Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan recently issued an apology regarding a post published in SEL where the title read “Get a Free Link from Wired.”
For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s a little recap:
- Wired has a “how to” wiki where anyone can create a page about some DYI tech issue they want.
- The thing is, they didn’t (want/remembered/needed to) nofollow the links that would be placed inside these “articles.”
The end result: sounds like a goldmine for spammers. It’s Wikipedia circa 2002 all over again…
Surprisingly, Danny Sullivan, a well respected SEO, seemed to launch the gauntlet to SEOs all over the world to “invade” Wired’s wiki and get free links. That in itself sound weird, coming from someone who fully understands the problem of link spam.
Two ways to read the original post:
- It was tongue-in-cheek, as Mr. Sullivan suggested. More provocative than anything else.
- Danny let out his link monster!
I believe that every SEO has a link monster inside of him. I remember reading in Debra Mastaler’s blog something about a conversation she had with a friend in the offline world and her brain trying to understand how that conversation had link potential. And I found that hilarious, and very true. And I think Danny also let his “link monster” out to play, when he authorized the post to be published (Barry Schwartz actually wrote it).
The thing is, every SEO relishes link opportunities, especially from authority sites. Okay, the question of nofollow, and if nofollow should be applied to most external links is an important one, but I find it secondary versus the fun thing that is human psychology: they saw a chance to get free links and talked about it like happy school boys!
So, what do you think? Is there a “link monster” inside of you?
