Page 45 - The Dark Side of Back Link Building
P. 45
THE DARK SIDE OF LINK BUILDING 45
And it’s a shame because email outreach can be both effective and ethical!
Google’s John Mueller specifically said that outreach is an appropriate link-building
tactic when it doesn’t contain any kind of trade, deal, or dependency agreement. You
can ask for links, but they must be given freely.
Outreach is one of the primary tools of link builders, white and black hats alike.
It’s also a really fast way to damage your reputation and get your email on a bunch of
block lists if you don’t approach it well.
SEO is full of situations that can be likened to “the tragedy of the commons,” where
the “commons” resource is goodwill. Perfectly reasonable strategies get abused and
twisted until either Google has to crack down, the community at large rejects them,
or both.
Cold outreach suffers acutely from this phenomenon. Shady link builders in people’s
inboxes have abused their attention and goodwill. Your reader is probably sick of you
before they even open your email (if they even see it).
A lot of the hate
that SEOs get in
email inboxes is
unjustified, but
– hold on, let me
check my email real
quick.
Image source: Screenshot from personal email, August 2022
