FYI - Lying is Bad Linkbait

June 12th, 2007 Rant

A recent post on Jon’s blog (Jon from WickedFire … I don’t think he actually has a last name) is bad linkbait.

Before I get into that post, I just want to say that I hate the term “linkbait”. It’s stupid. It is a buzz word created by gurus in order to package all campaigns geared at generating natural linkbacks into a nice friendly single idea so that the idiot masses could slurp it up and execute it without ever really knowing what it is or why it is done.

The actual practice of link baiting, however, is good (if done right). For example my first big article on NBB about building niche minisites can be considered linkbait in that I wrote it with the intent of acquiring links from outside sources. What is the difference between my linkbait and Jon’s linkbait?

The difference is good linkbait is something worth reading. It delivers *something* to the end user whether it’s information or entertainment. Bad linkbait delivers crap to the user. Jon’s linkbait, for example, is never anything more than lies dressed up in the disguise of “marketing”.

You can succeed with bad linkbait - after all Jon was nothing (wait, scratch that, he was a “super affiliate” according to himself) before he created his famous CJ screenshot. Even better is that he got me to link to his article! But should you resort to bold faced lying in order to generate a couple linkbacks? If you want long-term success, and more importantly respect, then you really should focus on delivering good, quality content to the end user. Not sensationalist bullshit - ironic that Jon’s tagline is “A no BS approach to the art and business of affiliate marketing” when bullshit is all he produces.

But hey, Jon is a marketing genius, and I’m just jealous. What the hell do I know?

Related:

There are many it training courses for IT professionals which are provided by different IT based companies. In which Microsoft is offering mcdba for database administrators. The other very familiar certification of Microsoft is mcsd which is very famous for those professional who are interested in solution developing. Many other cisco training courses are also much known in which ccna is for network administrators. The other very valuable certification for network professionals is network+ certification which is also very helpful enhancing skills.