Paid Advertising on Your Site using Text Links

You can build links old school, as I prefer to do, or you can do it by purchasing links. Personally I believe that viral marking is the key, but I received this offer today and when searching for the buyer’s keyword, I was surprised to find it in the 5th position!

Here is the email I received:

We enjoyed the quality of your website and we would like to pay you $150.00 to place a text link on your site.

If you are interested, please reply back to this email. The text link would need to meet the following criteria:

1. Needs to be on the home page.
2. The link needs to be inside a main content paragraph.
3. The link needs the text of: credit report or free credit report
4. The link needs to be permanent.

We can issue you PayPal payment within 48 hours of the link becoming live.

Sincerely,

Heather

I asked Heather if she could be more specific and this was her response:

Hello again,

Please forward your email address for Paypal payment.

Please change this paragraph, from:

Snowmobile repair doesn’t have to be difficult and in fact, it’s usually an easy fix. With the videos below, you’ll be able to see exactly how to determine the cause and easily apply the solution. To get started, simply click on your problem below.

TO THIS:

Snowmobile repair doesn’t have to be difficult and in fact, it’s usually an easy process, much like a [a title="annual credit report" href=" creditnexus.com"]free credit report[/a];. With the videos below, you’ll be able to see exactly how to determine the cause and easily apply the solution. To get started, simply click on your problem below.

Please advise when the change has been made.

Thanks

The offer is $12.50 per month for a pr7 text link (in your deams); what’s really sad is that this method of link building seems to be working for them! Position #5 for ‘Free Credit Report’.

Only time will tell!

Filed Under: Tips
Tagged: Paid Advertising on Your Site using Text Links

COMMENTS

3 Responses to “Paid Advertising on Your Site using Text Links”

Sarah on July 1st, 2009

Linkstar approached me with the following, hope you can post it for others to see. I agree that buying and selling text links is the wrong approach!

Hi,

I work for Linkstar, a leading broker of online advertising, dealing with many thousands of independent webmasters worldwide.

I’ve had a look at your website and think that it would be a good match for our client, whose target demographic is similar to your own. We’re working on their behalf to acquire advertising from quality websites such as your own.

We would be interested in purchasing advertising in the form of a text advertisement on your site. To reduce unnecessary admin and hassle, we prefer to pay a fixed annual fee for such adverts. Once the ad has been placed, payment can be made quickly by PayPal or or moneybookers.

If you are interested, please get back to me with your rates etc. I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

Julienne

Here is her response after I asked for details:

Hiya Sarah,

Good day.

Thanks for the prompt reply!

What we’re looking for is a simple text-based advertisement within the contents of your page. We have in-house writers who’ll work in the text-based advertisement for us so worry not about the flow of your article being affected or altered in any way.

Our current rates for this is $100 per year. However I have quotas to meet so if we could finalize the deal within the next two days I’ll bump the offer up to $120.

Also, please ensure that you’ve read our Terms And Conditions (TAC):

STANDARD TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR ADVERTISING SERVICES
This document sets out the standard terms and conditions between Linkstar UK Limited* (Linkstar) and Website Publishers (the Publisher),
1 The Services
1.1. The Publisher agrees to place an advertisement in the Publisher’s website/s (the Website) containing a text link (the Ad) to a specified URL belonging to Linkstar’s client (the Client).
1.2. The Publisher agrees to place the Ad in the position and URL within the Website as agreed between Linkstar and the Publisher.
1.3. The Publisher agrees not to remove, modify or change the Ad and/or its position during the Term without the written consent of Linkstar.
1.4. The client agrees to keep the Ad active, operational and in position for the duration of the Term and to comply with Linkstar’s reasonable requests in relation to the Ad.
1.5. Any incident in relation to the provision of the services must be communicated to Linkstar immediately and resolved as early as technically possible.
2 The Term
2.1. The Publisher agrees to provide the Services for a period of 12 months from the date the Ad is placed and is active on the Website, unless otherwise agreed.
2.2. In the event the Publisher fails to comply with the full term of the Service, Linkstar will be entitled to recover the applicable pro-rated amount of the Fee.
3 The Fee
3.1. Linkstar agrees to pay the Publisher an agreed fee for providing the Services within 7 days from the date on which the Ad was published on the Website.
3.2. The Publisher agrees that, other than the Fee, no other remuneration whatsoever is payable for the provision of the Services.
4 Undertakings
4.1 The Publisher agrees not to display on the Website immoral, violent, abusive, discriminatory, racist, illegal or adult content or links to websites displaying such contents, including activities requiring regulatory approval, the sale of pharmaceutical products, or any other content specified by Linkstar.
4.2 In addition, the Publisher agrees not to run the Ad alongside content that may damage the reputation, brands or goodwill of the Client or Linkstar.
4.3 The Publisher agrees to make no direct contact with the Client whatsoever in relation to the Services. The Publisher agrees to inform Linkstar if the Client has contacted the Publisher whether in relation to the Services or not.
4.4 The Publisher acknowledges that the agreement between Publisher and Linkstar does not create any relationship whatsoever with between the Publisher and the Client.
4.5 The Publisher acknowledges that the service it provides is informational in nature and does not constitute commercial endorsement per se, however this does not preclude the Publisher presenting review content regarding the Client or its products.
4.6 The Publisher agrees to comply with data protection legislation and/or any Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) of the Client or Linkstar and not to use any IPR without the express written consent of IPR holder.
5 Confidentiality
5.1 The Publisher agrees to keep any information received for the provision of the Services confidential, including any information in relation to the Agreement between Linkstar and the Publisher, these Terms and Conditions, the Services, the Fee, Linkstar or the Client. Any disclosure to a party other than Linkstar (including any affiliates, subsidiaries or parent company of the Publisher) requires the prior written consent of Linkstar.
6 Indemnity
6.1 The Publisher agrees to indemnify and keep Linkstar and/or the Client harmless from any breach of these Terms and Conditions and/or any claim brought against Linkstar or the Client resulting from the provision of the Services, without limitation.
7 Dispute resolution
7.1 Any dispute in relation to this agreement will be decided in London (England) by one impartial arbitrator designated by Linkstar according to English law or as otherwise agreed with the Publisher.
8 Feedback
8.1 Linkstar and the Publisher agree to exchange comments, feedback or request information as often as necessary for the good operation of the Services.

Once you have read our TAC and have found the advert placement and price mentioned above as amenable, I can then forward to you the advertising copy our writers came up with.

Please let me know if you wish to see the advertising copy for your website. This will give you a good idea of how we want the advertisement to look, as well as provide you more info about our client. Don’t worry, the ad copy is subject to your approval and you’re free to ask us for changes/revisions.

Finally we prefer to make payments via PayPal, are you ok with this? Feel free to email me any concerns. Many thanks!

Kind regards,
Julienne
john on October 24th, 2009

so is this a ripoff?
porcupine73 on November 25th, 2009

I woudn’t say it is a ripoff, but I think it is risky to accept such offers for paid links. If the link it placed it needs the rel nofollow in it, at least per Google’s guidelines if I remember correctly. Else if someone reports the site as having paid links not so marked in the webmaster tools the site can get penalized pretty bad in the search rankings.