Comments on: Link Exchanges?

By: Jordan (HighOnPoker

Jordan (HighOnPoker — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 23:38:22 +0000

Thanks for the clarification, Bill. In that case, I can’t argue with your point. People who ask without knowing or reading you blog are duesche bags. I was thinking more about the young upstarts.

By: Bill

Bill — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 01:26:38 +0000

Just to clarify (for Jordan mostly), I don’t reject people who email me. In fact, more than a few folks have come to me for blogging and/or playing advice and I’ve done everything I could to help and be supportive.

But the difference is, somebody emailed ME. They weren’t blindly sending out link exchange requests without ever having even looked at my blog. Can you believe with THIS post on the front damn page of my blog I’ve received two requests in the last couple of days for link exchanges? It’s quite obvious they didn’t and don’t read my blog. Why should I exchange links with them?

I guess my main point of this post is that if I read your blog and I like your blog I will link to you whether or not you ask. I don’t horde my blogroll but I also don’t want it to become a useless collection of links from people who have written one poker post and never post again or people who are simply hoping to boost their Google page rank by getting higher ranked sites to link to them.

Bill

By: Jordan (HighOnPoker

Jordan (HighOnPoker — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 00:36:50 +0000

I probably won’t win any popularity contests with this post, but if it weren’t for Pauly’s willingness to speak to me about blogging, I’d never have the blog I do. When I started my blog, I contacted Pauly for advice and whatnot. I guess this is a lot different than saying, “I read your blog. Wanna swap links?”, but he was extremely accomodating and offered me great advice. On top of that he linked me up right away and pimped me. I never had so many hits. As a result, I stuck with it, followed Pauly’s advice, and am very proud of my blog. I agree that some requests are poop, but if someone sends me a request to swap links, I’m not insulted, but flattered. Then again, I don’t get 10 requests a day.

By: Maigrey

Maigrey — Wed, 17 Aug 2005 14:27:58 +0000

Hey - kind of off topic comment, but on the RSS feeds for poker filter, is there any way to have the link go to the actual article, instead of first having to go to pokerfilter and then clicking on the link in the abstract (which I’ve already read) to go to the actual article?

By: gracie

gracie — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 20:49:26 +0000

No, you’re not a jerk. I only link to people I read (or intend to read–time isn’t always kind to me).

I’ve only ever received one such request and it was very recently. (The dude had one post. Same guy?) Drizz and Speaker, be on the lookout for your first request as well!

By: DuggleBogey

DuggleBogey — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 16:58:59 +0000

Not only do I keep my blogroll incredibly trim, I maintain it by posting about those people on it regularly.

I’ve done posts about what I like about the blogs in my blogroll, but I think it’s time for a post about what I don’t like….might be interesting….might suck…

By: Poker Nerd

Poker Nerd — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 16:18:29 +0000

I take the same line as you here, Bill.

Of course, I haven’t changed my blogroll in four months, so take that for what it’s worth. I would estimate 80+% of the link requests I get are for casino “review sites” and that’s a big thumbs down.

Lately, I’ve been getting a request to update my information from someone I never asked to be linked to in the first place.

I take the attitude that if your blog’s good enough, someone will find it.

By: Drizztdj

Drizztdj — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 15:05:14 +0000

Me and JoeSpeaker have something in common. No link exchange request for moi. But, my ” regular readers” are basically the WPBT folks and non-existant beyond this group.

There are couple of poker blogs I do need to add to the roll but I’ve been lazy.

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 04:03:43 +0000

I hate link exchanges with a pashion. I get those standard emails all the time and mark ‘em as spam in Gmail. I link to sites I read on a regular basis because I view my link to another site as my recommendation. If one of my readers sees a link (and it’s not in the advertising section) they know that I think of that site as having some good quality. I’ve never asked for others to link back to me by contacting them, unless they ask for people to send in their site. I have posted things on my own site asking, but as far as I can remember I’ve never contacted someone asking for a link back.

Every once in awhile I’ll email one of those link exchangers back and offer to send them advertising rates. Very few will respond. They are basically offering you a link from a single page on their site. As bloggers most of our links show up on every single page of our sites. Who is getting the raw end of the deal there? We are! So I just don’t do it.

By: BSN

BSN — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 00:53:08 +0000

Until a couple weeks ago, I was extremely discriminating because I manually updated the links in my blogger template. I even had them organized into the ‘name’ pros, bloggers, and resource sites.

Now, I just use my bloglines blogroll. If someone is there, it’s because I read their site. Best part is no maintenance on my part beyond subscribing to their feed.

Since I gave up on the whole affiliate-whore thing, I could care less about who/how many links I get. My mantra for blogging this days is ’stick to the KISS theory’.

But, then again, if I had a wider readership and better page rank, I’d probably think differently.

BSN