Recently, there was a piece over at Search Engine Journal about how easy it is to get a bad reputation through link building. It wasn’t the first on the subject, and wasn’t overly technical, but what I particularly enjoyed about it was that it looked at several different ways it can happen.

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When Bad Links End Up In a Bad Neighborhood

I guess it all depends on your goals, perspectives, and the specifics of everything. If you’re a link builder and get caught spam emailing other link builders and SEOs, chances are you’re going to have a tough time getting links and may need a little reputation management.

If you’re an SEO building links for a chocolate shop, chances are pretty good that it won’t hurt the chocolate shop too much, aside from possibly hurting its rankings or causing other SEOs to refuse to work on the site. For the SEO building the ‘bad’ links, however, it can be severely damaging to your reputation.

Or can it?

I find it amazing how many scammy SEO companies and link builders are out there and they always seem to have an endless supply of clients who are looking for some quick, cheap work. At least, that’s the way it outwardly appears. I know I hear horror stories several times per day about a shoddy link building job, and I’m not even an SEO.

If the company does get shut down, or when it finally has trouble getting clients, they just close that one down, open a new company, and continue on their merry little way. Of course, we can all name someone who has done a shabby job or gotten a client site spanked by the all-mighty G, but many of them are still working away. I’d like to think they all learned a thing or two, but we all know that isn’t always the case.

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Craptastic Link Exchanges

I’m not a fan of link exchanges or requests, at least not the kind I get spammed with repeatedly. I don’t feel they’re very helpful, at least not enough to warrant irritating those in related industries, and if I don’t keep them relevant to my client base, they’re essentially useless. If you get lazy and just start bulk emailing large lists? Well, you’ll probably get what you deserve.

The way I see it, it’s far more profitable for everyone if you take time to build up a relationship with those who link back to you. They’ll do more than just link to you. They’ll help promote you, which is worth more to their devoted site visitors than just a link in a blogroll anyway. There’s an opportunity to work together and collaborate on everything from marketing initiatives to projects. They’ll refer you, you’ll refer them, and you’ll find the world is just much better to do business in. That being said, I think how devastating this method can be depends on the specifics of the situation.

Something To Be Said For Prevention & Reputation Repair

In Kristi’s piece, she gave a few short points for preventing the problem. In reality, not having your name raked through the mud on a daily basis starts with simply using your head. If a link builder is going to charge you $29.95 vs the other guys who quoted you $5,000 per month, you know something’s wrong with the company who gave you the lower offer. Or rather, you know there’s a huge difference in their approach to link building.

I’m not saying it will never happen, but it will happen a lot less. In the process, if you’ve built up your reputation, you’ll find your name will become a lot harder to run through the muck-muck. At the very least, it won’t get quite as dirty.

Before I run away, I’d also like to mention that human beings have a habit of jumping to conclusions. On both sides. They hear one side of the story or see the result, and guess at the rest. We all do it. Unfortunately, that also means that innocent people are railroaded and guilty ones go free in the process. Something else to consider.

Do you consider reputation when you do your link building?