There’s been many blog about how laborious link building can be.
Personally, the essential drilling down of websites to explore their levels of authority and deem if they are a viable linking partner I find interesting.

You could literally spend a lifetime building links and still have a feeling in the back of your mind as to how these links are helping with your sites promotion.

In an age were email spam is rife and your filtered inbox is hotter than the inside of a dragon’s nasal passage what’s the most polite and effective way to obtain links?

I’ve recently had a link request from a guy saying:

” Hi there,
My name is*******, I’m Development Manager for *******(http://www.******) I’ve been digging around a few websites over the past few days and I found your site ****** I’ve had a quick look around and I like what you’re saying. I was wondering if you might consider visiting our site and linking to us. (If you like what you see? Here’s the link: *******)

If you’re interested, it would be really great if you could let me know. If it doesn’t seem like your cup of tea (coffee, herbal beverage) you can just send me an email back with “NO” in the subject line and I won’t harass you again

Thanks for your time!

Kind Regards “

Now I kind of like this persons approach, friendly, unique and I’m unlikely to just delete the email.
What do you all consider the best approach for gaining links, well asking for them? How would you go about it?
Dan Horton