Nordic eMarketing study done this year has yielded that it’s better to use short female names when growing link equity through link requesting or asking for link exchange. Over the past 8 months we have been doing tests with female and male names when link requesting and found that when using names like Elisa Turner or Joanne Willow we getter better acceptance than using names like Charlie Houlton or Chris Arne.

Same tests have also told us that using localized names works better when focusing on none English speaking countries. The difference can dramatic but also seems to fluctuate between sectors/verticals as we have found short manly names work better in the B2B steel industry. Bottom line, if you are going in as a link requestor use short female names and localize them if you are leaving the comfort zone of English. Word of caution don’t overdo it Erin Cock for example did not work well.