I hope ASK lets us opt out of the search123 and other network crap. But I will surely be on board to see if I can get any good traffic from them (about 0.01% currently comes from them).

Anyway - I bought your eBook today on Nick's recommendation - now if I can only find time to read it... I passed it on to a couple of my marketing guys to read it and give me the highlights.

Thanks Aaron
(really I only made this 'thoughful' post to sneak in a link to my blog as suggested on page 87!)

Hi Jason
thanks for buying my ebook :) hope you like it.

as far as this goes...

>(really I only made this 'thoughful' post to sneak in a link to my blog as suggested on page 87!)

hehehe the newest version of MovableType redirects comment links...the trick with that to do it really well is to make people not think you want a link...for example, even when I want a link from some people I simply put my URL in my signature of an email with a tip on something about a broken link or something like that on their site.

I thought the comment was useful other than the get a link mention. The things I don't like about people mentioning the technique blatently are:

• some people may call me a nasty comment spammer and start eroding my brand by trying to spread hate messages about me far and wide
• others read it and start posting crap like this to my site:

  "I was just working on my viagra site [link], because I was not up to working on the texas holdem poker site [link] and my phentermine [link] is running out, so I better get start making more money soon or I will need to get some money. Maybe I will take out a home refinance morgage [link] or get a payday loan [link]."

  and then the same people send me hate mail when I delete it. And it is nearly always people promoting uber competitive stuff trying to get a link to sites that they spent about 8 minutes building.

  one guy was so sleezy at it that he went through and started deep linking many different files on his site until I sent him an email chewing him out.

giving people comment links to spur on activity is a good bribe when you first get started, but as time passes it just introduces noise. for a long time I wanted to leave that option open, but as time passed it got less and less appealing.

if you want I can link to your blog here
http://www.seobook.com/archives/000159.shtml
though?

"GrayWolf suggested that I make ebook updates available via RSS and others have asked why I have not made a printed version yet."

The idea of a RSS feed sounds good for updates but you would have to have some sort of login permission level there so youare not giving the book out to the world for free.

Print version - see lulu.com you can self publish there for no money out of pocket, and changing the versions is about as easy as uploading a new file. I do think it is good to always offer a print verson of an ebook - it opens up the market to those corporate execs and business owners who want to get a handle on SEO but don't carry a laptop around.

As somebody who has suffered your comments policy, I think that you often go over the top. One thing is what you cite as example, but deleting a link just because the referred website has a link to a subject you deem unworthy seems to harsh, specially when the comment not only was on topic, but corrected an error in your post. And a further e-mail exchange was unnecessaryly confrontational from your part.

>As somebody who has suffered your comments policy, I think that you often go over the top.

If I did I appoligize. Normally intent seems obvious, but also sometimes I make mistakes. If I hosed up sorry.