Those of you who’ve been following me for a long time know that I don’t do rants. But I have to make a small exception now.
As you may have noticed, I welcome guest posts on my blog. This is mainly to help writers who’re looking for a break, as I know how hard it can be to build up a writing portfolio.
Somewhere along the line, I started getting requests from people who are mainly looking for a way to enter backlinks leading back to their website, in the hope that this will help them gain visibility with search engines. Publishing something to help others with their SEO (Search Engine Optimization) purposes is fine by me, as long as the content they provide me with is of interest to you, my readers. That’s why I stress that any post will be simultaneously published on both my nicholasrossis.me and my nicholasrossis.wordpress.com blog, something that’s not ideal for SEO–but great for you guys, as you can find my content on both media. This dissuades most marketers, but that’s fine–all I care about is offering you quality content.
By the way, this twin-blog policy has led to some trouble in the past, and I’ve had to draw the line a couple of times when people asked me to remove a post from one of the two destinations after it was published, even offering to pay for me to do so. This would be disrespectful to you, so it’s never happened, and it never will.
Strange Requests
I always make a point of responding to any legitimate queries for guest posts but have a couple of pet peeves.
One of them is people who ask me to host their guest posts and provide me with the wrong email address. That way, I waste precious time checking them out and responding to their email, only to discover that such an address doesn’t exist. Even funnier is when they then contact me again and ask again (often asking whether I read their original email)… still using the wrong email!
Also, I find it hard to respond to emails with poor grammar, typos, or bad English. When the query is poorly written, I know from experience I’ll have to spend hours cleaning up the post in order to make it good enough for my blog. Still, I often shake my head and allow a guest post in the hope of my blog serving as a stepping stone in their journey toward better writing.
Then, came the strangest request I’ve seen todate. I just had to laugh when I received this:
Hi Nicholas,
I am a theo đây có blog và tiếp tục nó quá thường. Bạn blog không đủ quyền để cho bạn.
I operate a website for [guns and hunting]. I would like để ghi một người dùng blog đăng nhập hay một các liên kết liên kết mà đang gắn với blog. Would you be willing to accept as a guest blogger?
Nếu bạn được phép bạn thì này là ít đề hình học cho bạn blog.
I mean, come on. I get it that English isn’t the first language for some of you. But is it so hard to at least try and send me a mail that is actually written in English?! What am I supposed to do with this one??
Is he saying I’m too wordy?
Sigh…
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That is actually so funny. It’s good you have a great sense of humor. 😀 — Suzanne
Thank you so much, Suzanne 😀
I know you probably didn’t mean for your rant to be funny, but it was quite hilarious. The person with the wrong address is unfortunately not uncommon. It has happened to me more than once. The first time, I tried to track them down, after that, I figured if that couldn’t proofread their own email address, I wasn’t going to waste my time. On the serious side, I do feel your pain.
To be honest, I do try to make my posts light and fun, so I’m really pleased you enjoyed it 😀
Fun post, and oh so relatable, lol. I get at least 5 a week asking to blog on my site. I’m good at vetting them out. Many I delete, some I’m curious so I check out the URL they leave and it’s usually a content page with hidden advertising. You know when they say ‘Hey, I love your website’ then tell you they could write stuff relatable to my readers about car engines, are you kidding me! It’s mostly delete lol. PS I couldn’t tweet this post the gear just kept spinning. 🙁
Ha, the old “I love your website” ploy 😀
Sorry about the tweeting trouble. I hope it’s fixed now!
At least you can laugh about that one.
Yeah, It’s all good (he said, sounding like he’s stoned 😀 )
I have to confess… I don’t often read guest posts, unless their headers call to me.
I follow the bloggers I follow because I value their writing or their advice. I know logic should tell me that anything they feel worth posting will be relevant to me, but it hasn’t often proved to be so. When the inbox is full and there are Things To Do, something has to go.
I’m the first to confess I read way fewer posts than I’d like to, so no judgment here 😀
I sometimes get such requests in languages that google translate fails to recognise! I wonder if they can understand my own post, why they are not able to respond in at least an attempt at English?
Besides, in the case of the one highlighted, it’s not a good idea to promote guns, in this day and age. 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
Well said, Pete!
Had to chuckle reading this. I get so many emails written in poor English or from people who rather obviously have not taken the trouble to check the website and don’t even know who they are addressing that I just ignore… The other day, I had a discussion about guest posts – where the other person rejected guest posts with too many typos, I always polish them as I love having guest posts but cannot publish one that contains grammatical errors – so I end up pretty much doing the same you do – polishing. Just can’t help it haha. All the best, Caroline
A kindred spirit, then 🙂