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Shaming People into Giving You Backlinks

This is a fairly effective method of getting backlinks to your site.  This has worked in reverse towards a site I control, more so than me doing it to other people.  Let me start with a little story so you can see what I’m talking about.

Mold Remediation Guy Strikes Back

I have an article about a certain home remodeling topic that ranks number one on Google.  This topic, mold remediation, attracts a lot of visitors.  I happen to be running a picture that I mistakenly thought was in the public domain.  This picture was on the OSHA website, and most images on government controlled websites are in the public domain, which means that the public can use them.

So one day I get an angry e-mail from a person who says that he owns that image and that he would like me to take it down immediately.  Fine, I say to myself.  No problem.  I do a little light research and it does appear that the guy, an owner of a mold remediation company located in Bakersfield, California, might actually own the image.  Looking more closely at the OSHA website, I see that OSHA had attributed the image as, “Courtesy of…”  This appears conclusive that this mold remediation company owner does own image.

I write him an e-mail back apologizing for the usage of the image and promising to take it down immediately, which I do.

Analyzing the Situation

Now, step back and think about this a little bit.  This guy had two options.  He had a fork in the road, and he could have gone down either of these two forks.

Pathway #1:  The Dickhead Method

This is where you say to yourself:

I’m going to be angry because my photo is being used without my permission so I’m going to write a bitchy e-mail requesting that the photo be taken down immediately.  What do I gain?  Almost nothing.  A photo, which almost nobody on earth cares about, is taken down from a website that does not own that photo.

Pathway #2:  The Constructive Method

This is where you write an e-mail to the person who is wrongly using your photo.  The e-mail goes something like this:

Hey dude, I notice that you’re using a photo that I own without my permission.  I own the copyright to this image.  I have to be honest and let you know that I don’t appreciate this.  But how about if we strike a bargain?  I let you continue using the image, as long as you give me a backlink to my site?  Then we have a win-win situation.  OK?  Fair and square?

Because this mold remediation company guy had almost zero ranking for his site (when you Google “mold remediation Bakersfield,” his site comes up on something like page 3), he would have benefited immensely by having a backlink from my very high PageRank site.  Instead, he decided to be huffy about the matter.

What You Can Do

Now, this guy just stumbled upon the picture.  But what you can do is a little detective work and search for any kind of images or videos or content that is being wrongly used by someone else.  Trust me, you will find it.

Then, write an e-mail of the type that I describe as being constructive and see what happens.  In most cases, nothing will happen.  The content or image will remain.  In some instances, your property will disappear from that site.  But in a few other instances the owner will decide to backlink to you in exchange for using that image.  It’s to his benefit, because adding a backlink takes no more than 30 seconds to do.  But if he were to remove the image and try to find a substitute, we’re talking about him spending a significant amount of time doing this.