You know what amazes me about upstate New York? Squirrels. They’re really fat. Between their winter weight and thick hair they’re easily twice the size of Floridian squirrels. You know what else amazes me about upstate New York? The crazies. I thought it was just my imagination, I must have grown too accustomed to Florida’s unique brand of beach loons. Sadly, after a conversation with my father, I discovered that because of the 1963 Community Mental Health Act there are in fact a bunch of crazies on the loose in New England. No wonder housing is so cheap! I know my ramblings sound cruel, but have no fear, I’m quickly becoming as fat as the squirrels because of daily donuts and as crazy as the one-eyed mountain man in Price Chopper because I never leave the office.

I was just starting to recover from the marathon of Internet marketing conferences: Think Tank, Scary SEO, SMX East and Pubcon when Jim Boykin did the unthinkable, he decided to stop buying paid links. This comes as a huge surprise to anyone familiar with the history of We Build Pages, which is rooted in paid link building. For those of us that work there we knew what was on the horizon, which is why they hired Patrick Sexton, QualityGal, Lisa Barone and myself.

The responses to Jim’s post have been mostly congratulatory with a few optimistic competitors who think we won’t be able to compete without paid links. To those competitors, all I can say is, hold onto your nutz! We’re fat, crazy squirrels and we’re here to steal your nutz.