Receptional have published a case study on link development after working with Paddypower in the six months leading up to the soccer World Cup just finished. Grabbing a screenshot yesterday (admittedly a few weeks post event), Paddypower are still in second position for the phrase "world cup betting". Receptional have a significant link development arm to their business.

Very few case studies of this sort of work are available on the internet, because there is a feeling that if people knew how it was all done, then others would just copy it and also because SEOs are often concerned that the search engines will punish such behaviour.

Since this particluar campaign was for an event that has now passed, the problems are reduced in this regard, but it does raise the question of ethics in this area. Infact, just "getting links" is easy. I have a friend in Belgium that will give you 10 a day just like that... but the wider and more complex issue is how to generate interest and links for your business that stand up to proper human scrutiny - from your peers - from your customers... from the search engines. That is quite the challenge, because these kinds of questions start to ask about your brand values. Your efforts need to converge with your branding and that pretty much rules out the "ten for a dime" approach. That way simply leaves an audit trail for others to follow forever and a day.

We now feel that we genuinely have the credentials to provide a strong consultancy and implementation service for links that transcends the commoditized offerings.