…boy you’ve got the patience of Job!

  • Briana of College Fashion

    February 21st, 2008 5:22 am

    This post cracked me up!

    I get emails like this too. I run a fashion blog and there is ALWAYS some small t-shirt or jewelry biz that wants me to post a paid article about them or insert some of their links into my posts. It’s so stupid! If I liked their products, I would write about them for free.

    It’s sad that so many bloggers go along with this kind of crap for the quick and easy money. What they don’t realize is that it impacts their reputation and hurts them in the end.

    Thanks for not being one of those!

    - Briana
    http://www.collegefashion.net

  • abe

    February 21st, 2008 5:33 am

    I get a lot fo these similar offers on several of my blogs. This is how I approach the offer:

    1) It must be a recurring payment. If not, they should offer at least 24x my monthly link ad rate. So, If my monthly rate is $100, they should offer $2,400 for lifetime.

    2) The paragraph ads should be enclosed in a bordered box to separate it from the content on the page.

    3) The ads will be labeled as “Adverts” conspicuously.

    4) The link should have the nofollow tag or a Javascript link or a redirect.

    5) I have editorial rights to reject any one or all of the ads.

    If they agree to the terms above, then I guess it’s a fair deal.

    As for the ads not in context with the content of the page, it’s the same as AdSense. I don’t drop/block a specific advertisers on AdSense just because they ads were not really relevant to the page.

  • Trent

    February 21st, 2008 5:33 am

    I got one of these offers, but at nowhere near $400 per para. That probably would have tempted me given that my in-post links via TLA go for $5 per post per month.

  • Abe Olandres

    February 21st, 2008 5:47 am

    I get a lot of these similar offers on several of my blogs. This is how I approach the offer:

    1) It must be a recurring payment. If not, they should offer at least 24x my monthly link ad rate. So, If my monthly rate is $100, they should offer $2,400 for lifetime.

    2) The paragraph ads should be enclosed in a bordered box to separate it from the content on the page.

    3) The ads will be labeled as “Adverts” conspicuously.

    4) The link should have the nofollow tag or a Javascript link or a redirect.

    5) I have editorial rights to reject any one or all of the ads.

    If they agree to the terms above, then I guess it’s a fair deal.

    As for the ads not in context with the content of the page, it’s the same as AdSense. I don’t drop/block a specific advertisers on AdSense just because they ads were not really relevant to the page.

  • Technology blog

    February 21st, 2008 5:50 am

    To tell you the truth i would have been tempted!!

  • Tom Kephart

    February 21st, 2008 5:59 am

    Thanks for sharing the email sequence, Darren. Very interesting and instructive. I’ve written print and broadcast advertising copy for many years, and although I’m well aware that many who read or hear the ads take them at face value, often on par with news reporting (otherwise why would we bother advertising?), I agree that crossing that line if you’re presenting yourself as an independent source of news or information is dishonest.

    Once your readers suspect you’re bought and paid for, how can they tell how much of your other content is really advertising?

    @abe: I like your guidelines, and agree with your AdSense assessment. Those ad boxes are clearly labeled as such. Of course, not everyone understands that we don’t have complete control over what ads run, but at least we’ve made the attempt by segregating the paid content from our own.

  • Troy

    February 21st, 2008 6:00 am

    Ah, the woes of a popular blogger. Would that I could get any offer like this :). I guess the lesson here is twofold: 1. Don’t sell text ads, and 2. If you’re going to sell them, keep holding out for a better price :)

  • Andy Merrett

    February 21st, 2008 6:10 am

    Oh, “Shawn” strikes again.

    I’ve had offers of small one off payments for eternal links. Umm, since when did “normal” advertising work this way?

  • PhoneBoy

    February 21st, 2008 6:22 am

    I’d like you to clarify your difference in opinion between, say, what TextLinkAds does versus the practice you’re talking about, which is permanent links on specific pages. I can’t decide if what TextLinkAds is doing is “wrong” or if Google is trying to snuff out the competition. It’s a fine line, if you ask me.

  • Zach Smith

    February 21st, 2008 6:42 am

    I can see why Darren has the response he does, but I am in the middle of a deal like this (although slightly different) and have had no issues with it.

    I write a blog about Wake Forest University athletics and was approached by an established online ticket broker to include links in individual posts. She did not ask for paragraphs, just a couple of links for phrases like “March Madness” and “Wake Forest tickets.”

    She did not ask to add them to existing posts, but rather to include them in new posts.

    Because writing news about sports is much more time sensitive, I do not feel that these new posts will have much value more than a year from now. Beyond that, my entire site is still PR 0 so the amount I can make from other advertising methods is pretty small. Also, because they asked for no control over the content, just for the phrases to be linked, it caused a very very minimal effect on the quality of my content.

    I was paid $500 up front for 5 posts over a 2.5 month period on pages that didn’t yet exist and would have PR 0 for a very long time. Considering the offer, the legitimacy of it, the relevance of it, and the opportunity to make more through it than I currently can any other way, it was too good an offer for me to turn down.

  • Michael

    February 21st, 2008 6:44 am

    I’d counter with a stock email: “I do not sell links. If you ask again, I will cc my next repsonse to Google.”

  • Chris Marshall | Martial Development

    February 21st, 2008 7:17 am

    I had this same email conversation a few weeks ago–but my guy only offered me $20! :(

  • redwall_hp

    February 21st, 2008 7:25 am

    Hang PageRank! I’d sell for $10,000 a page!

  • The How-To Geek

    February 21st, 2008 7:28 am

    Of all the irony… within 10 minutes of leaving a comment on this post I ended up with another paid link request in my email.

    *Spam!*

  • Elliott | Blogexplosion.net

    February 21st, 2008 7:37 am

    Only $10K???

    Hell, give me one on each page of the site for that price!!!

    Wait, would that qualify for a quantity discount?

    Great example of how to handle those types of offers Darren!

  • Tom Hanna

    February 21st, 2008 7:39 am

    I actually considered one of these right after the great Page Rank slam. When I visited the domain in the email address, it redirected to Google’s home page. Every one since has come with a gmail email address. What percent of these are Google “stings”?

  • RayInPR

    February 21st, 2008 8:05 am

    When I’ve gotten these I’ve responded that I’ll gladly let them have one paragraph on each page they’re interested in, with a maximum of 5 links per paragraph. Then I tell them that on-going _monthly_ cost will be $X per link. That stops them dead in their tracks and I never hear back from them!

  • Chris Cree

    February 21st, 2008 8:09 am

    They must be finding people who take them up on it and add their paragraph. The way he kept going up makes you wonder what they thing those links are really worth.

    Personally I’m with the consensus here. A permanent commercial link is worth way more than a few hundred dollars, and probably not worth the hassle in the end. Especially if your blog has any kind of PR at all.

    Can’t blame them for trying though.

  • Julia

    February 21st, 2008 8:20 am

    LOL! You probably shocked his socks off with that price. Let’s hope he(she, it?) stops bugging you. Very funny conversation though. :)

  • Beth

    February 21st, 2008 8:21 am

    Very, very funny.

    Although I couldn’t help thinking that $150 for a text link ad is almost as ridiculous as the pay being offered in the job post that you just twittered.

  • solacetech

    February 21st, 2008 8:46 am

    Wow! For a noob like me,being offered money to put content on my site would be flattering. Still though I do want a good company rep. so no paid links! Thanx for showing us how to say no,lol!

  • blockbot

    February 21st, 2008 9:02 am

    *high five*

    That is amazing. I would of loved to see his face when he read that after all the emails he sent. Well done.

  • David at free Christian resources

    February 21st, 2008 9:04 am

    Very funny Darren!

    However I have a proposition for you…

    $600 per link. Don’t tell me you aren’t tempted ;)

    p.s. that is my first and final offer

  • Matt Packer

    February 21st, 2008 9:20 am

    I actually have had 4 different people contact me in the last 2 weeks about buying text links like this, they too were persistent and wouldn’t take no for an answer. They started out offering $80 per link, it rose up to $150 but like you it’s not something I am interested in doing.

    In the end I just directed Gmail to treat them as spam.

    Cheers
    Matt

  • Olaf

    February 21st, 2008 9:26 am

    “Shawn” has send me a similar offer and I remember me a similar offer ~ 1 year ago. Accept that you get these offers again from some guy with a different name (very soon) :D

    These guys are acting like insurance sales men from in the ‘80.

  • Mosley

    February 21st, 2008 10:13 am

    Wow! I got the same email form the same guy. It went pretty much the same way. I told him no and he keep offering more money.

    I am not so sure about these guys because I think there linking to scam sites or something. It just seems shady.

    But if they offered 10,000 per page I may be tempted. haha!

  • Pádraig

    February 21st, 2008 10:48 am

    You have to admire the guys persistence. Bloody irritating, though!

  • Video Blog

    February 21st, 2008 10:49 am

    Hahahaha thats awesome

  • Matt Cutts

    February 21st, 2008 10:51 am

    Don’t forget this one:
    “Hi,

    We’ve seen your website at http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/
    and we love it!

    We see that your traffic rank is 5813
    and your link popularity is 2565.
    Also, you have been online since 21/06/2003.

    With that kind of traffic, we will pay you up to $4,800/month
    to advertise our links on your website.

    If you’re interested, read our terms from this page:”

    I’ve gotten that forwarded from multiple people and it’s always “up to $4,800/month.” You’d think that they wouldn’t send that email to directly to search engine representatives. Multiple times. :)

  • Neil Duckett

    February 21st, 2008 11:05 am

    Interesting read, i have only had one request and then they didn’t follow up when i responded.

    What’s with all the underlining of the comments too by the way?!

  • Ryan

    February 21st, 2008 11:22 am

    …I will pay you $10,001…deal? ;-)

    I’m guessing(from the grammar) that the person is not from the US so one thinks it might not even be a real offer….but some kind of scam. I’m glad to see you’re sticking to your guns through, it’s hard to find a site now a days that has resisted the easy income of paid links.

  • Matt Cutts

    February 21st, 2008 11:26 am

    By the way, if you get annoyed when people email out of the blue like this, here’s something you can do. Write back and say “Can you tell me some example sites where you’ve already placed links like this?” Then when they write back with some sites, just go to https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/paidlinks?hl=en and paste their entire email reply into that form.

  • jhay

    February 21st, 2008 11:45 am

    That was the clincher: $10k per page! A good read for those who are torn between selling text link ads or wanting to recover their PR and traffic.

  • Kelvin Kao

    February 21st, 2008 12:14 pm

    Haha, that’s amusing. The guy was persistent. Maybe he used to work for AOL.

    Hm, I wonder what would happen if he actually said “ah, okay, I’ll give you $10,000.”

  • Eric

    February 21st, 2008 12:56 pm

    Thanks for sharing this story! This is a great example of what shadiness is out there and why you should not participate in this type of activity. Good to know you are keeping things straight at problogger.net

  • Stephanie

    February 21st, 2008 1:21 pm

    I like Abe’s requirements. My own first thought was to insist on nofollow and have it be $10,000/month, minimum 6 month contract and 10 page order minimum. Could do an awful lot with that kind of money.

  • jessie

    February 21st, 2008 2:18 pm

    Darren,

    I was laughing at your exchange with the guy. He’s obviously very persistent. I can only agree with what you said about hurting your reputation. While it’s true my blog is not like yours (I wish), I imposed a policy to be careful to who I link to in my posts. I may not be as strict as you but I make sure the entities I link to in my posts are interesting enough for me and/or relevant to my sites.

    I do paid links and what make me laugh with your conversation with the guy in your story is his very low comprehension with the word NO.

    To sum it all, your article was worth a thousand giggles :-)

  • Video Blog

    February 21st, 2008 3:18 pm

    on a serious note Darren, i’ll pay you 450 bucks per link, send me your paypal address

    thanks for your interest

  • Sam Stevens

    February 21st, 2008 3:28 pm

    Thank you Darren! I get these all the time, and you’ve just armed me with the fastest way to get the emails to stop: I’ll tell them I want $XX,XXX for the links! I love it.

  • Mohsin

    February 21st, 2008 7:33 pm

    I got a similar offer a few days back, but the guy was offering me $100 one time payment for pacing paragraphs of links on many of my internal pages.

    I told him to buzz off. ;)

  • marhgil

    February 21st, 2008 8:13 pm

    LOL! you made the link buyer anonymous but you outed some of his customers. that’s kinda mean IMO. $10,000 is a fair price :)

  • pete

    February 21st, 2008 8:34 pm

    To be honest I get these emails all the time - I play hardball like u did then I take the money. Last year I raked in $34,200 doing just that on four blogs. It is the easiest money I make.

  • David Airey

    February 21st, 2008 8:52 pm

    There must be a full-blown text link team working around the clock, as it seems a lot of us have had similar enquiries.

    Don’t be selling yourself short with $10k. You can put a value on reputation.

    Cheers for sharing this, Darren. I enjoyed reading the back and forth emails.

  • David Airey

    February 21st, 2008 8:54 pm

    Also great to see Matt Cutts get sent a similar proposal. Haha.

  • egg on face

    February 21st, 2008 10:18 pm

    And how stupid do I now feel for happily taking the first offer ;-< | Great post and very useful.

  • Snoskred

    February 21st, 2008 11:45 pm

    What is to stop someone accepting his money, put his paragraphs on the page for like 10 minutes, and then delete those blog posts forever. ;) Because note he says -

    I would be paying only one time fees and the paragraphs will stay permanent i-e ****as long as the page stays****

    I bet people have done that - grab the cash, and then removing the pages for good that same day?

  • Stephen Hopson

    February 22nd, 2008 12:13 am

    What a very interesting conversation! Good for you that you decided not to be tempted and add “underground text links.” You’re thinking long-term - that’ll pay off in the long run.

    I wonder how another blogger would have handled this conversation - would he/she be tempted?

  • Ginger@Girls Just Wanna Have Funds

    February 22nd, 2008 12:29 am

    That was indeed tempting but I am glad that you stuck to your guns and maintained the integrity of your site.

  • matt feldman

    February 22nd, 2008 1:00 am

    Sometimes it makes you wonder how much of the content out there is real versus paid advertising.

  • Garg the Unzola

    February 22nd, 2008 1:12 am

    Well done Darren!
    If you do ever decide to go for text link selling, you just raised the bar to $10 000 per page, entry requirement.

    I find text link advertising does not really work on my blogs anyway. It’s a much better reader experience to know the ads are over there, the content is over here.

  • sarah

    February 22nd, 2008 1:21 am

    hilarious exchange!

  • Taylor Blue

    February 22nd, 2008 1:25 am

    Wow…he really wanted those links! Thanks for sharing this with us. I thought it was funny to read how persistent he actually was!

  • Jasmine Shanea

    February 22nd, 2008 1:57 am

    Darren, you are a great example of holding your values and your reputation higher than what money could pay. Thanks for sharing this. It was both insightful yet funny at the same time. :)

  • MInTheGap

    February 22nd, 2008 2:24 am

    I can’t see adding a paragraph written by someone else to my blog’s content– especially given my topic. I’ve done PPP and TLA, but adding to content just seems beyond the pale.

    It’s strange to see how desperate some are getting to get clicks in that they feel that they now have to not only give you a link to put in, but also give you the text!

  • Marie

    February 22nd, 2008 2:30 am

    Darren, way to keep your cool. You showed respect without budging an inch, and possibly taught Shawn a few lessons in the process.

    Send Shawn my way. I’ll take his offer and share his “paragraphs” with my 20 readers. ;-) Sniff, sniff.

    No…I’ll keep following your tips and cultivating the virtue of PATIENCE–my cup runneth over with it. Thanks for the great service you provide to us newbie bloggers. It’s encouraging.

  • Alexander

    February 22nd, 2008 3:21 am

    Hi,
    It happened the same with me and with some friends of mine. The 1st mail I received they said that the content will be related to the blog posts and the blog content at all, then they started to up the price but in the end its tricky because you never know what the content of the linked pages will be.
    It is totally underground SEO and I think this should not be tolerated as it hurts both the advertiser and the website where those links are placed.
    In the end, they stopped mailing…for now probably :).

    A.

  • bugsy

    February 22nd, 2008 3:46 am

    And if he said “Yes, I will give you $10,000 per page” would you still have said no?

    It comes back to the age old question where people will do anything if the price is right.

    Great insight! I had an e-mail like this a few weeks ago and found it sketchy.

  • Wayne

    February 22nd, 2008 3:46 am

    But did you have you nice day? (grin)

  • Matt Cutts

    February 22nd, 2008 4:07 am

    David Airey, quite a few people email me with similar offers. They must not know that I work for a search engine, and that lots of people forward these emails straight on to Google or other search engines.

  • Husbandhood

    February 22nd, 2008 5:30 am

    Definitely a great read. Hysterical.

  • Vlad - Small Business, Marketing and Web Design

    February 22nd, 2008 7:35 am

    Darren
    I got same e-mail from another person (female name if I recall correctly). I had much shorter conversation when I said that I am more then interested to sell links on my blog for monthly (little over)payment. That ended the conversation right away.

  • Vlad - Small Business, Marketing and Web Design

    February 22nd, 2008 7:36 am

    Matt Cutts,
    you should be able to automate spam reporting by now :)

  • Darnell Clayton

    February 22nd, 2008 9:37 am

    Ha! That was hilarious! I am going to have to borrow that idea from you Darren, as I find such behavior not only annoying, but dishonest (the whole “paid link” thing).

    PS

    Whenever I get “we will pay you to place a link on your site emails,” I always say sure, as long as I can insert a no follow tag inside of it. That usually kills the conversation.

    ~Darnell

  • Glenn Abel

    February 22nd, 2008 9:47 am

    Hugely funny!

    The nofollow seems to kill these, true …

    I received one the other day where they wanted a one-day “free test” to see how much traffic would come — anyone know if that’s at all legit?

    I replied please send me a link to a site where this ad has been placed as a result of the free trial, and heard nothing.

  • Lara Kulpa

    February 22nd, 2008 10:10 am

    Haha - that same person emailed me too, and I’ve been telling him over and over that I wouldn’t link to competition, or that I wouldn’t approve of more than 2-3 links in a FULL paragraph, or that I wanted more money.

    He won’t give up - I’m going to have to toss out the $10,000 to him and see if that works. ;) Either that, or I’ll take Darnell’s suggestion (afterall, Shawn did say that I too could write the paragraph myself… and since that would mean my inserting the code myself… well…)

    Too funny we got the same emails from the same guy - I’m feeling like your rockstardom is rubbing off on me! LMAO

  • Shaun Connell

    February 22nd, 2008 10:19 am

    Ahahahaha. That’s awesome.

  • BradBlogging.com - Increase Website Traffic With Easy To Follow Steps

    February 22nd, 2008 11:13 am

    Thats a funny context.

    I realize that you make 6-figures blogging, but $400 is still 400 dollars and could buy you a fancy Ipod or Blackberry.

    Thats just for one link..

    I understand that you don’t to text link ads but just looked at it from a different way.

  • sam au

    February 22nd, 2008 1:28 pm

    The 1600$ dollar per month is beckoning.
    But selling test link undergrand is too risky.
    However, the ad-aggent’s patience is admired.
    :)

  • Scott

    February 22nd, 2008 3:17 pm

    This is amazing. First of all, poor grammar, spelling, word choices. Second, horrible negotiating. I’ve always believed that you never give away something in a negotiation without getting something back in return. But, in order to even go down that path, you have to have established (a) a need or want, and (b) an agreement or at least an expression of interest in the product or service being negotiated - in this case, paid links on a page.

    I allowed a page for links on one site and since have changed my position on this and believe it is wiser not to engage in this type of advertising. The two ads I sold are probably going to be the last ads I’ll sell of that nature.

    Good for you, Darren, in sticking to your guns. I guess you’re just too nice to the guy and that is why he keeps emailing you!

    Scott

  • Deb

    February 22nd, 2008 4:56 pm

    While most people think this is funny, I happen to think it is sad for a couple of reasons and noble for a few more:

    1- it shows how desperate people are to get their pages ranked in SE’s. Makes you wanna holla at how difficult it is.
    2-it shows how deceptive some bloggers can be.
    3-it proves that not all content is created equal
    4-it reiterates the fact that some of us don’t mind taking a slow stroll to wealth, while others want to get-rich-quick

    Now for the noble reasons:

    1-it proves that Darren is of great statute
    2-it’s democracy at it’s best (as some of you stated, there is money to be made with this practice).
    3-the entire situation is an example of persistence (no matter how you look at it Shawn was willing to take a calculated risk)
    4-it provides us with market research (hmmm, wonder how many other folks are wanting this type of service and how I can possible provide it to them legally and ethically.)

    In addition, this situation made me think in depth about what folks are teaching around the net about creating content.

    Can I ask a serious question? - What is the difference between Shawn writing some quality content for your readers that you have the option to edit in exchange for some link-love and outsourcing some of your content to somebody you don’t really even know on elance for a fee? I just want to be sure.

    Please clarify.

  • Roflin @rofl.co.in

    February 22nd, 2008 8:51 pm

    So this is what we need to do to get Darren replying to emails :D :D .. and before I face so0meone’s wrath I am jus kiddin…

  • Maledicta

    February 22nd, 2008 10:27 pm

    It really looks like the company this guy comes from has a set of template emails set up called ‘refusal1′, ‘refusal2′ etc and they just select the appropriate one to use depending on how many times they’ve been knocked back.

    I wonder, if he’d approached you using proper english, in a friendly email obviously written just for you (ie not obvious spam), would you ahve accepted his offer? Because the thing that would have put me off the most is the blatantly spammy, impersonal feel to his correspondance.

  • Teddie

    February 22nd, 2008 10:43 pm

    I have a great deal of respect for your editorial virtue through the whole post, but Darren then you cave in at the end and say basically you weren’t tempted simply becuase the offer was wrong?

    * For starters it’s too risky. The examples that he gave of what he’d done show ‘paragraphs’ that to me obviously didn’t ‘fit’ on the pages. They stuck out like a sore thumb to anyone looking at them.

    - so if they didn’t that would be OK?

    * Secondly it’s too cheap. $400 for a paragraph with 4-5 links in it makes it $80-$100 a link. This isn’t a monthly payment - it’s a one off for an indefinite period. Text links on pages with page ranks as high as the ones he’s targeting go for a lot more than this kind of rate when you consider that they often pay per month. Over time his $80-$100 a link is nothing at all.

    - so if there was more money it would be OK?

    * Thirdly it compromises the quality of my content. Even with the offer to write the paragraphs myself I’m not willing to link to sites that could have a dubious quality. This kind of thing can impact you on numerous fronts - SEO for one and reader experience for another. The sites you link to impact not only your bank balance but potentially your reputation.

    - if they were respected websites it would be OK?

    Interesting.

  • Link Building Best Practices

    February 23rd, 2008 2:13 am

    1) I know its been said, but this is just funny
    2) I come from a sales background and admire the persistence and follow up. But this is ridiculous.
    3) Deb - I agree with you point on paid links. Made a post about it yesterday. Click on my sig to read it.

  • Ambrosiality

    February 23rd, 2008 2:48 am

    that’s crazy! he expects the paragraphs to stay on forever!! c’mon.

    what’s sad is that, someone that was looking for quick cash might see fall into this trap, thinking it’s a great investment.

  • PublicRecordsGuy

    February 23rd, 2008 8:54 am

    Darren, you should re-contact him and offer to come down by fifty cents, then in three days re-email him and offer to come down by $1.00 and you’ll include a prize, etc. Continue this for a couple days, I’m sure it would be funny.

  • Rhonda Holland

    February 23rd, 2008 9:02 am

    Your email exchange made me laugh, which is a great way to start the day.

    I liked your 10k answer but you should have said it was a monthly fee. : )

  • Affiliate Money Maker

    February 23rd, 2008 10:03 am

    What Stephan Miller said! Indeed, if you run a blog targeted at selling something as an affiliate marketer, those extra links just distract people from the mail goal you’re trying to achieve! I’ve been approached by the likes of this guy and also refused - first, the price indeed is too low, and the one-time payment doesn’t make it too attractive eitehr - so even if they were interested in my non-affiliate blogs/sites I would have still refused.

  • Jam

    February 23rd, 2008 10:13 am

    Haha! Such persistence.

  • Contact Management Blog

    February 23rd, 2008 12:12 pm

    Hahah. $10,000 will get him to back off.

    Considering your traffic, he was really looking for a bargain in the beginning.

  • her every cent counts

    February 23rd, 2008 3:11 pm

    hahahahahaha rofl.

    I’m a meek wee little bloggergal myself, but even with my small blog I’ve gotten similar requests to put paid text links on my blog.

    Being as I make, like, 2 cents a day in AdSense I considered. Thus far I’ve taken on one text link add for $100 over a year. It was pitched to me when my blog was updated about once a month and I was like - whoa, holy cow, someone wants to pay me $100 to put a small paragraph on my blog for a year??? Damn. That’s awesome.

    But now that my blog is slowly but surely gaining popularity… albeit nowhere near the popularity where it would make much sense to turn down a top offer, financially speaking anyway, I’m getting more advertising and paid text link inquiries. Sometimes they don’t even relate to my blog. I wonder if the person read my blog at all in the first place!

    In any case, I feel weird about these text links, ethically. The first guy wasn’t very specific in terms of where I should put the links, so I put it under a special spot that I dubbed “sponsors.” I’m guessing that’s not exactly what he had in mind, but for less than $10 a month for about 4 text links, I guess he didn’t really care.

  • Deb

    February 23rd, 2008 11:08 pm

    SFGirl, I love your sassiness and your blog :)

    And that’s what i’m talking about. Can you imagine how many others are feeling the same way and getting propositioned?

    Which lead me to why nobody answered my question. Go figure.

  • Geld Lenen

    February 24th, 2008 2:36 am

    If I were you I would have blocked his emails after his second email. I hate people that beg for links on my sites. Only because they offer me $10 dollar for a lifetime link :(

  • meethere

    February 24th, 2008 8:39 pm

    lol.
    I am sure he will come back again. with a new deal.
    do update us then :D

  • Gillian

    February 25th, 2008 1:40 pm

    Smiling at this… and pretty sure Darren isn’t interested in the $10,000. But it does remind me of a story attributed to George Bernard Shaw.

    At a formal, private dinner party, he asked the aristocratic woman beside him whether she would sleep with him for one million pounds. After some banter, she indicated that she might consider it. Then he asked if she would sleep with him for ten pounds. She showed surprise and said, ‘What kind of woman do you think I am?’

    He replied, “We’ve already ascertained what kind of woman you are. We’re just haggling over the price.”

  • Jermayn Parker

    February 25th, 2008 2:52 pm

    Ill sell my blog paragraphs for 10, 000!!!
    lol

  • Lonely Designs

    February 26th, 2008 4:25 am

    For them prices there is very little chance that I would be able to say know, but saying that you are much richer than me and your blog is very much for famous than mine!

    Very good article though.

  • Benj Arriola

    February 26th, 2008 4:30 am

    So that’s the way to stop them. Give the $10k price. :) But wow, I’d be tempted already at the $400 mark.

  • Celine

    February 26th, 2008 6:49 pm

    I would’ve asked for a “100 trillion bajillion zillion dollars”. Let’s see him math that.

  • Muzammil

    February 27th, 2008 5:44 am

    “Underground Text Link Seller” I must say a very catchy line you got there :) but just at the bottom of the page I see text-link-ads.com widgetbucks, chitika, adsense etc. ain’t they related to text link or link selling in one way or the other. Please do forgive me but isn’t it a Double Standard? with due respect to matt cutts google monopolized the way we see internet how can google place links on sites (in whatever format they are) while discourage other to do so in particular form/s?
    There is another view to this discussion is that at one side you have a guy being bullied and made fun out of this scenario and on other hand at the same page you are publicly advising people to have same kind of text links. Is this all for one fake blog post?
    For me it would be fair only if you would remove all big names players of text link or links game from your site and then comment.

    Lara Says: Just my $0.02 here, but the post refers to an “underground” link seller. Not an established, respected company with clear, un-spammy (as in, spamming the search engines) techniques. The person who sent the email to Darren, sent me a carbon copy of the same thing for my site, and reacted the same, unprofessional (ie. begging, upping the ante with each refusal) way as he did with Darren. I even got the guy to send me the sample paragraphs, after telling him explicitly that I wouldn’t allow more than one or two links in a paragraph IF I agreed, and he sent me three-sentence paragraphs with 5-6 links each in them and then begged for my paypal account (for the 4th time) so that he could pay before I could actually refuse him outright (to say, that had I accepted his payment, I’d be locked in to showing his spammy paragraphs on my site).

    The bottom line here goes back to even when reciprocal linking was all the rage: Don’t beg. Don’t try to trick people. Don’t harass them. It’s unprofessional and deserves ridicule for being so. Maybe at least so that someone else might learn from it, which is the very nature of this site - to teach.

  • Joseph

    February 27th, 2008 5:17 pm

    Look i understand the whole perspective on not buying or selling text link ads and i’m all for it. The beauty of seo lies in doing this the natural way . But i just throw up every time someone says its just wrong to buy or sell links.

    Yahoo has done it for years and Google has defended it. I don’t care how you twist this around that they charge for considering it. They might reject it as well. Its not really paid links. Dude if they take money for it and then put it in their directory. Its paid. And i see what my friend Muzammil here is saying, this is just double standard.

    Things are just so messed up these days that to get a legit link back from a site is almost impossible. The Big G has everyone scared off. They don’t want to take the risk of linking to another site and losing their PR even if the site deserves it.

    I mean we have to keep a balance right. Not throw people completely off.

  • Maria

    March 6th, 2008 10:31 pm

    I’ve received too such an email some time ago. At that time i was interested to sell ads there but then the prices they offered me were to low from the same reasons you said.

    Anyway it was funny how he send you the same email again just like he never talked to you before.

  • Jeremy Steele

    March 8th, 2008 9:40 am

    That is absolutely hilarious, “$10,000″ … classic.

  • Hugo Santos

    March 22nd, 2008 2:39 am

    hahah! That’s what we call a “chato como caraças!!! lol

    10000 really shut up shawn….

    hum… i was contacted once to do this, from a different person, i accepted and got paid… manage to fit the paragraph a bit with my context although it is hard…
    ,maybe i shouldn’t have done this… :|

  • wisdom

    March 24th, 2008 3:55 pm

    I enjoyed reading that. Thanks.

  • Travis

    March 29th, 2008 9:59 pm

    I’ve also gotten lots of requests like this lately. I’ve done about 3 or 4 deals so far with no problems but for around $10/link. I’ve been doing a lot of research lately trying to figure out how/why they do this scheme. The last time a guy wanted to do a deal he said I had to use a different paypal account. I told him to either pay my account or no deal. In the end he ended up paying to my existing account. Obviously they are trying to hide something here. This post has been very helpful in helping me understand why they do this. Thanks.

  • Lite Review

    May 6th, 2008 2:35 am

    don’t know what to do if i got those email on my inbox :D

  • Student lening

    June 7th, 2008 10:57 pm

    Lol 10k sounds good. Totally agree that you made the right long-term decision there. Quality is what it’s all about and especially what it will be about in the (near) future.

  • Geld Lenen

    July 3rd, 2008 11:44 pm

    if ervery paragraph is 10 euro I gonna be rich but paid links are punished by google?

  • IMFreakz

    July 11th, 2008 1:33 pm

    I just wondering if I got that email, what should I do.
    o BTW, Darren, if he take the price you offer for the last time did you sell the space ? :D

  • Elliott

    July 16th, 2008 11:42 pm

    Darren,

    I remember reading this post from some time ago, and it is funny because I am getting the same emails from someone named “Michael” right now.

    I feel pretty cheap though as he is only offering me $15 per page…lmao.

    Thanks for reminding me on how to handle the offers, this will be fun!

  • Norhafidz

    July 26th, 2008 5:17 pm

    Lol, it must be tiring replying those mails. I wonder what might happen if he accpet those $10,000 per page :)

  • Mademoiselle Robot

    September 24th, 2008 9:10 pm

    I only just read this post, this email conversation is totally absurd and hilarious. Well done for not losing your temper. I think I would have after the second email.

  • SEO Pune

    October 10th, 2008 7:27 pm

    Lol…now that’s what i call a persistent man. Going from $150 to $400..Hahaha. Btw, you dealt with the whole thing in a great manner.

  • Atone

    October 31st, 2008 5:27 am

    I’m too new to this game for this to have happend yet. My oldest and higest ranking site is a fair trade charity site aimed at a specific town. Droitwich Spa in England.

    I have since gone on to create more commercial sites of a wider interest and will consider my first mail from Shawn as a sign of having made it.

    Will still ask for 10,000 quid though, just for the satisfaction of refusing.

  • Kenney Edwards

    November 1st, 2008 1:41 am

    LMAO LMAO. That’s soooo funny. 4real. i needed a good laugh, thanks D. And the responses by Matt Cutts were good.

    Kenney

  • busby seo test

    December 4th, 2008 1:04 am

    if ervery paragraph is 10 euro I gonna be rich but paid links are punished by google?

  • ronitdeep

    January 12th, 2009 10:32 am

    lucky guy…most of blogger cant earn this much…& u had a chance to earn straight forward!!

  • hypotheek online berekenen

    March 31st, 2009 9:54 pm

    Funny posts…you put a smile on my face today, thanks!!!

  • Doorlopend Krediet

    April 29th, 2009 6:54 am

    You’ve dealt with this guy like a champ Darren, nothing else I can respond to that. I wouldn’t be tempted for a $400 fee too on a paragraph. That’s not a fair price, all though I’d sell mines for $9.999 a one dollar discount for bargain seekers. Feel free to contact me to at any time.

  • Simulation pret

    May 14th, 2009 1:45 pm

    Google is extremely smart. They can adjust their algorithm whenever they want. It is so hard to beat them.

  • Bpjsurf

    May 22nd, 2009 5:31 am

    How would you say this is differnt from the in text link programs that are running on this site and being promoted on the site. Essentially running in text link programs like Kontera and intextlinks sell adverting links from pages based on tag keywords. Its still a link and its being sold. so how would you say this is differnt from a link exchanger / spammer?

  • Juliet

    June 13th, 2009 5:17 am

    I totally commend you for doing the right thing…those links would’ve stood out like a sore thumb and ruined your credibility with those in the industry


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