EdenFantasys.com whose tagline is the "sex shop you can trust" is well-known in the mom blogging community because of extensive and ongoing blogger outreach efforts. Aside from promoting reviews and giveaways of their sex toys, EdenFantasys has made a concerted effort to build deep roots in the community through sponsorships of blogger book tours, Twitter outreach, adding well-known bloggers as columnists for SexIs Magazine, and even sponsoring a session at BlogHer '10.

Most visitors to the site are probably unaware of the drama and gossip within the sex blogging community where allegations and stories about negative experiences with the company continues to play out in the site's forums as well as on blogs.

The latest negative press came yesterday from MayMay of MaybeMaimed.com and KinkOnTap.com who detailed how he stumbled upon what appears to be highly sophisticated and somewhat unusual linking practices by EdenFantasys and their parent company Web Merchants, Inc. MayMay's post alleges that Web Merchants is using "a technology platform that actively denies others the courtesy of link reciprocity, a courtesy on which the ethical Internet is based."

From EdenFantasy's perspective MayMay was stealing SexIs content by not linking to them directly.

MayMay has publicly posted the email exchange which shows he was indeed asked to link to EF after writing a summary about an article that EF had syndicated to AlterNet. However, as many bloggers would undoubtedly do, he had linked to AlterNet - the site where he had read the article.

Linking to the source where the article was found is one of the guidelines MayMay and Emma (who also writes for KinkOnTap.com) have for the site. He wrote they have "thoroughly discussed attribution policies" which includes a length limit, automated back linking, and clearly demarcated quotes from the source article.

EdenFantasys had contacted him hoping he'd change the link from AlterNet's syndicated article and redirect it to their site so they could get credit from search engines like Google, since incoming links are the currency of the web.

It was after that request that MayMay, a web developer, decided to look at EdenFantasy's source code. He says:

"One of the reasons I investigated in the first place was because the email I got from their editors felt disingenuous, as though it was trying to imply I'd done something wrong by not finding the original article on SexIs. It just didn't sit well with me, as I wrote about in my editorial, and so I started looking at the source code on their pages almost out of habit more than anything else."

And what he found surprised him.

Rather than simple outbound links, the links were being 'encapsulated' in JavaScript-based coding. As he researched it further he began to believe that despite their eagerness to contact him directly about being properly linked to, EF was not giving search engine credit to outgoing links because of the encapsulation code. An irony MayMay wanted to expose.

Fred Petrenko, president of EdenFantasys, responded directly to the allegations today. He said:

"[EdenFantasys.com] requires special handling to assure our website is not damaged with malicious software that could compromise our commerce operations, credit card security compliance procedures, and overall could shut down the website.

All linking within SexIs Magazine, on contributor profiles, and elsewhere on EF have always been encapsulated. This allows us to be able to display all of the content instantly without pre-moderation and to share traffic with our contributors."

Mr. Petrenko suggested that other sites such as CNN.com and Gawker.com use similar encapsulation practices, but a commenter named KarlElvis suggested otherwise:

"The bottom line is, what you're doing with links is not like what other sites are doing.

Outbound links don't represent a security risk in and of themselves; sure, they can point to malicious sites, but replacing a link with a java forwarder doesn't fix that; it only obscures it from outside spidering. The real question though is about the lack of reciprocal links as part of 'link exchange' programs. That's the one that's being asked, and you have not addressed it."

Jenny Lawson of TheBloggess.com, a well-known contributor to SexIs responded to the issue by saying:

"To be honest, I don't really understand the technical aspects of their linking practices. I've never asked them to link back to my blog though so personally I don't feel slighted. I do however think it's great that these issues are raised and discussed and I have faith that EF will address them since they've always seemed respectful and responsive to the community and to their contributors."

MayMay contends that his post has unleashed the floodgates. Ex-employees as well as many members of the sex blogging community have been coming forward thanking him for bringing up the issue.

In the blogosphere, links from big sites are a valuable commodity, but if link exchanges aren't being properly handled it can leave bloggers feeling cheated and used.

This is causing quite a headache for EdenFantasys and it appears they're trying to clear the air by having their head programmer address the questions too. He says that the user experience of having a fast and safe site is their biggest priority and that they'll continue to use JavaScript, AJAX, JQuery Framework and XML - "even if search engines do not understand the dynamic information," because the company believes it's the future of the Internet.

Bloggers participating in link exchanges or creating content in the hopes of increased traffic need to be viligant in determining if it's a good fit and if they're comfortable with the linking practices. Periodically looking through site analytics can help determine if enough traffic is coming in to make the relationship worth it.

It seems bloggers who are hoping to get search engine credit for links coming from EdenFantasys may just have to wait until search engine crawlers understand their advanced link coding techniques - which could be a long time.

UPDATE: A quote was removed by request of the individual.

{photo credit: Juliana Coutinho}