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There are some Websites where you can register, answer several questions about yourself, and self-publish an interview. You supposedly get some visibility and links. I actually considered setting up such a site many years ago. In fact, I set up a prototype and tested it with a group of authors.

In the end I decided not to do the site because I felt it would require too much oversight. Some people just do not behave rationally when it comes to promoting themselves and their Websites. They draw no boundaries. They respect no boundaries set by other people.

There are two popular “white hat” SEO techniques that people are using to build or attract more links for their Websites: article swaps and interviews.

Article swaps are the new form of reciprocal linking. Because the links are embedded in relevant content, the thinking goes, they will be deemed more acceptable by the search engines. Of course, instead of writing articles themselves, hard-core site promoters hire freelance writers to pump out dozens of articles every week.

Through the years I have often noted that the only real difference between many types of Web spam and legitimate content is excess. Too much of a good thing spoils it.

I expect article swapping to eventually be added to the search engines’ growing list of things not to do. There are just too many people doing it now for the brazen and sole purpose of building link popularity. And most of the articles aren’t even well-written. They are mechanical rehashes of the same basic points that earlier articles already covered.

Interviews have not caught on as wildly as article swaps, perhaps because people feel they should only be interviewing “noteworthy” people. Maybe you cannot find many celebrities in your industry, but if you interview all five of them you’ll have given your readers something new and different…maybe.

As I noted on SEO Theory today, Websites can turn out canned interviews in volume and I just don’t believe that is the kind of content we should advise our clients to create.

Most business sites could, in fact, turn out some pretty good interview articles. All they have to do is publish some case studies of how their customers use products and services. An interview doesn’t have to be conducted with someone famous. CNN often publishes micro-interviews with “people on the street” (or the Web). Other news sites do this, too.

You could also interview engineers or designers who have had an impact on your industry, or marketers, or other thought leaders who may not be famous but whom you personally sincerely feel deserve some recognition. There is nothing wrong with bringing your friends from college into your Web marketing if they can offer your visitors a valuable reading experience.

The SEO community sometimes goes in for interviews but more often it goes in for “guest blogging”. So far as I know the best SEO blogs that open up to guest blogs are NOT engaging in article swaps. They are legitimately asking people they respect to write custom articles for a single site. I’ve had to turn down several requests over the years for guest posts because Visible Technologies has not really supported that process (due to how it manages intellectual properties).

Still, guest blogging offers you a little of something that article swapping offers (other people create your content for you and they will probably link to your site from their site) and a little something that interviews offer (your visitors can see what other people — whom you find interesting — think about your industry).

Nonetheless, I just cannot see the average business site inviting guest bloggers over to talk about their products and services. The SEO community may not be wholly unique in this aspect, but I doubt there are many other industries where people feel comfortable writing content for their rivals.

However, if you are the business with an affiliate network, you may be able to leverage your affiliates in some creative ways. For example, you can feature your best performing affiliates in your monthly online newsletter (several major retailers have done this). Or you could ask your affiliates to interview you or let you write a guest post for their sites (just don’t rehash the same self-promotional shmucky crap for them). Some marketers have done that, too (mostly with canned self-promotional schmucky crap, so let’s move away from that style of writing).

If you’re going to be the star of your affiliate community, you need to provide your affiliates with high quality, unique value. Help them help you in the most Jerry Maguire-like fashion possible: put your heart and soul into the game and stop holding out for a bigger paycheck.

We have learned to create and use every type of user-generated content possible: surveys and polls, comments, guest articles, voting knobs, profiles, and more. We have done a very poor job of creating and using community-generated content.

When a community comes together to share an interest, people will ask questions. Someone should provide the answers. People will share points of view. Someone should challenge those points of view. People will celebrate their successes and bemoan their failures. Someone should be cheering them on.

Real community building does not consist of editing comments on your blog. Nor does real community building consist of bashing people who disagree with you — unless you only want to build a toxic community.

To create a positive, forward-looking community experience you have to go the extra mile and create unique, interesting, and potentially even useful content for people — and help them do the same. It cannot all be about you.

You can start raising the bar by demanding better performance from your freelance writers. Better yet, demand improving performance from your own marketing. Even if you’re just stitching together an affiliate site, you can find ways to create a good experience for your visitors. You tend to think they are only there to give you money. In reality, they are there to fulfill a need. That need unquestionably goes beyond making the purchase.

Engage with those people and help them help you in ways that help improve everyone’s Web experience. That’s the type of content and link building that stands the test of time. Everything else is just a spam filter waiting to be implemented.