Link Bait – The only way to get links is to slander
Being a moderator on forums and outlets such as Threadwatch and Search Guild, I spend alot of my time looking at ‘what’s new’ , ‘what’s changing’ and pretty much what the new trends on SEO (search engine optimization) are out there.
It doesn’t just stop with Slander used as Link Bait, most social sites are guilty of this, from the above mentioned forums and outlets to News Sites such as Sqlspace to Digg .
A slap in the face will almost always get you more links and proper information.
The Term Link Bait get’s under my skin… because generally speaking (not always but generally) it’s another word for Slander someone to get backlinks.
Andy published a ‘how to’ guide for link baiting. But I tend to disagree for some extent, it’s not that his content is wrong, but it just doesn’t give the ummph that slandering a industry known figure would do.
Let’s look at this thread vs this thread
One thread nails a industry wide public figure, the other shows some dramatic trends in our industry, but yet it has only 10% the replies.. and the backlinks of the industry figure slam.
In essance you start slamming someone and look what you get… tons of backlinks… I am by no means saying that is why that thread was posted (the slamming one) it’s just that is how human nature works sometimes.. dirt is wonderful in terms of link bait.
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Aaron Wall said it the best (I used 4 examples that I liked from his thread)
63. Get sued by a company people hate. When Aaron was sued by Traffic Power, he got hundreds or thousands of links, including links from sites like Wired and The Wall Street Journal.
96. Emulate the RIAA. When in doubt, file a lawsuit against a 12-year-old girl. (Failing that, obtain bad press by any means necessary.)
97. Steal content published by well known names. Strip out any attribution. Aggregate many popular channels and just wait for them to start talking about you.
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In short the problem with with link bait is that it’s turning the internet into a tabloid rather than a real source of information. Link bait is all about the headlines… the more slander on an individual the better.
Happy Slandering, may that get you many links.