When Should You Say No?
As you may have noticed with some of my early posts, I am a big fan of helping others out. When I first started several of my now-defunct sites, I had a lot of help with free text links given to me by bigger sites. This kindness and generosity was not something I forgot. But the truth is that big sites can’t afford to give out unlimited text links for free without some consequence to the bottom-line. It is fine to trade text links when you aren’t given the possibility of selling them, but what happens when you have to choose between money and being a good site owner?
Most people out there will say the obvious answer. You should take the money and turn away anyone looking for a free ride. That is fine to a certain point, but the common saying is that what goes around comes around. My opinion is that there are some sites that do truly deserve to get a free text link.
Knowing how to differentiate the good sites from the bad sites is critical in this process. Obviously when there is a limited space for free text links on your site, you need to be selective. The best way to do this is to actually check the site in question and see if they have good content. See if the site is one that you would visit. See if the site owner has been updating the site regularly and whether or not the content is unique. If you’re not making money on it through sold text links, you should be providing a site your visitors will enjoy.
If you do this, you should cut down the amount of free text links you trade and improve the quality of the ones you do still take in. There is nothing wrong in lending a helping hand as long as the people getting the favor truly deserve it.
Filed under: Trading Text Links
