Weird Guest Post Request

September 11th, 2011 by Potato

I got a strange email today. First off it was to the wrong address (I have a preferred gmail contact address in the sidebar, this person had figured out how to get my host to forward an email to me). It quite simply was from a person claiming to be a follower of this humble blog, and asking to do a guest post.

She said “I really liked the following two articles” [and linked to two posts] I have about 5 years of experience writing about similar subjects and would love to provide a detailed post that matches the tone of your blog…” then went on to link to some of her articles, which even from the URLs looked like search engine robotext.

Now what makes it hilarious was the two articles of mine that she chose to link to and to try to match the tone of, and had “experience writing about similar subjects”: they were some of my more random posts that did not have any kind of subject to them. One was “on Q-tips” and the other was my shot-gun catch-up post after I finished my PhD (“It’s Over!“).

Note to Jennifer: if you are real and that was genuine, I’m sorry for not responding by email, but your request was really weird.

Posted in Blessed by the Potato | 3 Comments »

3 Responses to “Weird Guest Post Request”

  1. Michael James Says:
    September 12th, 2011 at 8:38 am

    I get many guest post requests — so many that I never respond any more. They are becoming much more direct. Here’s a rough approximation:

    Finding it hard to come up with content each day? We can help. We’ll write blog posts for you and give you full editorial control. We’ll match your blogging style and include topical links. One or two links in each article will be for clients of ours who will pay you.

  2. Potato Says:
    September 12th, 2011 at 5:33 pm

    Ah, that makes me feel better about it likely being a bit of spam then.

  3. Ben Says:
    September 13th, 2011 at 7:18 pm

    This sounds like it’s related to a “job” listing my friend just saw on Craigslist:

    URGENT to Hire Students for “Article Writing” $3 per 500 word Article (Toronto)

    Requirements:
    – Must be Native English speaker, reader, writer.
    – Must be able to deliver completed articles within 16 hours or less.
    – Articles will need to be “keyword optimized”

    Job Details:
    – You will write a minimum of 10 articles per day, you can write more if you are able.
    – We pay $3 per 500/word article. If articles are shorter/longer the rate is .60 cents per 100/words
    – This is an at home job: we send you the article topics, you write them and send them back to us and get paid.
    – We pay our writers daily, as long as articles are completed and sent to us within the 16hr time frame.

    Contact us Today! We are looking to Hire 15 Article Writers ASAP! Lot’s of Work to be Done!