Giving away free advertising on my new site seems to be a necessary evil.

Have I ever said on here that I don’t like link exchanges? No? Well I don’t. I find the whole idea to be a little self serving. On the rare occasions that I do a link exchange with another website, I end up feeling just a little dirty afterwards… like I’ve done something nasty and need to wash it off before it sticks. Don’t get me wrong though. In the old days doing a link exchange was a nice way to shift traffic around between a few sites that were friendly with each other, or who had similar content. I’m not opposed to the IDEA of link exchange, I’m opposed to its current incarnation.

For those of you who don’t know, a link exchange is when one website links to another website in return for the second website doing the same. The sites exchange links. I link to you, you link to me. Pretty simple, and not at all dirty. I like to consider myself a sort of link purist, however. I don’t like to link to other sites unless I think that the content they provide is exceptionally good and will truly benefit my visitors. It used to be that all sites thought the same way… after all, why would you want to link to a site that doesn’t have anything to do with your topic?

Google.

Ah, there it is again. That word. Google. Google learned a long time ago that you can’t trust a webmaster to give an accurate description of their own site. In the old days of the internet, a search engine ranked a page based on the keywords within that page. Those keywords were written into a special type of HTML tag called a META TAG, and a webmaster had control over that. To put it in perspective, how many junk e-mails did you get last week saying your loan has been approved or you can increase your breast size? Now imagine the same people that send those mails being able to tell search engines what their site contains. You’d think you’re going to a site to look up information on Paris Hilton, but instead got information on how you can enlarge your penis. Shameful.

To combat this, Google needed to find a way to rank sites that was independent of that site owner’s opinion. Their solution was to use OTHER website owner’s opinions… by counting a link to a website as a vote for that site. The more links you got to your site, the more votes you got… and the higher your site ranked in Google. Can you see where I’m going with this? Now, the more links you have the better you’re ranked. This makes a link on a site a VERY valuable resource, especially if the site doing the linking is highly ranked or has a great deal of traffic, and didn’t your Mother ever tell you that you don’t get anything for free. She was right.

In order for me to get a link from someone else to my page, I have to also link back to them. It doesn’t matter that our content isn’t the same, or that my visitors aren’t looking for what they have to offer. That’s just the way it is. This brings me to my original point… took me awhile, but here we go.

Giving away free advertising on my new site seems to be a necessary evil.

My new site, The Forest of Love, doesn’t get any traffic. It’s brand new, so it’s not highly ranked in the search engines, not listed in any directories, not in anyone’s bookmarks, not on anyone’s MySpace page (well… one person’s MySpace page), and generally not listed anywhere that anyone could find it. My job is to get traffic there, so I need to list it in places where it can get clicks. Many of those places are Free Stuff Directories, since I’m giving away a free service. Need a free way to show your significant other how much you love them? Carve a tree! etc. etc. ad infinitum.

Visitors to my site, generally, aren’t looking for freebies. They’re looking for a way to express their love, a way to create something for a loved one, or they’re looking for a unique type of gift to give… and it happens to be free. Why, then, should I link to a freebie site? My visitors aren’t looking for that! If I want to get listed in this directory of free stuff, however, I have to provide a link back to them on the FRONT PAGE of my site. Nevermind just a courtesy link… it has to be THEIR BANNER on my FRONT PAGE. 70% of those sites require that… the other 30% are more lenient, but I’ve only found two freebie directory sites that don’t ask for a return link.

Keep in mind that this is their business. This is what they do… they list free things. That’s what their visitors are there for… to find free stuff. By linking to my site, they’re adding real free content to their site for their visitors, but that’s not enough! NO! They have to have that return link. Nevermind that they link to me from a page buried three links deep in their site, and I have to link to them from my front page. Nevermind that their link to me is a small text link with a description and my link to them has to be some ridiculous animated .gif from the early 90’s. Nevermind that my site is EXACTLY the type of content they need for their visitors and their site isn’t what my visitors are looking for… the link has to be there. On top of that, I have to put their link on my site FIRST. If the link isn’t there, they won’t even consider putting me in their directory. The Nerve! I have to link to them and wait for a week while they go through all their junk mail and hope my request doesn’t get thrown in the bit bucket. In the meantime, the link to their page is slowly burning a pit in my retina every time I look at it on my page… while I get NOTHING in return. If I’m lucky they’ll add me to page #102 of their directory in the pornography section (after all, my site deals with love), and I’ll get more visitors than I can handle. Meh.

I’ve had one banner on that site for a week and a half with no link in return. That’s a week an a half worth of free advertising for a free site. I’m not in the habit of giving away advertising space for nothing.

The worst thing is that I don’t have a choice. Since I don’t have any traffic and need desperately to get some… I’m forced to play their filthy little game. Scroll down to the bottom of the index page at the Forest to see what I’m talking about. Ugh, it makes my eyes bleed.

Necessary evil.