More From the Inbox of Doc Sleaze

Amongst the spam e-mails and genuine requests for link exchanges, I've increasingly been receiving variations on the form letter below. I say 'variations', all they ever change are the name of the sender and the name of the potential 'partner' site. Anyway, this is the usual text:

Hello. I`m XXXX XXXX, Director at XXXXXX.

I`ve just been searching for potential partners and having seen your website thesleaze.co.uk I thought I`d drop you a line to see if you would be interested in a relationship with us.

We had a couple of alternative ideas which I hope you will find useful:-

1) We can have our editorial team research and hand write some content for you to add to a page on thesleaze.co.uk. We will agree a subject with you that is relevant to both of our sites (it won`t be a sales pitch for us!) and will include a single simple text link back to a relevant content page on our site. The content will be uniquely written for you and will not be re-used elsewhere. It should be helpful to your visitors and of course the search engines, as will the presence of a relevant link back to us. Hopefully we will also benefit from the link in the longer term.

- OR -

2) We can exchange links with you, directly from a relevant content page on bluexclothing.co.uk. We will explain where links are located on our site (on properly indexed and ranked pages) when you reply - we don`t have a links page as such - we link from the most relevant page to each partner.

There are of course no costs for you associated with either approach.

GETTING A QUICK RESPONSE
I realise you may prefer to simply reply to this email which is no problem and I`ll respond as quickly as I can. However, I have found that email isn`t always as reliable as everyone thinks plus I`m out and about a lot of the time. We have therefore created a simple and quick-to-use response page that provides detailed information and answers to questions on the various options and allows you to send messages to our team . . and lots more.
The page is at XXXXXX and we have created an access code for thesleaze.co.uk which is XXXX.

REMOVAL
If you feel I should not have sent you this email, I`m really sorry - please just reply with REMOVE in the subject.

If neither option is appropriate for you, please accept my sincere apologies for having troubled you.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Kind Regards - XXXX XXXX
Director, XXXX

Now, I don't know about you, but several flaws in these proposals seem obvious. Most obvious is that it is extremely poorly researched - the sites seeking a link are always commerce sites with no clear relevance to a satire and humour site. With nothing in common, a link exchange would seem pointless. It just feels as if The Sleaze has been selected at random - hardly a good start to any potential relationship!

Moreover, the whole idea of having someone else 'create' content for your site (plugging their site) seems extraordinary. Indeed, if any of the people sending these e-mails had ever read The Sleaze, they'd know that I couldn't possibly agree to such a thing - it would be complete betrayal the site's fundamental principles! As for the idea of linking from a 'relevant' page on their site - well, if they aren't a satire site, ow can any page be relevant?

Ultimately, the most insulting thing about these e-mails is the very fact that they're all identical! That really makes a site feel special! Needless to say, I haven't bothered responding to any of them and my spam filters are now set so that I don't have to read the bloody things any more. So, if you are intending to send one to me - don't. You will be wasting your time.