A New "Twist" On Link Swaps

Well, it may be an old "twist," actually. But I only began
seeing it this year. Likely I've been sucked in before, and
never noticed. But the reason for bringing it up now, is that I
was hit by this "twist" four times last month. It goes like
this.

Somebody writes a very good message explaining they've added
a link to my site. And would like me to link to them. I get
lots of these every month, and discard most immediately because
the presentation demonstrates it wouldn't be a good idea. I
don't even have to visit the site to see it's so.

But these four, I did check out. For they were, as stated,
well written. In each case, I found a very nicely annotated
link to my site, just where I was invited to look.

Okay. Back to the home page. Let's see if the site looks
okay. Yep. Not bad. At least some of my visitors would be
interested. So sure, let's go for it.

Wait one! Where's the link from the home page to those
lovely links I saw? Uhmmmmmm. Nowhere to be found. One site
even had a site map. But it contained no link to the link
directory.

So here's a fellow (1 of 4, remember) who will gladly swap
links with you, a fellow who will never send you even one
visitor. The link he wants in exchange, goes to his home page.
There's just no way to get to the outbound links from there. So
he gets hits from my site and I get zip from him. And link
checking software would find the link still in place.

So if you receive what appears to be a good offer for a link
swap, take the time to visit the site and see if visitors could
ever find that lovely link to you. Four of these in one month
is a record for me. But hey, maybe it's a "new" thing that's
catching on!