At least read the article before sending a solicitation

I’m really starting to ponder the commonality of this practice.

The below request is at least mildly understandable. They’re pointing out an article I wrote on pet care and asked that I link to their article on a specific dog breed. Which would be great… if not for a few issues with their e-mail.

Dear Editor,

My name is Jean and I’m the Editor at [REDACTED]. I was doing research on the Blue Heeler Pointer and just finished reading your wonderful piece: https://www.kennethballard.com/?p=1790

In that article, I noticed that you cited a solid post that I’ve read in the past: [REDACTED]

We just published an updated, comprehensive guide on 10 things you should know about the Blue Heeler Pointer on our sister site, [REDACTED]. It is completely free and you can find it here: [REDACTED]

If you like the piece we’d be humbled if you cited us in your article. Of course, we will also share your article with our 100k newsletter subscribers and followers across our social platforms.

Either way, keep up the great work!

Warmly,
Jean

If you’re going to send me a solicitation, have the courtesy to make sure you’re not going to include demonstrably false information.

First they claimed I linked to an article about the Alaskan Malamute, an absolutely gorgeous dog breed I would love to own, if I ever have land for it. Before now, though, I’ve never mentioned that breed here. My article on pet care mentioned two dogs my parents’ owned. One was a blue Australian Cattle Dog, Basenji mix. Yet they request I link to an article about blue Australian Cattle Dog, Pointer mix dogs – Blue Heeler Pointer is not a recognized breed.

Definitely a classic case of not reading the article before firing off a solicitation. Unfortunately all too common.

I also don’t sell any ad space on this blog, so views largely don’t matter. Instead any “revenue” comes through the Amazon Associates Program, and I typically make enough to nearly completely offset hosting costs.

And this blog doesn’t get many views anyway, making every solicitation for this site I’ve ever received nonsensical. I’ve never had more than 500 views in any given day as of this article, an article about an espresso machine is my best article of all time on views, and I typically have only about 100 views/day. So sending me a solicitation hoping for more exposure to your content is only going to end up with me posting your solicitation with all site names, links, and the like redacted.