Unfortunately, as a non-PHP/ASP-savvy marketer, you lost me on how to randomize the anchor text:

“Write a simple PHP script and map it to your PAD file URL using Apache’s ScriptAlias, or map the .xml extension (if you don’t have other files with the same extension) or do something similar. The idea is that the script must intercept the request and randomly or serially alter the anchor text in the XML with the values of a predetermined list of anchor text that you want to target.”

Can someone point me to a informational resource on how to do this?

Thanks in advance and great post!

Best,
Jason

Going to investigate the idea further at our next software development meeting.

Hamlet has released a useful post on using the PAD system to distribute software and build links. My first online job was actually promoting a shareware HTML editor so this is a familiar technique for me. Here are a few notes to add to the conversation…

@Mike

Many sites do not allow screensaver or toolbar submissions now. They have been flooded with these from the marketing community.

The best plan here is to create something that your site users would actually find useful. For example, a paintball site might give away a small phone program that allows users to calculate paintball gun settings and distance. That way you get the community advantage + a greater chance of relevant IBL from authority sites in your niche. It can then be used for general link building beyond PAD submissions.

Certainly an easy method of getting relevant links though.

Great post!