Email Guidelines, Directory Basics and FAQs
Please print this page and use it as a guide

Asking another webmaster for a reciprocal link is standard practice on the internet. Webmasters have been asking other webmasters for reciprocal links since the beginnings of the Internet. The very nature of the web is linking websites to one another. It is of even higher importance, now that AltaVista has changed it's ranking algorithms and the others are sure to follow.

If a webmaster considers your email spam then he can report you. If your emails are unique, without commercials, and are personalized with unique personal information about the webmaster's website that you are emailing, then it would be hard to call your email spam.

All Zeus users must be responsible in the operation of their Zeus Marketing Robot. This includes following simple rules and guidelines choosing ThemeSites to include in your directory and during the emailing operations of your robot.

 

Organizing a tightly-Themed Vertical Link Directory

Zeus does increase your search engine positioning if used properly.

Tightly-Themed, Zeus-generated Link Directories get high ratings from search engine robots but only if they are true resources of organized knowledge. Search engines are getting very smart in their query result rankings. They include all kinds of advanced calculations pertaining to how the links point to you and away from you. They can include keywords in their algorithms and now they know how tightly linked your Themes are. Don't try to fool them into better positioning, by including into your Link Directory, a lot of ThemeSites that are outside your website's real Themes.

Just about all the Zeus-generated Link Directory I have visited lately, include an area for website design, marketing or hosting. It's OK if that's one of your real Themes, but if it's Birds, Dogs, Health, etc., etc., it does not belong in your Link Directory!

Your Link Directory's Theme's must match the Themes of your website. You must not let your zeal to email and perhaps get a reciprocal link, overpower your need to create a true web resource. You don't want to create a directory that includes all the knowledge of mankind and also sounds like a soft drink. You should be happy with organizing a tightly Themed Vertical Link Directory. Be the best in your area, linking only sites that relate to you.

A smaller, tightly-themed Link Directory will grow much faster than a diluted, loosely-themed, large bulky one. Your website's traffic will quickly increase, not only with visitors from your Reciprocal Link partners but will also increase from Search Engine visitors, once their robots quickly find your Link Directory pages through your Link Partners!

Email General Guidelines

If you are including websites in your Link Directory just because you want to send an send an email and possibly get a link, then you are spamming in mind and spirit. The webmaster who receives this kind of email is not a happy camper. He is proud of his achievements in creating traffic to his site over the last few years, millions of hits every month, only to receive an email asking him to link to a website, that in no way can remotely match his website or be useful for his visitors. This is spam. Remember the phrase reciprocal links? Please change it to Reciprocal Themed Links. This is important !

In the Link Directories we maintain at cyber-robotics, we only send out reciprocal link requests to those websites that already have links on their websites AND are actively looking for more Link Partners. It's easy to know as they will have something posted in their link areas. Every email we send is personalized with something nice about their website to prove we actually visited it.

DO NOT commercialize your email in any way.

• It shouldn't look like spam or people will think it is.
• Do not include ANY links in your email except links to your website.
• Keep it short and to the point. Ask for a reciprocal link and that's it.
• This message should only be a few lines and not a long narrative with rules and guidelines. Save that for your ThemeIndex page on your link directory.

Change the email reciprocal link messages that are included with Zeus.

It is possible for  webmasters to receive the same basic message from another  Zeus operator. Each reciprocal link request MUST look different. DO NOT SKIP THIS SUGGESTION.

Do not use Let's Trade Links as your email subject. Let's trade links is probably the most used email Subject line on the internet today. If you use this Subject line then you are sending the same one as everyone else. It will not be accepted or worse, it will look like spam.

Personalize every email message

Send email using the MailMerge feature with the <personal_comment> tag.

When the <personal_comment> MailMerge Tag is used during Email All selected or when using the manual Send Mail button, Zeus will stop when this tag is encountered during the composing of the email. You will be prompted for a personal comment to include in the email messages to the selected email addresses. You could include something like: "I really like the animations you had on your home page.",  ".. and loved your background image" or "I loved the content on ...... page". This personal comment should prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that you personally visited their website.

Do's and Don'ts

Email a copy of your reciprocal link request message to your ISP and ask them what they think. You should be able to be honest with your ISP.

Send one email to your ThemeSites and if they don't want to trade links, DO NOT send them anymore requests that might bother them.

Do your email daily. Sending 50 -75 emails daily is a lot different than sending 800 emails in one day because you only want to organize your ThemeSites once a week.

I have done everything in my power to keep Zeus from being used by spammers
and I will not allow Zeus to be used by spammers.

Zeus is not designed to send spam.

If someone wanted to send spam with Zeus he would have to go through every ThemeSite that Zeus finds, then manually select every email addresses and a Theme Category for each one. Plus Zeus only extracts a few email addresses per website. If someone wanted to go to all that trouble, then he could probably send spam with Zeus, but there are a lot of easier ways to do it. It would be easier to spam with a normal mail program.  Zeus is not efficient to send spam and was designed this way on purpose.

There is very little difference in using Zeus as an email program than if you used your default mail program.

Before you can send a reciprocal link request, you have to explore their web site, decide if you want to include them in your link directory, select a message and choose an email address. You have to also select a Theme category to include them in your Link directory. It is no different than your default email program sending to those on a personal address list that you've used your browser to find and explore their website. Consider Zeus as an automatic browser and contact manager, with an email program attached.

The main difference between Zeus and your default email program, is that Zeus saves you all the leg work of finding the web sites to trade links with. He will also list some of the email addresses found in each web site, even sorting them by host or other email. Listing them makes it easy for you to select one email address to send your personal request to. All email addresses will not be listed from the website, as Zeus will only list so many from each page. This is necessary to keep Zeus from being used by those trying to spam.

 

FAQs

How much control do I have over my email message?

The MailMerge feature is available for all versions of Zeus. The MailMerge feature gives you total control over your outgoing email messages. You simply create a text message inserting simple MailMerge tags and Zeus automatically merges the data from the ThemeSite database into your message. This allows you to have TOTAL control over the placement of Data in email correspondence.

 

I'm confused. When I generate emails asking for the link directory, does it come out of my office computer where Zeus resides, or is the email generated out of my hoster's computer?

It's works through your computer, through your ISP's smtp server. It works like any mail program like Eudora, Outlook, etc.

 

I am new to the internet, and do not clearly understand what constitutes "SPAM". Thanks for your help, I am really excited about the Zeus program and looking forward to implementing it.

Basically Spam is whatever the receiver of the email thinks it is. If he decides it's spam and reports it, then it's up to your ISP. Sometimes your ISP defines Spam as any un-requested email. This way they don't have to deal with it, if they don't want to, since that covers just about everything.

Asking for a reciprocal link is common practice on the internet, but please make sure you ask for a link without including any commercials of ANY kind. If you have kept it a simple request, then your ISP is probably going to work with you if by chance you do get a spam complaint.

Keep your letters personal and short. It shouldn't look like spam or people will think it is and then you will have a problem.

 

Tell me an easy way to send a second email one month later without having to go through 2000 links. What I'm saying is that I add links every day and when it comes to a second email will have to manually go through the database and send email one by one. That is simply impossible.

I don't know if there is an easy way. I have been talking to older experienced users of Zeus and I find that most do a sort by Email Not Sent, Not Link Partner, then go through these changing the email address to another listed, checking the checkbox to personalize each email and adding a bit of trivia directly related to the ThemeSite being viewed, then manually clicking the Send Email button one ThemeSite after another. Those that follow this policy have few problems and receive great results. It's hard for someone to call an email spam when it's personalized.

 

Will I have problems?

If you follow the above guidelines, then I doubt you will have problems. Webmasters have been doing this since the beginnings of the Internet. The main thing is that you don't cause your ISP any unwanted work by having to write an email explaining to their Service provider why you are not spamming. From a business standpoint, they have to weigh the amount of work they would have to do answering to their service provider against the returns you give to them. They will have to ask the question to themselves: "Are you worth the $16.95 per month you give to your ISP?"

AOL

AOL does not allow 3rd party mail programs. You may want to consider getting another ISP for your internet connection. There is absolutely nothing we can do to change this. They want you to stay inside and not stray. Getting connected through a real ISP is easy and can usually be done in a few minutes over the phone. You will be surprised that you didn't do it sooner.If you want to send email through AOL, then you will have to look at each ThemeSite, preview the email message, then copy and paste that info into your AOL Mail Client.

I finally received the following reply from AOL regarding this question. Now, what does it mean?

From: Acme
> To: support@aol.com

MY QUESTION TO AOL:
> I just installed a program that needs me to provide my "SMTP Host" for my
> email server system. There is another blank for my email address, so I don't
> know what they are asking for. I use AOL for all my email services. What
> should I put in this data box? Thanks for your help.

THEIR REPLY:
AOL does not support the use of 3rd party mail clients. In order to
access your mail, you must either use the AOL client or you can use AOL
Mail on the Web at http://aolmail.aol.com

Is this their way of saying they consider this spam?

No this is their way of forcing you to do it their way.

I also have a pop-email account with unlimited redirects, mail lists, autoresponders, etc, with my web host which I have set up to redirect all my mail to addresses there thru the AOL email interface. Should I be using Zeus on that account and NOT redirect to the AOL email interface?

Yes, you can use Zeus on that account but I always advise everyone, whether they send email or not, to never use the same business for their web hosting and ISP connection. This is entirely too much power for someone to hold over you.