Still typing one-handed, but I had a very interesting conversation today about the future of linkbait and the advantages/disadvantages of being one of the only companies in the world offering the service as part of consultancy. As of now, a good AJAX programmer, a clever idea and a talented PR person are all that's required to make a piece of content that can draw thousands of links and visitors.

Although linkbait isn't one of those SEO trends/trcks like directories, blog comment links or PageRank manipulation that the search engines will eventually catch up to and discount, as a service, it has a limited lifespan of effectiveness (at the current cost/labor efforts). What we'll see over time is a trend that marks linkbait as manipulative by the communities that currently help to promote it. Thus, only the truly extraordinary projects will grab the attention of the "linkerati" and gain the notoriety necessary to affect the search engine rankings.

Seeing all this in advance and taking into account the lessons of the past, it may be wise to jump ahead 24-30 months and simply offer linkbait services only to those who are ready and financially/organizationally ready to make this leap. My initial thoughts are that services would cost from $75-$150K and we'd only take 3-4 projects like this per year.

Questions:

• What's your opinion of linkbait as a paid service (feel free to be honest, no offense taken)?
• Do you know of any other firms that currently offer the service?
• How do you think saturation can/will/might affect the "topical phenomenon" link landscape?