Alex

> "we liked your site. we want our vistors to visit your site. we linked to
> your site!
>  
>  have a nice day!
>  
>  Alex
> 
>  www. insert site here.com
>  "
> 
> is this approach any good? the idea is that the person youve contacted 

That depends on what you mean by "any good". Unsolicited mail, commercial in nature or not, tends to annoy people/get blocked by filters. The only reason I can see for you wanting to do this is to automate some process by which you build up large directories of links to increase search engine rankings or somesuch. If it's not a bulk thing then a wholly more professional approach of a personal email asking if the owner of the site would mind if you link to his site would be more effective. Of course there is very little the owner could do if you decide to link anyway, but he's much more likely to reciprocate if you've opened up a professional dialogue.

> might be intrigued enough to look at the source of all these visitors hes 

The kind of person who would be intrigued by an unsolicited email might well be intrigued by the attachment I_Am_A_Virus.scr. Upon opening it he is puzzled by the fact that nothing appears to happen immediately, so immediately forwards it all of his friends asking them to open it to see what it is. Is this your target recipient? You may want to think of a more viral approach with incentives to refer, or an automated registration system. It's a bit difficult to really comment further without knowing more exactly what you're doing, but the downside of what you suggest is that if someone *does* get annoyed with your mails there is a slim chance you could get blackholed by the likes of AOL or BT.

> suddenly getting and might even like the site hes seeing. he might want to 
> reciprocate. 
> 
> a hands up who likes this idea would be great, but an unparanoid view on 
> why this approach might be considered bad would be appreciated.

Regards

Chris Marsh
