There are rumors that the incredibly popular magazine and website, Consumer Reports is sending out link exchange requests to webmasters and SEOs.

A WebmasterWorld thread has a Senior Member, MichaelBluejay, saying that he has received, what he considers, deceptive emails from Consumer Reports asking for a link exchange. Let me quote you what he said:

The obvious question is why would a large publication like Consumer Reports need to conduct link exchanges? Are they just automatically sending out emails to publishers asking them to link to their site? Why make it sound like they want to give a link back to the publisher, when it doesn’t seem like they will end up doing so?

There are a few possibilities that come to mind:

(1) Consumer Reports hired a SEO company and maybe the SEO company feels these emails are important to their SEO campaign?
(2) Another site had a typo in their link exchange email requests and put down Consumer Reports?
(3) This was a joke or made up?

I am not sure but this is indeed interesting. I guess, it can’t hurt to remind people that Consumer Reports does have solid information. It is just weird to see link exchange emails from large publications and companies.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.