Rand Fishkin over at SEOmoz has posted a cracking article on how to get links when money won’t suffice.
What do you do when money doesn’t appeal to your link targets. This happens to me all the time – sometimes because they’re an educational institution, a non-profit or simply a webmaster who doesn’t want to “compromise”. If purchasing “advertising” links becomes impossible, there are some great ways around it that I’ve used successfully.
His ideas are link junkie required reading.
I just finished writing a rather long post at Threadwatch about the legality of linking. If you’re too lazy to read my rather encyclopedic rant, here is a two-point summary:
- A hyperlink is basically a reference. A reference, whether in your kid’s term paper or on your homepage, is (in and of itself) legal.
- Any reference, including a hyperlink, is bound by ‘normal’ laws which govern speech–e.g., you can’t slander someone, you can’t steal someone’s content, etc.
For a concise breakdown of what the average webmaster needs to know, I suggest Linking Legalities…What You Need to Know by Eric Ward.
Unless you live under a rock, I’m sure you’re aware of the (almost hilariousm, but not quite) Traffic Power lawsuit against Aaron Wall.
He is now accepting donations for his legal team.
