Any good traffic leak examples?

I saw this one yesterday in a Facebook group for a casino website. I looked into the profiles of the two accounts talking with each other and they're made really well:
  • Photos
  • Comments and talking in photos
  • Status updates
  • Etc..
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I got a good one from my contact form today. The guy is apparently a librarian and was helping a 12-year old do some research. He was amazed that this young person was so engrossed in my website and interested in the profession the site is about. Why would a 12-year old be so engaged in this professional topic as a leisure activity? Amazing!

Then went on to say that this young man found another article very interesting and it would be great if I would post that link so the young man could see it and keep his interest going.

I went from feeling great about inspiring a young person to “this guy is scamming me for a backlink” to “am I being too cynical?”

Still don’t know where I stand.

Prey on emotion.
 
I got a good one from my contact form today. The guy is apparently a librarian and was helping a 12-year old do some research. He was amazed that this young person was so engrossed in my website and interested in the profession the site is about. Why would a 12-year old be so engaged in this professional topic as a leisure activity? Amazing!

Then went on to say that this young man found another article very interesting and it would be great if I would post that link so the young man could see it and keep his interest going.

I went from feeling great about inspiring a young person to “this guy is scamming me for a backlink” to “am I being too cynical?”

Still don’t know where I stand.

Prey on emotion.
Haha, this is clever. How did he bridge the idea of putting a link to another article onto your site though? That logical flow doesn't make sense to me. As if the 12-year old cares so much about the topic, why can't this librarian just send that article to the boy rather than ask you to link to it.

I remember the first time I got one of those "I'm a high school or college kid who aspires to be a great journalist and looking to write for free for sites that inspire me" type of emails. Warmed my heart the first time I saw it and 1000 of those later it's overplayed. This looks like a really smart spin on that.

As they say, you can't go wrong with kids and puppies. The younger you go and the more cuteness you can stuff in there, the better it'll convert (and morally more questionable). A sick puppy + sad kid where a link from your site will be the only thing that saves the day wins every time.
 
How did he bridge the idea of putting a link to another article onto your site though?

It was the 12-year old who “found” the other link.

I was wondering if you might consider adding it to your page for him. It's not often I see someone as young as him have such an interest in their own future and education and I think seeing something he found on a page like yours would make him ecstatic.

To be honest, I wouldn’t post the link anyway since it isn’t a good match for my audience. Like I said, maybe I’m being too cynical and there is a real kid behind the story. Who knows.
 
ugh man.
This threads hurting me.
People wonder why marketing is getting more unpopular.
 
I got a good one from my contact form today. The guy is apparently a librarian and was helping a 12-year old do some research. He was amazed that this young person was so engrossed in my website and interested in the profession the site is about. Why would a 12-year old be so engaged in this professional topic as a leisure activity? Amazing!

Then went on to say that this young man found another article very interesting and it would be great if I would post that link so the young man could see it and keep his interest going.

I went from feeling great about inspiring a young person to “this guy is scamming me for a backlink” to “am I being too cynical?”

Still don’t know where I stand.

Prey on emotion.

Just got another one of these. Very similar, but different website. This must be the new backlink strategy.

The “teacher” made a bet with the “student” that she could get me to link to some link he found to prove that other people pay would attention to his ideas. The link: how to buy a CCTV camera.

The from email address for both were to legit-looking websites that seem to work with disadvantaged youths. They are sure putting a lot of effort into this.
 
Okay, this isn't an example but probably something someone could use with a bit of creativity if they're in the right niche:

AI-generated collaborations/product images for products that don't exist.

I'm not a sneakerhead, but I ended up on the /r/sneakers subreddit and came across this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Sneakers/comments/1369485/i_asked_an_ai_to_generate_jordan_collabs_with/

You can't tell me something like that wouldn't get insane amounts of traffic on social with some headline for each one, like "Is This Jordan/Tiffany Co Sneaker Collab Coming Soon?" with that image as the feature
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Hypebeast could have a field day with those images. Or going buck wild creating collab prototypes with all sorts of other brands.
 
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