Today I received an interesting email from a link builder asking to exchange links with one of my sites.
Granted, receiving link exchange requests from webmasters is not unusual.
However, this link exchange request was not directly from the site seeking the link but instead from a link building agency working in the site’s behalf.
What caught my attention was the site who was indirectly requesting a link from my site via their agent.
The company requesting a link from site is the highly regarded market intelligence firm TNS Media Intelligence.
From TNS Media Intelligence’s web site:
TNS Media Intelligence is the leading provider of strategic advertising intelligence to advertisers…
Nothing unusual about one website requesting a link from another.
What is unusual is for a firm of TNS Media Intelligence’s caliber to think they can hire a firm to request a link from a site they would like to have a link from but for them to then think they can not offer a link from their site in exchange and not have them called out for trying something like this to begin with.
Ever heard of brand management TNS Media Intelligence?
If this email would have come from any other company, I wouldn’t have taken the time to write this post.
By definition my being in the business intelligence requires my public deconstruction of their strategy.
As you can see from the email below, TNS Market Intelligence is the firm who wants a link from my web site and they in turn through their link building agency will then give me a link to some hokey .biz directory their link building agency built for them but not the TNS-MI.com site.
Yippee!
Where do I sign up again?
Innovative link building strategy but in this case TNS Media Intelligence and their representatives misjudged their audience’s intelligence.
Hi,
My name is Kimmi Sanders I’ve just visited your website
marketingprinciples.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 Business and Marketing Research Guide website which is
(http://www.theywill.biz/) with page rank 4
Your link will be placed here:
http://www.theywill.biz/ (It`s a Business and Marketing Research guide
website with pr 4)
As mentioned, your link would be placed on the site home page, not on
any “links” pages , which means the link is more beneficial to you
with regards to your search engine rankings.
If you are interested please add the following information to your
website and kindly let me know when it´s ready and I will do the same
for you in less than 24 hours, otherwise you can delete my link from
your site.
Please link with the following details:
TITLE: TNS Media Intelligence
URL: http://www.tnsmi.co.uk/
DESCRIPTION: TNSMI provide leading media monitoring and evaluation
services.
Or you can use the following html code:
<a href=”http://www.tnsmi.co.uk/”>TNS Media Intelligence</a> – TNSMI
provide leading media monitoring and evaluation services.
I hope you have a nice day and thank you for your time,
Kimmi Sanders
Search Marketing Communications 