Marketingeasy

That’s how it works:

- You receive an email from a webmaster/site editor telling that he linked to your website from his website

- He says he would appreciate a link back to one of his newer sites he is trying to kick-start.

- You click on the link he provided and Voila! you can see the link sending juice for you!

It looks a normal website with Page Rank, with Alexa, content, links, Whois, Webarchive, IP, etc, etc.

You think - “Cool! I’ll link back to this guy and his new website.”

But wait, have you checked for how long this link has been there ? Or if the emailer really is the webmaster for the 2 different websites?

That’s where the scam begins:

• Spammers find a website they want a link from
• With a simple research (you can use Yahoo Site Explorer - it’ll give more results) you find lots of EXISTING backlinks directing to YOUR website
• With the information the “webmaster” emails you pretending that the website with the backlink belongs to him. And pretending HE has placed your url there.
• He gently asks you to payback the “favor”, but instead to link back to the same website he asks you to help him in a new project linking to another website.

There you go.

Its pretty simple to avoid. Just make sure that the guy emailing you really own the website. The best way is to ask him to change the anchor text so he can prove he has access to the website or checking on Whois.

Cheers

Lucio