So I got an interesting email this morning.
Hi Michael ,
I am the owner of the website www.costumes4less.com. I would request you to remove my post/link from your website at your earliest , as the same is affecting our website’s reputation in Search Engine. Please see the below link where my link has been placed:
https://michaelcmcgreevy.com/2010/10/31/playing-dressup/
Waiting for your positive response.
Thanks & Regards
Now when I first read this, I thought he/she was actually talking about my Sexy Halloween History post. I knew I had written about sexy Halloween costumes at one point in the past, and I figured the owner of this site didn’t want me linking to something on his where I was bagging on said costumes. Fair enough, I suppose. I mean, I’m generally under the impression that traffic is traffic, but whatever. If I was bagging on one of his costumes and he didn’t want the link, so be it. I can take that down.
But, no. This was not a post about sexy costumes at all. This was a post about how my Mother had cobbled together a Zorro costume for me when I was a kid. It’s a post about my low self-esteem and how I love Halloween and wish I had the confidence in my physical appearance to actually dress up for it.
And THAT is bad for the reputation of his site? Really?
So, ok. I decided to do a little research. Maybe my SEO is just so damned incredible that I rank higher for people looking for hats than the site that actually sells them.
Hrm. Nope. I even dug through several pages. I don’t show up anywhere.
So the only thing I can think is that, at some point, someone has read my post and clicked on the link, and that showed up in their analytic reports. This, somehow, is bad for their reputation.
Well, I’m sorry that www.costumes4less.com isn’t interested in traffic from my site. I’m sorry that www.costumes4less.com feels that I’m bad for their image. But mostly? I’m sorry that www.costumes4less.com is run by someone who apparently can’t even put together an intelligible email or actually do some research into the posts he is claiming are so very bad for his “website reputation in Search Engine.”
I’m also sorry, but he won’t be getting any business from me in the future.
Edit – The company has reached out to me at this point and offered up a pretty sincere sounding apology.
