How do they and I make money

[kgun]

1. Background.

Senior members here at WPW should know that I have been collecting links manually since the beginning of the internet and I continue on refining and cultivating that collection. I sometimes get an email message from other web masters that thank me for a great collection. These are of at least two types:

1. Those that inform about broken links.
2. Those that inform about broken links and inform me about related (replacement) links. They may be heard if the link is semantic and I find that it inceases the digital real estate value of my collection. It may take time (years) though since I keep the link in a special collection (sandbox if you prefer) for reasons that are explained below.
3. I could like a third group, people that informed me about insemantic links.

2. How do they make moeny?

When I see a site like (snapshot dot com) I never link to it. And I wonder, how do sites like these make money?

3. The technology.

In my opinion it is autoamtically generated links and there is no written content on the sites aside from the anchor text. I assume that the content is generated by a meta search engine og by mining serps of different search engines.

4. A huge problem for a manual link collector.

My aim is not to compete with search engines, and I have no aim of getting the biggest manually collected link collection in the world. I have a relaxed relation to my collection, and when I go through the collection, it decreases considerably, not least because so many sites I linked to have changed content to a site similar to snapshot dot com. Related WPW thread:

Links::: Life or death of your eBusiness.

5. What to do with this link spam?

I consider it as link spam:

1. When a site changes content as explained above.
2. When an article I linked to changes content that is unrelated to the article I linked to.
3. When a site or an article I linked to redirects to something quite different.

I am a little angry when this happens and think I have been cheated. I instantly throw away the link. There are however other ways to handle the situation:

1. Keep the links in an internal collection that is never published on the internet.
2. Use the collection as a set that my other links are automatically tested against and clean the collection. (I may also collect a link more than once and link to more than one article on a site.)

Secretely sell the collection as a bad collection and make money.

Related WPW thread: What the Heck is a low qualiy link

6. Summary and conclusion.

Link spam as I define it above has not decreased. So my final summary questions are:

1. How do these sites make money?
2. How can I profit on being cheated by these link spammers?

[Tubby]

(question 1) "How do they make money?" . .
That is a question that has never concerned me.

(Your second question) "How can I profit on being cheated by these link spammers?"
You possibly need to work out what information you have accumulated that has value to your visitors. . then place it behind some sort of payment barrier.

[kgun]

(question 1) "How do they make money?" . .
That is a question that has never concerned me.

It concerns me since these sites that I regard as automatically generated link farms can make money.

[SteveGerencser]

It concerns me since these sites that I regard as automatically generated link farms can make money.

Why? Is their ability to make money somehow making it impossible for someone else to make money? Are they breaking some law?

[Tubby]

It concerns me since these sites that I regard as automatically generated link farms can make money.

Yes that is a good trick . . It takes me all day, communicating, editing, contacting, appeasing, cajoling, my users, merely to create a slow steady trickle of incoming funds.

I feel quite lucky! . . . I see tons of sites out there with no traffic and no hope.

Kgun with your IQ the only reason you are not making more money is that you would rather play . .

'Methinks' you do not make money as a matter of principle!

[kgun]

Why? Is their ability to make money somehow making it impossible for someone else to make money? Are they breaking some law?

No, of course breaking no law. I asked how these sites make money?

'Methinks' you do not make money as a matter of principle!

[SteveGerencser]

No, if you look at what I quoted - you said it concerned you that they made money. I asked why you cared.

As for how they make money, who says that they are? I know a lot of sites that look like they make money and never make a dime.