Some odd requests I've received to put links on my website.

Source

In the ~8 years since I started my website I've had a bunch of people reach out to me requesting that a link be added to my "links" page (currently called resources). The emails I got were fairly personalized (and this was in the pre-GPT era where I believe such personalized emails would actually need to be written by a human). Yet the topic of the link they sent was often incredibly random- like they didn't even read my website. Here are a few of the weirdest emails for your enjoyment. I've anonymized them and excluded the links (since I don't actually want to link to them).

Some emails

Am I a children's health expert?

Hello there,

I hope all is well.

My name is [REDACTED] and I'm reaching out from [COMPANY]. I recently came across your website, and I am truly impressed by the amazing resources you've put together on children's health and well-being.

I wanted to share a resource from our website that I believe would be a great addition to your valuable content. It's an in-depth guide on eating disorder treatment programs for children, which covers a wide range of topics essential for parents and caregivers. Here's the link: [LINK I DON'T ACTUALLY WANT TO SHARE].

Our Children's Health Guide includes:

  • Understanding children with eating disorders
  • Stats & trends in children with eating disorders
  • Child eating disorder signs & symptoms
  • Treatment programs for children with eating disorders
  • Helping children cope with eating disorders‍
  • How to parent a child with an eating disorder

We would be honored if you would help us reach your readers by adding a link to our guide on your site.

You could add it here: [LINK TO MY RESOURCES PAGE]

If you're interested in collaborating or have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. I'm looking forward to the possibility of working together to create a healthier future for our children.

Thank you for your time and consideration, and I hope to hear from you soon.

My comment: children's health, really? This person actually gave a contact phone number which I was tempted to call but ended up not calling (seemed not worth my time). I sent a follow up email asking "wtf" but didn't get an honest answer.

Is my site a haven for alcoholics?

Hello Austin, I hope you are having a great day!

My name is [REDACTED], and I’m reaching out to you from [COMPANY], where we strive to provide comprehensive information and support for individuals facing substance abuse issues. I recently came across [MY RESOURCES PAGE] and believe that our content on alcohol blackouts would be a valuable addition to your resources.

Our detailed guide covers crucial aspects such as:

  • The science behind why blackouts happen.
  • The long-term effects of frequent blackouts on health.
  • Personal stories and experiences of those who have struggled with alcohol blackouts.
  • Steps and treatment options for recovery.

Here's the link to the full article: [LINK I DON'T ACTUALLY WANT TO SHARE]

In addition to factual information, our article includes real-life experiences that many of your readers might relate to, fostering a deeper emotional connection.

On a personal note, I have seen the devastating effects of alcoholism firsthand. A close family member struggled with alcohol abuse for years, leading to numerous health issues and strained relationships. Witnessing their journey from addiction to recovery was incredibly challenging but ultimately rewarding, thanks to the support and resources provided by professionals. This personal experience drives my passion for sharing valuable resources like our guide on alcohol blackouts.

I think your readers would benefit from having access to this essential information. Would you consider adding a link to our guide?

And if you have any questions, just let me know.

Thank you for considering this request. I look forward to your response.

My comment: I just ignored this one.

Weight loss

Hello Austin,

[COMPANY] recognizes every person's experience with weight loss is different, managing the challenges can be both frustrating and isolating. We created a guide to help those attempting to be healthier without counting calories:

[LINK I DON'T ACTUALLY WANT TO SHARE]

Given how common folk struggling with weight loss is, we made a point of including: [SOME STUFF FROM THE ARTICLE]

Would you share this helpful article with your audience on the below page of your site to further support your readers looking for ways healthily lose weight?

Thank you in advance,

My comment: I was tempted to reply "anybody who relies on my website to lose weight deserves to be fat" but felt that was too harsh, so instead just said "I think that if people come to my website for weight loss advice then they are looking in the wrong place. Thanks for sending this to me, but I will not put it on my website." This was back when I was being more charitable to these people and taking the requests seriously.

Eye irritation

Hello Austin,

Hope you're enjoying the day so far!

I am contacting you from [COMPANY], a website providing valuable eye health and vision care resources. I came across your impressive website, austintripp.ca, and was impressed by the wealth of information you offer on eye care.

As you share our passion for promoting eye health, we can collaborate to bring even more valuable content to your audience. We recently published a comprehensive article on "Eye Irritation" ([LINK I DON'T ACTUALLY WANT TO SHARE]) that covers common causes, prevention tips, and remedies to alleviate eye irritation effectively. Here are some benefits of linking our article on your website:

  • The article is packed with reliable, in-depth info on eye irritation. It's like a mini-guide your readers will appreciate.
  • Linking to a reputable site like Vision Center can boost your site's trust factor. It shows you care about providing quality content.
  • The article is easy to digest and well-structured. Linking to it can enhance your visitors' experience on your site.

We would be honored if you would help us reach your readers by adding a link to our guide on your site. You can include it here: [LINK TO MY RESOURCES PAGE]

Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or need further information about our article. We look forward to collaborating with you!

Thank you for your time, and we hope to hear from you soon!

My comment: I can't believe these people had the audacity to claim that linking to their website would make my website be more trustworthy!

Why is this happening?

I assume this was some kind of search engine optimization (SEO) campaign, and why my website was chosen perplexes me (I don't imagine I get that many visitors). After a while I started directly asking people what SEO tools they were using and to stop, but they never responded to my requests.

Claude Sonnet 4.5's guess was as follows:

This is almost certainly link-building spam for SEO purposes. The pattern you're describing is standard practice in low-quality digital marketing:

The business model:

  • These companies (often rehab centers, healthcare providers, weight loss programs) need to improve their search engine rankings
  • Google's algorithm values inbound links from other websites as a signal of authority
  • They hire SEO agencies or in-house marketers to acquire these links at scale

Why the weird personalization:

  • They're using basic scraping tools to extract your name, website URL, and a random page to reference
  • The personalization is just mail-merge templating - enough to get past spam filters and make you think it's legitimate
  • They're not actually reading your content; they're processing hundreds or thousands of sites in bulk
  • The goal is a response rate of maybe 1-5%, so content relevance doesn't matter

Why your site specifically:

  • You likely have decent domain authority from academic affiliations or being linked from other legitimate sites
  • Your resources page is easy to identify programmatically
  • Academic/research sites are valuable link targets
  • They're probably working from scraped lists of .edu sites or sites with certain keywords

The pre-LLM personalization was likely just scraped variables plugged into templates. You can safely ignore or mark as spam.

Seems plausible to me! If anybody has a better guess do let me know.