WebMD is ready to SUE ME...

I'm doing some of my lovely keyword and competitive research, when I come by WebMD's "link to us" page. I'm always interested in those pages, because in some rare cases, a respected company can still have a forgotten link exchange page.

But this one's good... Here's WebMD's Links Page:

"Thank you for your interest in linking to WebMD's in-depth health and wellness information. WebMD is pleased to offer you and your web site visitors access to our disease-specific content, offered in an easy format that is simple to implement on your web site.

Did you know that it is illegal to link to any of WebMD's content (other than our home page) without accepting our terms and conditions? WebMD is eager to provide you with a convenient and simple way to quickly review and accept these terms.

Here's how:

1. Simply fill out the form below and review the Terms and Conditions box before clicking the "I Accept" button. (This part should only take a few minutes.)
2. You will then be given a list of hundreds of our disease-specific content pages, along with titles, descriptions, and URLs.
3. From this list, select as many areas as you wish to link to. Copy the title to use for the linking text, the URL to link to, and the description if further information is needed.

How simlple, easy and user friendly...

About Results Marketing is an LA Marketing firm dedicated to helping large and small businesses alike increase their revenue by online marketing.

Spammy Competitors teach how to get backlinks using Google Blogsearch!

You know you are successful (Yeah, right) when:

1) You're competitor has the balls to create links from your site back to theirs without adding value
2) You're competitor has the balls to create links from your site back to theirs without adding value
3) You're competitor has the balls to create links from your site back to theirs without adding value
4) All of the Above!

As you can see, I'm really annoyed at one of my competitors. Normally, I would have no problem if a competitor (Local Search Los Angeles) would post on my blog with a link back to their site. However, if they are blatant about it:

This guy searched for: Los Angeles SEO "post comment" . Obviously, they are trying to gain backlinks from me... I don't mind giving backlinks if you add content that has value - even if you are a competitor of mine. That is the flawed theory of Page Rank.

Instead, this guy creates a post that looks like a trackback...

[…]Nice plugins.. I’d added some of your plugins to my list of plugins. I’ll just try it if it is really effective, and if so,well! many thanks[…]

The evil truth though is it's not. The idea of trackbacks is to allow users to find other places where the author has contributed... this one has not.

The evil perpetrator is emark***.com. The funny thing is that the IP address of the poster is in Australia. Little perps. All they had to do was to post something useful - or even give me a trackback with a nofollow. Now their post is being deleted.

Maybe I'll do some paid link buying on their behalf - and report them to Google... hehehe

Bottom line - for the time you spent spamming my blog- you could have actually added value - or even stroked my ego, and would have gotten the link.

You've also not covered your tracks, and showed me a new trick to add to my arsenal of link building tips. Thanks!

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