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You Scratch Mine, I’ll Scratch Yours

23 April 2008 21 Comments

scratchbackCleverly named, ScratchBack is an interesting concept.

I first noticed the ScratchBack widget on DazzlinDonna’s blog. For $5 you can have a (no follow) ad link on her blog. The ad is placed at the top of the list, and as other advertisers join, the link drops, until it has dropped off the list of 15 ad links. I added the Diva to it (pretty cheap advertising) and will be watching to see if it brings me any traffic.

If you’re in a very niche market this may be a clever and inexpensive way to advertise your products within the niche itself. Go check out the directory and find a blog or two that are in your niche that you can get an inexpensive link on. For the price it’s certainly worth a try. This is a fairly new program, so the directory isn’t filled with a lot of bloggers just yet, but I can see it becoming popular. The links are no-follow, which doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t get any link juice, but do it more for the traffic than any thing else.

If you want a widget for your blog, you can choose a pre-designed widget or customize your own. You can also pre-approve advertisers before they’re added to your widget, or let the system add them automatically. Once you’ve signed up for the widget, you can add your site to the ScratchBack Directory for advertisers to find you.

I added the ScratchBack widget to my blog just for the heck of it, so if you feel like spending 5 bucks you can have a text link on SEO Diva. Just think of the cachet that will bring you!

  • http://www.azkidseatfree.com Amy

    Nice cheap advertising if anything. Thanks for the tips. You’re always on top of things.

  • http://www.trucksjunction.com Puneet

    Hi frd,

    The 2nd link of the post on “DazzlinDonna’s blog” is not working frd… u need to check it out ;)

    and its a unique advertising method on a good traffic site with good PR too and yes its nofollow link but can bring good traffic if our title attracts visitors.

  • http://www.seodiva.net/ SEO Diva

    @ Amy – you’re welcome!

    @ Puneet – thanks for letting me know – I went right in and fixed it. I agree that ,set up properly, ads like this could bring some good site traffic.

  • http://nygadget.com/ bule gila

    Thanks for the tips, It’s inspired me blogging

  • http://www.seodiva.net SEO Diva

    bule gila – It’s great to be able to inspire people!

  • Jorge

    Great blog. I wanted to know if you wouldn’t mind posting an article on my site linking back to this blog. My visitors would benefit greatly from reading some of the stuff here. i will definitely be visiting more often now that i found you guys!

  • http://war-universe.com/ Warhammer Online

    Great concept indeed.

  • http://www.caregiverlist.com/ JBourne

    I was about to say wouldn’t google penalize people big time for selling links like that, but then I realized you said no follow, not do follow.

    It’s a good idea but would the lack of exposure time would pose a problem on really popular blogs where it’d disappear quickly.

  • http://www.seodiva.net/ SEO Diva

    Jorge – I’ll put it in my list of things to do. Glad you found my blog!

    Warhammer Online – thanks for your comment.

    JBourne – It’s actually a flash widget, so the links don’t show up, but it could be a good traffic builder.

    I figure that even if it doesn’t last on a really popular blog, it should get some excellent exposure while it’s there (I hope).

  • http://www.basicisp.net/cheap-internet.asp Chadwyck

    I think this is a pretty cool idea, but the more popular the blog is, the less practical it becomes (for those buying the slots). If 20 people/day want a slot, something’s got to give.

    On the other hand, if it is a popular blog, even less that a day of exposure could be worth $5.

  • http://ct.serviceslisted.com/ Eduardo

    It’s must better to use scratchback and advertise your links. The simple reason is Google – as it won’t punish any participants for exchanging or selling / buying textlinks. Scratchback maker took care of this by making it NOFOLLOW… that’s very good move I think.

  • http://www.nz-tourism.com new zealand accommod

    Do you get to see how much traffic these sites have? It is cheap, but if only a few people see the link then it is not worth a lot.

  • http://www.seodiva.net/ SEO Diva

    @Chadwyck – so far, for $5 on a pretty popular blog, I’ve stayed in the top spot for a couple of weeks and netted 18 new visitors.

    @New Zealand – no, but I picked a blog that I like and that I know gets good traffic and the type of visitors I want to visit my blog. You can use Compete to get a pretty accurate idea of traffic on a site.

  • http://www.seodiva.net/ SEO Diva

    @Eduardo – sorry, your comment got caught in the spam filter. Scratchback is such an absolutely cheap way to buy links for traffic, and you’re right – no punishment from Google!

  • http://www.SearchIdahoHomes.com George Tallabas

    Thanks, I am new to backlinking and all this SEO stuff and am trying to learn because I have only been backlinking for about 3 weeks with great results. I don’t quite follow you and will try to figure it out. If you have any easier ABC instructions for a novice I would appreciate it until I become accustomed to your lingo. Thanks so much.

  • http://www.blingcart.com Shopping Cart

    That is actually a good idea. I will be purchasing one of the spots for $5 bucks for my business. :) Thank you very much for the tip. Incase other people don’t know, getting relevant links linking to your site increase page rank and search engine popularity aswell. This is a must for online businesses or to get more visitors to your blog. Just my 2 cents hehe.

  • http://www.advantagevt.com Trish

    Thanks so much. More than anything, I value all the info in this article and others you’ve written. Specifially for this, the explanation that there aren’t negative ramifications. As I have gottent further into SEO, I keep finding things that I initially had done expecting it was moving me up in the ranks only to find out that I had gotten ‘penalized’ for not doing it exactly as intended. So much to learn and something new every day!!

    Please update with info on how effective you find this site — but for $5, you can’t really go wrong!!

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  • http://freelancetwins.com Make Money

    Very interesting concept. It’s one of those “why didn’t I think of that?!” moments.

    Make Moneys last blog post..Weekend link love

  • http://www.seekposition.com My SEO Experiment

    hehehe, kinda funny

  • http://technologyandinternet.blogspot.com/ Technology Guide

    So, are you sure that Google will track that it’s a no-follow tag and won’t penalise blogs that are using Scratchback?