What a HARO link tease...

I use HARO (Help a Reporter Out) to keep an eye out for any interview possibilities that could provide some nice backlinks to my employers site (I'm a full time SEO).

This has to be one of the sleaziest ways someone has tried to coerce me into linking to them (without any sort of link in return).

Well no I take that back...but jeez our head attorney gave them a 30 minute phone interview all for naught. Here's the email my boss forwarded me:

"Hey PhillyLuke's boss,

My name is Sam, with SleazySite.com. Our editorial team published an article about [your niche], and I thought you and your audience might find it interesting, especially since we quoted you in the article. Feel free to link to it on your website, or let me know if I can provide any other information. If you decide to link to it, please let me know so I can spread the word about your website on my social networks."

So he basically gets a valuable interview from my boss, provides us with no backlink, and then emails us and expects us to give him a link due to us being mentioned?

Yeahhhh....ok pal

I emailed him back and told him that unless I see a backlink to us up there he has no chance of us linking to his site.

I get this response:

"Hi PhillyLuke, I have no control over the editorial work of an article after it is already published."

Well that was a waste of my time...

I gave up on HARO about a month after first signing up for it, the trouble is the reporters as a general rule dont understand the value of a link, so think a mention is what you are after.