link request spammers – sometimes they help

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If you have a blog, or anything online, I’m sure you have received an email saying: Hey, great article, would you mind linking to my website please?

A few days later: hey! did you get my email?

Then later still: I know you’re busy….

The one I received today was at first annoying but then turned out helpful.

Hey Dan!

I’m FOO from the BAR team. Our product helps tech-savvy guys inspect and debug 
their emails.

I found on your blog a great article covering POP3 topic: https://dan.langille.org/2019/04/11/setting-up-a-new-dovecot-server-on-freebsd-with-an-osx-mail-app-client/

I really like it but I noticed that the Wikipedia article you linked to 
is a lit bit outdated and it can be quite frustrating for your readers.

We recently created a comprehensive guide on Differences Between Each Email 
Protocol covering a very detailed explanation of POP3 and other email protocols.

Dan, how would you feel about adding our article as an additional resource?

It will refresh your article, making it more valuable for readers.

May the force be with you!
FOO

PS: If you don't want to hear from me anymore, just let me know

I went to that blog post but I couldn’t find a link to Wikipedia anywhere.

When I looked at the code, I found the link, but nobody could click on it. It looked like this:

IMA<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Message_Access_Protocol"></a>P server

See how there is no text between the open and closing tags?

It should look like this:

<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Message_Access_Protocol">IMAP</a> server

This confirms what I initially thought. FOO didn’t read the blog post. They’re just finding site which link to relevant content and they suggest they are better.

They aren’t doing this for altruistic reasons. They want to drive traffic to their website.

Sure I’ll help you. For $500 a year.

In the meantime, thanks for helping me fix that broken HTML.

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2 thoughts on “link request spammers – sometimes they help”

  1. Dan Langille

    This reply, just in today:

    ###
    Hi Dan!

    As I mentioned in my previous email, we at BAR crafted an awesome guide on Difference Between IMAP, POP3, and SMTP Email Protocols.

    You probably know this already, but It’s a good SEO practice to update articles with additional content to boost their rankings.

    That’s why maybe you could consider adding a reference to our guide in your article(https://dan.langille.org/2019/04/11/setting-up-a-new-dovecot-server-on-freebsd-with-an-osx-mail-app-client/) ?

    Dan, what do you think?

    I would gladly appreciate your honest answer!

    Stay awesome,
    BAR

    PS: If you don’t want to hear from me anymore, just let me know
    ###

  2. Dan Langille

    Another one:

    ###
    Hi Dan!

    We cover various topics related to SMTP, emails on our blog, some examples include:
    All About SMTP Ports
    Ultimate Email Deliverability Guide
    Would any of those be worth including in your content here: https://dan.langille.org/2019/04/11/setting-up-a-new-dovecot-server-on-freebsd-with-an-osx-mail-app-client/ ?

    I was also thinking that we could give your article an extra exposure by including it in our newsletter as well as in social media posts.

    Besides, adding an article like ours to your blog comes with several benefits:
    Your article gets an update and it boosts its SEO value
    The topics you already covered are enhanced with additional knowledge
    If you’re after something completely different, maybe we can help too.

    Let’s talk, Dan!

    Have a great day!
    BAR

    PS: If you don’t want to hear from me anymore, just let me know
    ###

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