The Ethics of Building Backlinks, One Unrelated Blog and Forum at a Time...

[Heidi White]

nothing to see here . . . go away

[Daniel Brock]

If you're commenting on blogs in your niche, you should have plenty to say about the topic.

If your concern is that you don't have anything meaningful to add, then don't add it.

Im sure that if there was a free pr6 blog post floating around out there, you'll find a way to write something meaningful.

Also, if you are serious in a niche, you have to leave intelligent replies to build relationships and eyeballs.

Regards,
Dan

[tony-raymondo]

Originally Posted by MostlyHarmless

I feel dirty pretending to give a S about car engines...

Shill - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This happens when you're not writing about your passion.

It is theoretically possible to create websites about things you are passionate about, and make money.

It's just harder to do.

[jasonmorgan]

1. How do you deal with these concerns, or do they even bother you?

I don't lose any sleep over it. I also don't pretend it's not shady or disrespectful.

2. Do you use a fake name or a just-for-back-linking email?

I have several free email accounts and use several fake names.

3. Do you employ BS to slam through your quantity of back links, or do you try to get engaged and say something of real value?

All of the above. Sometimes I might leave a real comment other times I'll tell a joke or ramble off the lyrics of whatever song happens to be on the radio at the time.

4. Do you go wherever the back-link providers tell you to go, or are you more selective?

I don't use backlink providers. I am very good at scrapping up their lists and coming up with my own backlinks through various means. Just go to any 'ol spammed blog and do a backlinks search of one the spammers who beat you to it and backlink check their site... instant list of blogs that apparently are not moderated.

[Mikedb]

Hi,

this is the reason why I use niche targeted backlinks.
All the backlinks will be from sites related to my topic and I make comments after reading the blogpost and reading the forum.

The rest is just plain spam.....period.

Regards,

Mike

[Heidi White]

OK - This site I'm trying to promote is NOT something I'm passionate about. It's an autoblog and it's sole purpose is to net .50 cents to $1 per day in adsense revenue by picking up crumbs of traffic on popular keywords. Once I get that going, I'll create 100 more just like it.

see Autoblogging on Steroids WSO

***OK you Do What You Love and The Money Will Follow purists - go ahead and get out your stakes.*** I did keyword research on the hobby I'm passionate about and there we basically NO searches.

Personally I think that many people (especially women) buy into the dream that the best way to make money in internet marketing is to blog about something, anything, passionately. Sure that works sometimes, but I don't really think everyone is all that interesting, or necessarily has something they are all that passionate about.

[hotlinkz]

Hi MostlyHarmless,

Google the following
(just replace corporate photographer or photographer with your own niche)

"corporate photographer"+forum
"corporate photographer"+blog
photographer+blog
photographer+forum

You will find lots of blogs and forums related to your niche.

So, for those of you who build your own back-links:

1. How do you deal with these concerns, or do they even bother you?

2. Do you use a fake name or a just-for-back-linking email?

3. Do you employ BS to slam through your quantity of back links, or do you try to get engaged and say something of real value?

4. Do you go wherever the back-link providers tell you to go, or are you more selective?

Answers to your queries...

2. I generally use pen names depending on the niche and a Gmail account that is associated with that specific pen name. These are the same pen name I use for article writing.

3. I try to add real value. I will pay off in the long run.

4. NEVER blindly follow anyone! Advice and recommendations are great and always appreciated but I would rather substantiate things for myself. Quality backlinks are always preferred over quick low quality links.

[Heidi White]

Originally Posted by hotlinkz

Hi MostlyHarmless,

Google the following
(just replace corporate photographer or photographer with your own niche)

"corporate photographer"+forum
"corporate photographer"+blog
photographer+blog
photographer+forum

You will find lots of blogs and forums related to your niche.

Yeah - it's probably the best thing to do.

Pick the page I want to link, and search for related blogs and forums.

site:edu inurl:blog "leave a comment" -"you must be logged in to comment" -"comments closed" + "corporate photographer" (or general topic related to article on my page)

tedium....

[halfpoint]

My opinion, when it comes to blog commenting is to simply comment on blogs you're interested in.

You should be able to contribute something to the discussion on any topic that you have an interest in.

Additionally, I'm sure you have opinions on many of the major news stories each day, look at the blog posts of the big news sites and make comments there.

I never worry about relevance when it comes to backlinks, and with blog commenting this is especially true. I find that if I'm commenting on blogs that I'm actually interested in I add a lot more value to the comment and I also enjoy myself because I'm writing about something I enjoy.

[Heidi White]

Pat - that's been my experience too. Takes longer, but I get more enjoyment out of it. Do you just throw your page you want to back link under your name - or does your link get tied into your post because it's relevant?

[tony-raymondo]

Originally Posted by MostlyHarmless

Personally I think that many people (especially women) buy into the dream that the best way to make money in internet marketing is to blog about something, anything, passionately..

Yes the VAST vast vast amount of people who just decide to start a blog and blog passionately or going to fail.

I still think you could write about your passion.

The thing is, you also need to know how to rank.

Whatever your passion is, if you can rank in the top 3 for it, there's a fair chance you can monetize it.

[halfpoint]

Originally Posted by MostlyHarmless

Pat - that's been my experience too. Takes longer, but I get more enjoyment out of it. Do you just throw your page you want to back link under your name - or does your link get tied into your post because it's relevant?

The only link I have is my name. I never include a link in the post itself.

However, depending on the type of post it is and the other comments on the page I'll try to use my keyword as my name.

On the higher PR and more moderated posts where I'm just happy to have a link I generally will just use my name (or a fake name).

[sashas]

like they say, behind every great fortune is a great crime.

Commenting on unrelated blogs seems a trifle deal then, doesn't it?

Its not like you're causing their blog/site any actual harm by posting an unrelated, but relevant comment

[Heidi White]

How can something be both unrelated and relevant?

[Jacob Martus]

Relevant to the blog post... but the niches are unrelated.

[Mattk]

Mostly Harmless,

I agree with your original post. I happen to be a car guy with a website dedicated to that niche. I feel like what the hell am I doing on a Vegetarian forum setting up a profile.

I personally can't wait for This backlink=success game to end. Nothing in my opinion, is more fake than creating your own backlinks.

I have thought long and hard about just staying in niches that are way less competitive in order to rank based on on-page SEO and good content.

Matt

[Heidi White]

Originally Posted by Pat Jackson

The only link I have is my name. I never include a link in the post itself.

However, depending on the type of post it is and the other comments on the page I'll try to use my keyword as my name.

On the higher PR and more moderated posts where I'm just happy to have a link I generally will just use my name (or a fake name).

I'm sorry, I don't get this. You say you never include a link in your post? How are you building back links then?

[halfpoint]

Originally Posted by MostlyHarmless

I'm sorry, I don't get this. You say you never include a link in your post? How are you building back links then?

When you leave a comment there are generally three fields;

1. Name
2. Website
3. Comment

Whatever you write in the "name" field will be a hyperlink that links to whatever you have in the "website" field.

So, if I wanted to get a backlink to the Warrior Forum I would fill it out accordingly.

1. (name) - Pat Jackson
2. (website) - http://www.warriorforum.com
3. (comment) - I really disagree/agree with this post because etc etc etc

Doing that, when my comment went live "Pat Jackson" would be the anchor text that links to the Warrior Forum.

[Shaun Lee]

1. Post your link in anchor text.

2. Post your link in your profile only.

3. Rinse and repeat with as many forums I can find.

P.S I don't do blog commenting. Not worth my time, forums are much easier if you know what to do.

[Heidi White]

Originally Posted by oca101

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whaaaaat? is this a tutorial on how to write spam comments? i didn't understand any of this...

[Heidi White]

Originally Posted by Pat Jackson

When you leave a comment there are generally three fields;

1. Name
2. Website
3. Comment

Whatever you write in the "name" field will be a hyperlink that links to whatever you have in the "website" field.

So, if I wanted to get a backlink to the Warrior Forum I would fill it out accordingly.

1. (name) - Pat Jackson
2. (website) - http://www.warriorforum.com
3. (comment) - I really disagree/agree with this post because etc etc etc

Doing that, when my comment went live "Pat Jackson" would be the anchor text that links to the Warrior Forum.

Thanks for showing me what you mean. So, in the website box, I could put my obnoxiously long inner page link. I noticed that most of the time when the comment is posted the website link doesn't show up. That's why I thought I needed to put it in the body of the post.

If it's invisible to the forum/blog reader - how do the search engines pick it up, or how does it show as a backlink?

[theIMgeek]

I think we just witnessed an epic fail of those content "spinners" I hear so much about.

seek motor arachnids = search engine spiders?

Funny!

-Ryan

[halfpoint]

Originally Posted by MostlyHarmless

Thanks for showing me what you mean. So, in the website box, I could put my obnoxiously long inner page link.

Yes, you could and you should. Every page you want ranking in the search engines needs links pointing at it.

Originally Posted by MostlyHarmless

I noticed that most of the time when the comment is posted the website link doesn't show up. That's why I thought I needed to put it in the body of the post.

If it's invisible to the forum/blog reader - how do the search engines pick it up, or how does it show as a backlink?

It's not invisible, it's just not a plain link. It's an anchor text link.

I just Google'd "Internet Marketing Blog" to find you an example.

If you go to this site and scroll down to the comments you can see how anchor text works.

The most recent comment is from someone named "Keith", however, if you put your mouse over his name you'll see that his name links to his website. That is his backlink. There are no links in his actual comment.

Ideally, you want your anchor text to be your actual keyword, so if Keith was trying to rank for the term "internet marketing" his best course of action would be to have "internet marketing" in the "name" field as opposed to "Keith".

However, when you do you use your keyword as your name it's more likely that your comment won't get approved so you have to be careful as to when to use your keyword and when to just use your name.

I strive to use my keyword as my name wherever I can, however, I'm more than happy to have a link with just my name as the anchor text if it's from a high PR page with no other comments on it.

[jazbo]

I cant see why you are worried about linkbuilding ethics when you admit your blog is an autoblog! If you are ok with scraping other peoples content, why on earth would you get twitchy about dumping a few links?

The only mixed message seems to be the one you are giving yourself?

[Heidi White]

Originally Posted by jazbo

I cant see why you are worried about linkbuilding ethics when you admit your blog is an autoblog! If you are ok with scraping other peoples content, why on earth would you get twitchy about dumping a few links?

The only mixed message seems to be the one you are giving yourself?

Jazbo,

Just because I have an autoblog doesn't mean I'm scraping content. I get articles gleefully and happily provided by the various article writers' who's resource boxes, by the way, are for the benefit of the original writer never mine. These writers put their articles into this system so they can be published on blogs like mine. It's strictly permission based.

What's automatic is that I just set how many new articles I want automatically added per day, what categories I want my articles from, and they are automatically posted to my blog through the UAW plug-in.

I'm not scraping anything.

[tjcocker]

As we pontificate, moralize, and discuss ethics, the endless masses of spammers march forever onwards. For a thousand thousand years the ocean of spam will heave to and fro, unyielding, ever-present, relentless. A billion legs in unison, coming for me, coming for you, marching without reason or sanity. Twisted words and faces, screaming into the timeless abyss.

[Heidi White]

Originally Posted by tjcocker

As we pontificate, moralize, and discuss ethics, the endless masses of spammers march forever onwards. For a thousand thousand years the ocean of spam will heave to and fro, unyielding, ever-present, relentless. A billion legs in unison, coming for me, coming for you, marching without reason or sanity. Twisted words and faces, screaming into the timeless abyss.

Thanks for this poetic and vivid image. Plus, I thinks you maketh a v-good point.

[perryny]

Hi MostlyHarmless,

I purchased a backlink package a few days ago and I've been building hundreds of forum profiles, one-by-one for the past 72 hours or so. I've just started promoting my site mid dec. and backlinking seems to be working well for me. I've been outsourcing it up till now, but with this package I just bought, I figured I'd benefit from the education of creating a backlink myself.

Firstly, the creator of the backlink package I purchased specifically states in his instruction NOT to post any comments. Ever. The backlink juice comes from the anchor text links you create in your signature or bio under your profile. No need to show up on a moderators radar by participating in the forum.

I believe this works effectively. When I look at the backlinks that Google is finding for my site (through G-webmaster tools), many of the links are for forums where my outsourced guy simply created the profile with anchor text in the bio. SEO Spyglass shows about 3 times as many links as Google shows and is also finding tons of my profile links. It's showing ones I created yesterday.

Through the first dozen or so profile creations, my emotions were messing with me a bit. It did seem wrong to be providing a fake identity to pose as a member of a community of army vets, cycling enthusiasts or a mountain climbing club.

But the negativity wore off quickly and the exercise became fun enough. Most sites were simply a race to plug in the form info as quickly as possible. Some I put a bit of work into to play the role (downloading a BMW or Vikings logo for my avatar) others I left blatantly irrelevant to the forum, just to see if I'll get deactivated.

I've even found a few sites where I'll continue to be an active participant.

Occasionally I'll run into a forum for orphans, kids taking care of their sickly parents or puppies on crutches, and I'll just quickly pass on to the next site before I allow myself to feel too badly.

Overall, it seems to be a good and worthwhile exercise. If it continues to benefit my search rankings, I'll start outsourcing it again, but backlinking will continue to be a strong part of my SEO strategy.

-Robert

[perryny]

Originally Posted by RJP

I think we just witnessed an epic fail of those content "spinners" I hear so much about.

seek motor arachnids = search engine spiders?

Funny!

-Ryan

Hilarious.

[tjcocker]

Originally Posted by MostlyHarmless

Thanks for this poetic and vivid image. Plus, I thinks you maketh a v-good point.

Good luck sleeping tonight. They will haunt your dreams.

[James Ross]

3. Do you employ BS to slam through your quantity of back links, or do you try to get engaged and say something of real value?

I try to leave value when it comes to blogs/articles/forums but for profiles I just go through it.

[f4ll3rs]

it's hard to make proper post if you're not into the niche... maybe it's best you make a site that you like or learn what you need to learn for that niche... you will get better eventually...

as a spammer my self, i try to keep it at forum profiles only and not commenting on the threads...

i play safe...

[WareTime]

Originally Posted by perryny

Hi MostlyHarmless,


Firstly, the creator of the backlink package I purchased specifically states in his instruction NOT to post any comments. Ever. The backlink juice comes from the anchor text links you create in your signature or bio under your profile. No need to show up on a moderators radar by participating in the forum.

-Robert

Precisely why the profile pages of any forum should be either for logged in members only or prohibited in robts.txt or both.

[perryny]

Originally Posted by WareTime

Precisely why the profile pages of any forum should be either for logged in members only or prohibited in robts.txt or both.

Plenty of the forums I created profiles on didn't allow for signatures or html/bb code at all. Others, only once you've made x posts. The ability is there to set the restrictions. Many, many forum admins choose not to.

I'm just getting my SEO education, and what I've learned so far is that Google rewards backlinks from forum profiles. While it's working for me, I'm going to use it.

[WareTime]

Originally Posted by perryny

The ability is there to set the restrictions. Many, many forum admins choose not to.

We shouldn't have to, but with jackasses like you...

[daddyoh]

Perry:

You wrote:

I'm just getting my SEO education, and what I've learned so far is that Google rewards backlinks from forum profiles. While it's working for me, I'm going to use it.

I'm having trouble getting my forum profiles crawled by G so that I get the link juice.
Do you do anything to get G to your profile pages?
If not, how do you know if/when Big G goes there?

[WareTime]

Originally Posted by daddyoh

Perry:

You wrote:



I'm having trouble getting my forum profiles crawled by G so that I get the link juice.
Do you do anything to get G to your profile pages?
If not, how do you know if/when Big G goes there?

Perry, that's just it. Some will never get crawled because the forum owners can block googlebot and other search engines from profile pages via robots.txt.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by MostlyHarmless

I'm getting some mixed messages here and elsewhere on the subject of how to go about getting back links.

It seems that a common instruction is to find forums and blogs that will allow you to post a comment or a thread, say something useful, then leave your link either in the body of the post/comment or signature

Hi Mostlyharmless,

I hear you . Its very common on warriors now to think of backlinking exclusively in terms of forums and blog commenting.

However there are other options as well. There are quite a number of sites now that allow you as users to blog about what you want, fill "about me" sections with anything thats about you - even your business. Some you can write articles on (just like at Ezine). Many are even business related sites that expect it and are about networking.

Most "profile" backlinks don't require you to post some meaningless thing. Just letting you know there are other options. Personally I don't have a problem with leaving a link in a profile when the web developer for the site has specifically left a field for you to do it but if you have a problem promoting your site that way then look for business related social networks. They are all for that as a part of their network.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by perryny

Firstly, the creator of the backlink package I purchased specifically states in his instruction NOT to post any comments. Ever.

Good grief. Why never? I'm not going to pretend I participate to the level I would want to on all the sites I use but you know what? I have found that almost all High PR sites have people and subjects that are worthwhile. Never participating and just moving from one site to the next as fast as possible is what perpetuates the stereotype of backlinking ALWAYS being spam.

To me I want to leave a backlink fast so I have the time to participate. Seriously, some sites have a lot of value even for business and getting customers. However maybe I just find alot of sites interesting because I am not just going form one forum to another. Mix some things up and you find some really nice sites that you will have a natural interest in.

[Tom Goodwin]

Originally Posted by WareTime

Precisely why the profile pages of any forum should be either for logged in members only or prohibited in robts.txt or both.

Of ANY forum? Seems to me it should be the forum admin's choice, and most forum plastforms give the form admin that choice. So i'm not quite sure what the hangup is.

[Tom Goodwin]

Originally Posted by MostlyHarmless

So, in the website box, I could put my obnoxiously long inner page link.

Ever heard of a URL shortener like bit.ly? They use 301 redirects and will count as backlinks toward the site that the redirect goes to.

[vsharma72]

Pat - that's been my experience too. Takes longer, but I get more enjoyment out of it. Do you just throw your page you want to back link under your name - or does your link get tied into your post because it's relevant?

[WareTime]

Originally Posted by Tom Goodwin

Of ANY forum? Seems to me it should be the forum admin's choice, and most forum plastforms give the form admin that choice. So i'm not quite sure what the hangup is.

The reason I say that is because if they were, they would not give link spammers any reason to sign up on your forum because:
1. The links are not available except to members logged in
2. They can't be crawled and thus indexed - again giving the spammer nothing for his drudgery.

Eventually the spammers would realize how much effort they were spending for so little yield.

As a forum owner, profiles aren't worth having indexed anyway. Think about it, what do they contain. Info about bubsy62. Are you trying to get your forum to rank for bubsy62? If not the profile pages don't do you any good. Plus, now they all contain links to crappy affiliate sites or mfa sites thanks to the purveyors of certain "packets" and the lemmings buying them.

[Jacob Martus]

They work well for me...and my competitors. You just sound like a pissed off forum owner. It's also pretty obvious that you don't know much about SEO from this:

profiles aren't worth having indexed anyway. Think about it, what do they contain. Info about bubsy62. Are you trying to get your forum to rank for bubsy62?

No, I'm trying to get my website to rank for the keywords I left in your forum.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by WareTime

The reason I say that is because if they were, they would not give link spammers any reason to sign up on your forum because:

You miss Tom's point. If its up to the forum's admin then its their choice whether they want people to post links and if they choose to allow its not spam no matter how much you want it to be. Sites that allow and have no problem with posting your link from are harder to find but they are out there in abundance. You are using one right now.

[daddyoh]

As a forum owner, profiles aren't worth having indexed anyway. Think about it, what do they contain. Info about bubsy62. Are you trying to get your forum to rank for bubsy62? If not the profile pages don't do you any good. Plus, now they all contain links to crappy affiliate sites or mfa sites thanks to the purveyors of certain "packets" and the lemmings buying them.

I don't know about you other folks but 100% of the forums I create a profile page in allow users to place a dofollow anchor text backlink in at least 1 field.

Oh, and we don't ALL have "crappy affiliate sites or MFA sites".

[Tom Goodwin]

I understand your point, but as with everything else, I believe in freedom of choice. Why not let the forum owner decide how to run her or his site. That seems like simple logic to me.

Originally Posted by WareTime

The reason I say that is because if they were, they would not give link spammers any reason to sign up on your forum because:
1. The links are not available except to members logged in
2. They can't be crawled and thus indexed - again giving the spammer nothing for his drudgery.

Eventually the spammers would realize how much effort they were spending for so little yield.

As a forum owner, profiles aren't worth having indexed anyway. Think about it, what do they contain. Info about bubsy62. Are you trying to get your forum to rank for bubsy62? If not the profile pages don't do you any good. Plus, now they all contain links to crappy affiliate sites or mfa sites thanks to the purveyors of certain "packets" and the lemmings buying them.

[tjcocker]

Originally Posted by WareTime

Eventually the spammers would realize how much effort they were spending for so little yield.

Good luck with that strategy. Thousands of would-be IMers are created every day with hopes of making millions. No matter what you do, there will ALWAYS be people scoping out your site for their "evil vile spam links". LOL

Close up shop and get off the internet. You are doomed to be unhappy with your current attitude. Seems like everyone is piling on you, but that's ok, it's just because you're ignorant. Let me educate you on why people spam on the internet:

There's money in them thar hills.

That's it. You can't fight a gold rush mentality, and doing so is causing you anguish. You must accept REALITY, and move onwards with your life. Do not fight the crushing flow of a river, but float with it to your benefit. There's no morality involved here, just peoples own prejudices and beliefs. You are holding your ground based on feeling personally hurt by the situation, yet that's only in your mind.

[Mike Anthony]

Yeah this point of view has been beat to death but I can never get one thing - Why is it someone else's job to determine what spam is for everyone? Allen is this forum's owner if he is cool with allowing IMers to leave links who is a third party to call it spam?

Spam implies it isn't wanted or allowed for. Once it is wanted or allowed it isn't spam.

[bcmwp]

It's not unethical to do something just because you don't enjoy it. If you provide real content and people are willing to post your comments with a link, that's kind of the whole point of the process.

My general principle is that I don't want to make money doing something parasitic. If I'm going to profit, I want to provide people with real value.