Getting existing text linked from magazine

[dmac]

Hello All,

A major magazine DA98 did an article in 2007 about a project our company worked on. The specifically named our company in both the printed and online (PA53) versions of our article. Even though this article is old, I think this has HUGE potential if we can pull it off.

Do you think it's possible to contact them and encourage them attach a link to our company name. Their newer articles are pretty good at doing this, but I guess in 07 it wasn't practiced by them.

What's the best way to approach this and who should I go to? Webmaster?

There is also a slight downside, the article does contain information about explosives, but not in a bad way. Could the search engines dislike this. I'm assuming not because of the PA and DA numbers for the magazine company.

Would love to hear your thoughts and ideas.

dmac

[altecdesign]

First, I doubt there would be any chance of you getting any sort of penalty due to the fact that explosives were mentioned. If this were the case fireworks manufacturers would be out of luck as far as SEO goes!

Second, I have actually pulled something like this off in the past, but with a newspaper article. I would start off by contacting the author of the piece, seeing as how he/she is the one who is familiar and even might have a relationship with you company. They also often link to their contact forum or even put their email address on the page. If that doesn't work, I would say the webmaster is a solid backup plan. An editor at the publication should also be able to do it but I would say he/she is less likely to than the first two options. To increase your odds in your email, you might even want to include the hyperlink code you wish inserted to make it easier (also more likely) for them to add it.

Goodluck!

[MarcLevy]

This is definitely something that can be pulled off. The answer above correctly states that contacting the right person is going to give you the most chance of making this happen, as well as making it as easy as possible for them to do it.

However, a few things that could improve your chances:

• Pick up the phone, if you can speak to the right person this is better than email.
• If email, make sure your email is super polite and massages their ego. If emailing the webmaster, talk about how you like their site and mention something specific (a new article that you read recently and why it was interesting), no need for this to be long, but show you like and use their site and are not just emailing for a link never to return. If speaking with the article writer, talk about some of their other articles etc.
• State the benefits of making this link active... why should they do it? I presume your site is of value (thus the mention) so say that, say how you believe this article is still of value and how a link to your site would provide their users with a better experience etc.