Comments on: why I don’t accept guest posts from spammers, or link to them

By: Beware of Top 50 “Great Tools to Double Check your Doctor” or whatever Lists. « Laika’s MedLibLog

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 01:35:07 +0000

[...] http://www.librarian.net/stax/2970/why-i-dont-accept-guest-posts-from-spammers-or-link-to-them/ [...]

By: Mechelle Fogelsong

Mechelle Fogelsong — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:39:38 +0000

I’m with Lynn Schlatter. I’m an author of YA novels–as yet unpublished–and getting myself published seems to be all work and no play. I designed a teen advice column, attempting to get my name out there and build a platform. (That’s what it takes to get published: make a name for yourself FIRST. No joke.) I’ve emailed lots of librarians, encouraging them to link to my site, and I get a lot of rejections. How am I ever supposed to get published when librarians slam the door in my face? My advice column is well-written. I do book discussion posts once in a while to keep in library-relevant. However, I find myself in a conundrum. It’s like trying to get a credit card at age 18. How do you get credit when you have no credit record? Librarians will post links to authors who are already published, but you can’t get published without a platform.

By: blog.rightreading.com » Friday roundup | Duly quoted

blog.rightreading.com » Friday roundup | Duly quoted — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:03:18 +0000

[...] On not linking to thin-content (spammish) sites : Do everyone a favor, dont be taken in [...]

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 13:14:50 +0000

It’s a bind, I admit. I really like chewy lists of good information but I also feel that there’s a blogging community in some sense and that people who just ask other people for incoming links [who don't comment, who don't otherwise have a personal profile] just seem like telemarketers of the internet world. They don’t seem to add any value and the existence of sites like theirs reduces, however infinitesimally, the value of the internet as a resource overall. Every time I see a list like that, I think “I should go make my own list, using good information not a quick Google and then bug people to link to that instead”

And jdoewy I don’t know about Blogger.com but wordpress definitely doesn’t make links nofollow by default.

By: Connie Crosby

Connie Crosby — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:06:16 +0000

Yes, I’ve been guilty of linking to them. They’ve been around for a long time, I think, but seem to have ramped up this strategy lately and it is becoming annoying. Some people tell me they see value in the listings, and it does indeed bring traffic to my blog, but they are very poorly done having blogs in completely incorrect categories. Maybe we should take the cue and re-do the lists correctly if there is a need. ;-)

There is such a fine line between lists with value and linkbait.

By: the.effing.librarian

the.effing.librarian — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:54:41 +0000

I’m glad you posted this because when I see some of these “best of” links on Twitter, my first thought is, “bullshit.” These are generic lists of the same stuff we already know. But I don’t want to say that because I’m just me, and who listens to me? But since it’s you saying it, maybe everyone will catch on to the scam. FYI, I let someone do a guest post last year on my blog because it’s not much of a blog (in the library world; in the world of awesomeness, it’s, well, awesome, but not so important in the library world). But I’ll try not to make that mistake again. These fly-by-night link whores shouldn’t get help from us because we should know better.

By: Lynn Schlatter

Lynn Schlatter — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:34:53 +0000

Sorry for not jumping on the bandwagon, but I respectfully disagree. I’ve got the librarian = information junkie trait, so if I find good information I recommend it and yes, even link to it, regardless of the junk surrounding it. In fact, I have a link to the Learngasm site (which I think is one of the offenders being cited here) on my blog. Of course, it’s followed by a commentary on how badly written many of the referenced sites are. ;-)

By: jdoewy

jdoewy — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:14:13 +0000

Wait a minute, wait a minute … Aren’t by default blogger links of the “nofollow” type??? Google is not supposed to crawl onto urls posted on blogger sites. I’ve seen some people tweaking their blogger templates to make their urls “nofollow=false” and allow spamdexing. Am I just confused?

By: Jeff scott

Jeff scott — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:32:34 +0000

Thank you for highlighting this. It seemed as if these popped up everywhere, but no one when out and called it what it is. I get frustrated when librarians do link to it (whether to praise or criticize).

By: laura

laura — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:59:12 +0000

I just left a link to this post in the comments for this Booklist reference blog. Sigh.

By: Paul Adasiak

Paul Adasiak — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:36:15 +0000

I haven’t gotten any such requests yet; you people make me feel like such a nobody. However, people (bots?) often leave comments of the “Great blog; I’m definitely going to add this to my feed!” variety, with a link to some garbage site. Usually I delete the comments altogether, though if I’m in doubt about its authenticity I’ll just remove the link.

By: Linda Ueki Absher

Linda Ueki Absher — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 22:33:19 +0000

I’ve been getting a *ton* of requests from these spammers. Looking at my logs, they are driving a significant amount of traffic to my blog, but I feel no obligation to help them out since I feel they’re profiting from my content.

By: Christopher O'Leary

Christopher O'Leary — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 04:33:21 +0000

Thanks for the tip! I’m not far off creating my own website and blog and it’s great to know these sort of things.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 21:46:18 +0000

I not only get these, I usually get the email 2-3x which is a pretty good tipoff it’s not an individualized email :).

By: Steven

Steven — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 20:03:37 +0000

I’ve gotten many of these as well and asked them to stop e-mailing me. Thanks for writing this.