Scratching My Head, What's Going On Here?

Floyd Fisher · 04-13-2009, 04:15 AM

Lately, I've been getting deluged with a lot of completely useless link exchange requests. Let me put one of the letters up here so you can see what is going on:

"Hi

My name is Isabel Shaw. I've just visited your website
freelancewebmarket.com and I was wondering if you'd be interested in
exchanging links with my website. I can offer you a home page link back
from my Home Improvement website which is
http://www.home-improvement01.com/ with page rank 3

As mentioned, your link would be placed on the site home page, not on
any "links" pages which may be buried in the site somewhere. I'm sure
this exchange would be benefitial for both of our sites, helping
towards increasing our visibility in search engines.

If you are interested, please add the following information to your
website and kindly let me know when it's ready. I'll do the same for
you in less than 24 hours, otherwise you can delete my link from your
site.

Title: Wall Coating
URL: http://www.truecote.co.uk/
Description: professional and quality external wall finish from
Truecote.

I hope you have a nice day and thank you for your time.

Best regards;

Isabel Shaw
(email removed by me)
Web Marketing Consultant"

Notice, I don't own the site they are even wanting to exchange links with, so this is a totally useless email!

Can anyone explain this, or tell me what scam is being perpetrated by this?

Jon Alexander · 04-13-2009, 06:09 AM

badly configured spambot?

JamesPenn · 04-13-2009, 06:18 AM

Hi Floyd

I got an email the other day from a woman saying she'd found my website on MSN and thought it interesting and relevant to her website so she'd put my link on her front page. She said she had 10,000 uniques per month - which seemed feasible as she had a nice site with a good PR.

I checked the site and sure enough, there was my link.

I didn't get any traffic though.

I got another email from the same woman a few weeks later. She said she'd found my site in MSN and thought it relevant so was adding it to her home page. This was a different site of mine than the first one.

I checked the page and there was my second link, but not the first.

I went back to the email and hovered over the email she sent me and saw that the link had some special code which must have inserted my link on the site only when I visited.

It seems like a lot of effort to go to just to get a visit from me.

James

04-13-2009, 04:15 AM	#1
Floyd Fisher Senior Warrior Member War Room Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: , , . Posts: 5,430 Thanks: 274 Thanked 183 Times in 140 Posts	Scratching My Head, What's Going On Here? Lately, I've been getting deluged with a lot of completely useless link exchange requests. Let me put one of the letters up here so you can see what is going on: "Hi My name is Isabel Shaw. I've just visited your website freelancewebmarket.com and I was wondering if you'd be interested in exchanging links with my website. I can offer you a home page link back from my Home Improvement website which is http://www.home-improvement01.com/ with page rank 3 As mentioned, your link would be placed on the site home page, not on any "links" pages which may be buried in the site somewhere. I'm sure this exchange would be benefitial for both of our sites, helping towards increasing our visibility in search engines. If you are interested, please add the following information to your website and kindly let me know when it's ready. I'll do the same for you in less than 24 hours, otherwise you can delete my link from your site. Title: Wall Coating URL: http://www.truecote.co.uk/ Description: professional and quality external wall finish from Truecote. I hope you have a nice day and thank you for your time. Best regards; Isabel Shaw (email removed by me) Web Marketing Consultant" Notice, I don't own the site they are even wanting to exchange links with, so this is a totally useless email! Can anyone explain this, or tell me what scam is being perpetrated by this?
	For Serious Listbuilders Only Free Popup Creator. Just click this link. Help KimW here.

04-13-2009, 06:09 AM	#2
Jon Alexander Senior Warrior Member Join Date: May 2005 Location: , , USA. Posts: 1,543 Thanks: 0 Thanked 42 Times in 34 Posts	Re: Scratching My Head, What's Going On Here? badly configured spambot?
	http://www.contentboss.com - automated article rewriting software gives you unique content at a few CENTS per article!. New - Put text into jetspinner format automatically! http://www.autojetspinner.com PS my PM system is broken. Sorry I can't help anymore.

04-13-2009, 06:18 AM	#3
JamesPenn Senior Warrior Member War Room Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Exeter, United Kingdom. Posts: 1,356 Thanks: 174 Thanked 505 Times in 100 Posts Social Networking	Re: Scratching My Head, What's Going On Here? Hi Floyd I got an email the other day from a woman saying she'd found my website on MSN and thought it interesting and relevant to her website so she'd put my link on her front page. She said she had 10,000 uniques per month - which seemed feasible as she had a nice site with a good PR. I checked the site and sure enough, there was my link. I didn't get any traffic though. I got another email from the same woman a few weeks later. She said she'd found my site in MSN and thought it relevant so was adding it to her home page. This was a different site of mine than the first one. I checked the page and there was my second link, but not the first. I went back to the email and hovered over the email she sent me and saw that the link had some special code which must have inserted my link on the site only when I visited. It seems like a lot of effort to go to just to get a visit from me. James
	Blog Post "50 Ways To Get More Email Subscribers" Last edited by JamesPenn; 04-13-2009 at 06:19 AM. Reason: fcg