Not so long ago, I vented my disgust at the Rise of the Content Marketing Moron.

Well, there’s a new moron in town.

And his name is The Complete Stranger.

The Complete Stranger comes with a massive sense of entitlement, and with requests that disrupt my day to benefit his.

Like the ‘link removal’ request.

I’ve had several of these in the last few weeks:

“Dear Blogger,

It has come to our attention that a third party agency has used questionable means to secure links to our website on your blog.

[COMMENT SPAM]
[COMMENT SPAM]

These links are harmful to our search engine strategy, and we would greatly appreciate if you could remove them at the earliest convenience.”

Why?

Why should I?

You hired this agency.

If they spammed up my blog with junk links, that’s my first reason to be pissed off.

If you then come and ask me to take time out of my day removing these links, that’s my second reason to be pissed off.

I don’t have the time, or desire, to worry about somebody else’s link building strategy.

And yet the first impression you get when dealing with 95% of these agencies is that the world needs to bend over backwards ASAP.

If you are trying to ‘disavow’ your rotten link profile, you can start by acknowledging that you are no more than a piece of shit on the bottom of my shoe.

And then start to grovel.

Nothing personal.

That’s just where you stand on my hierarchy of priorities.

Another request I hate:

“Can you make this link nofollow? Or remove the nofollow?”

You pretentious little fuck-urchin.

Is it not enough that I stopped to consider you? That I linked to you out of the gajillions of other pages on the web?

No, you want the link to be technically correct. Once again for your own gain.

This is where SEOs need to understand something important:

The only person who gives a shit about your link building strategy is you.

Every blogger or webmaster you deal with is doing you a favour when he takes up your requests.

But it will only be a favour.

And he’ll probably never link to you again, while feeling a sharp urge to douse your balls in petrol and start throwing matches.

There are a couple of exceptions where I have removed or adjusted links for guys that I know on a personal level.

Favours.

But when a complete stranger lands in my inbox requesting that I get off my arse to fix a problem that he created on my property, then the answer is swift:

Fuck you.

Your world may revolve around SEO.

Mine does not.

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