Forum posting and blog commenting in unrelated niches

[bdawg56kg]

Basically what the title says. How beneficial would it be to post in unrelated niche blogs and forums. I have a couple other forums and blogs that I frequent regularly. Would it even be worth my time?

[kindsvater]

From my experience - well worth your time.

[xxxJamesxxx]

Definitely!

I ain't no SEO god or anything but it works like gangbusters for me.

James

[thecableguy]

That would seem to suggest that submitting articles with unrelated resource boxes would work as well?

I recently asked a question about an unrelated resource box in the main forum and "article marketers" could seem to grasp the concept. I'm interested in the backlinks from some automatic article submitters, but because it wasn't a popular catergory I'd get only a few submissions and a hard time finding things to write about. I don't expect much if any traffic, only the backlinks. I haven't bough xfactors ebook, but reading from one of his students posts he does something similar (I think).

[Terry Kyle]

Originally Posted by bdawg56kg

Basically what the title says. How beneficial would it be to post in unrelated niche blogs and forums. I have a couple other forums and blogs that I frequent regularly. Would it even be worth my time?

All of my highest ranking sites - including #1s - have 0 relevant backlinks.

[dburk]

Hi bdawg56kg,

The first rule of SEO is that search engines rank web pages, not websites. Therefore the website topics have little or nothing to do with page relevance. It never matters what a website topic is about, search engines are oblivious to site topics.

By including relevant anchortext, or relevant text near the anchor, you are creating a relevant backlink. Without relevance, your backlink has no direct influence on ranking your page for your targeted keyword. Think at the page level, not the site level, and you'll get it.

[MarkAse]

I don't worry about relevancy to be honest, although spending time on wine forums can lead to some direct traffic (and therefore business). I think it's pretty easy to say right now that relevancy isn't part of the algorithm.

[chandan_dutta]

To get good ranking there is no need to get backlinks from relevant pages or websites. While building links I give importance to only two thinks - Quantity and Quality, not relevancy.

Few days back I watched a video in FTS blog. It was a great video. You can type in Google as - Tea and you will see that Texas Education Agency is there on #1 position. Why Google is showing Education Agency when I am searching for Tea? There is only one possibility - that website may has so many backlinks with anchor text TEA. People used TEA as a short form for Texas Education Agency.

There is no chance that Texas Education Agency is getting links from websites related to Tea. Definitely it will have more links from websites related to Education. But still Google is showing it #1 for the keyword Tea.

Hope it helps.

Regards,
Chandan

[shelly1984]

You are rite Chandan. But, I believe getting links from relevant industry will help to get value to your site. what Search engines like generally.. Get as many links from your following niche, some time break the pattern of your linking.

Links from forums helps to get domain authority value and traffic.

Blog commenting is always good but remember onething don't put your anchor text in the place of your name or else it will look like spam and never put same description more than one blog.

Shelly

[bdawg56kg]

Wow guys I am really surprised that relevancy is seemingly unimportant. I always thought you had to choose related forums or blogs to your niche. I am learning something new everyday. Thanks.

Edit: Another question. If I make one post in a forum or one comment on a blog, does this get counted as one backlink? So if I make 100 posts, I get 100 backlinks?

[bdawg56kg]

Originally Posted by alanfukuda

That would seem to suggest that submitting articles with unrelated resource boxes would work as well?

I recently asked a question about an unrelated resource box in the main forum and "article marketers" could seem to grasp the concept. I'm interested in the backlinks from some automatic article submitters, but because it wasn't a popular catergory I'd get only a few submissions and a hard time finding things to write about. I don't expect much if any traffic, only the backlinks. I haven't bough xfactors ebook, but reading from one of his students posts he does something similar (I think).

This seem kind of interesting. I am guessing you would have your article spun or written very cheaply since its only purpose is for backlinks? What would an example of this kind of unrelated resource box look like? Theoretically couldn't you just put like 10 links in there to all your sites, assuming it gets approved? Which is my next point, how do you go about getting these articles approved? Do article directories just not care?

[RyanParenti]

Originally Posted by Terry Kyle

All of my highest ranking sites - including #1s - have 0 relevant backlinks.

I have to agree. Relevance is not really important. High quality links are.

[webeserve]

I believe that relevance is really important, maybe is not an important factor but in long future could help alot with the biggest keywords with biggest competitions.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by chandan_dutta

To get good ranking there is no need to get backlinks from relevant pages or websites. While building links I give importance to only two thinks - Quantity and Quality, not relevancy.

Few days back I watched a video in FTS blog. It was a great video. You can type in Google as - Tea and you will see that Texas Education Agency is there on #1 position. Why Google is showing Education Agency when I am searching for Tea? There is only one possibility - that website may has so many backlinks with anchor text TEA. People used TEA as a short form for Texas Education Agency.

There is no chance that Texas Education Agency is getting links from websites related to Tea. Definitely it will have more links from websites related to Education. But still Google is showing it #1 for the keyword Tea.

Hope it helps.

Regards,
Chandan

Hi Chandan,

I think you may be confusing "ambiguity" with "irrelevance". When you search for a keyword that has a lot of ambiguity you will likely get a mixture of results including many that aren't what you were looking for. This is caused by using keywords that are not sufficiently explicit in it's usage. If you use more specific terms in your search query you get more specific results.

When you use an ambivalent search term, Google cannot read your mind to know if you meant "tea" the beverage, or "TEA" the common acronym for Texas Education Authority, therefor they return results for both usages. If you want more specific results you must use more specific search terms.

For example, if you searched for the term "apple" you will get results for Apple, inc instead of the fruit. This is due to the popularity of that website and the large number of relevant backlinks.

Likewise, the Texas Education Authority has a lot of relevant backlinks that use the targeted term "TEA". So naturally you would expect a page with a lot of relevant backlinks for the term "TEA" to appear in the SERP for a query on that term. I don't know how you, or the author of that video you reference, make the leap to this being evidence of relevance not mattering. I see this as evidence that your conclusion was flawed. It was in fact relevant backlinks that caused the page to rank for the term "TEA".

And one more thing, Google like most search engines, do not index sites, instead they index individual pages. They look at the web that your individual page is contained within to determine relevance, not the website. This web is made up of the page itself, outbound links and inbound links (backlinks). This web of inbound and outbound links are often made up of pages from many different websites, not just your own website.

To suggest that relevant backlinks, from pages on websites that have other pages with unrelated topics, are actually irrelevant backlinks is a bit of a stretch. Relevant anchortext is one of the most effective ways to make a page relevant to a keyword. To suggest that a link from a page with relevant text is somehow irrelevant, due to other pages on the same website being unrelated, is to me a silly notion. Search engines don't index websites, they index individual web pages.

Website topics often have absolutely nothing to due with page relevance. Besides, a website can have pages that cover many topics and individual pages can contain information on many topics as well. Much information would be lost if search engines were not able to understand which individual page is relevant for what topic, and understanding that a single page can cover multiple topics.

By thinking of search results in terms of websites, you grossly underestimate the capabilities of a search engine. They go deeper than website topics, even deeper than a singular page topic. They can understand multiple topics within a single page. Seek to understand how search engines work and the veil of mystery will melt away.

[global_warrior]

i always recommend you to post only in niche related blogs and forums or else it is waste of time and money.

[blarbie]

Terry Kyle
are you automating the process of blog / posts ?
are you number 1's competitive

[skintreatment]

Every Search of Legal Forms and legal letters Ends here

[va_mom]

Hi there! What i do, i do both... The beauty of SEO is that you do not have to choose, because you can always do both. :-)

[Colossal]

I think the question isn't "does it help?" but rather "how much does it help?"

in the end, a link is better than no link. unless of course you do it in a way where you're sure to get penalized.

relevance will score you a better link, and avoid getting penalized

[deloriagod]

Originally Posted by bdawg56kg

Edit: Another question. If I make one post in a forum or one comment on a blog, does this get counted as one backlink? So if I make 100 posts, I get 100 backlinks?

Possibly. The problem with backlinks from forums is that not every single page gets indexed unless the forum is ridiculously popular. Also, 2 posts on 1 page will only result in 1 backlink, so keep that in mind.

[abarton]

Originally Posted by chandan_dutta

To get good ranking there is no need to get backlinks from relevant pages or websites. While building links I give importance to only two thinks - Quantity and Quality, not relevancy.

ok ok, let me get this straight.

If I have a website about real estate and post a link with great anchor text on a high quality xbox website , thats a good thing?

[webber1]

Defo worth your time if they are high Pagerank pages where your making the comment. Usually I dont bother with any pages less than PR4. Then social bookmark those URLs so that they get picked up by Google. But spread them over different accounts so less chance of a footprint being left for google to detect.

[USGTMauthor]

I posted a comment on a news site that let people log in with a twitter account not related to my niche and saw a huge jump in traffic. I am assuming they clicked on my twitter name and followed my link. So I think your idea would work as well.

[Sheryl Polomka]

I think relevancy is important if you want direct traffic from those links. If you want people from the forum to see your signature and want them to click on it and visit your site then there is more chance of that happening if your site is relevant to the forum.

Relevancy isn't as important if your sole purpose for your forum links is to build backlinks. So if you are doing it to build backlinks then go for it, if you want the forum members to click on your links then it might not be so effective if it isn't related.

[paulson]

Originally Posted by bdawg56kg

Basically what the title says. How beneficial would it be to post in unrelated niche blogs and forums. I have a couple other forums and blogs that I frequent regularly. Would it even be worth my time?

If you are interested in the subject or topic discussed , then yes, you get to learn a lot from such forums and blogs.

If your are looking for traffic, you can hardly drive any traffic from forums or blogs which are not related to your niche. If you are looking for backlinks, of course the backlinks you get from these forums and blogs will be counted (provided the links are not 'no follow') but backlinks from relevant sites have more value compared to links from irrelavant sites.

[Fiddy6]

I personally believe the relevance between your site and the site the backlink comes from means nothing.

[nokimchen]

i do help i your backlinks but it'll do much much more better if you do forum posting & blog commenting in related niches

[RichardF]

Yeah, I'd rather take a link from an unrelated site than no link at all, so go for it! All things being equal though, I'd guess that a related link carries a little more weight. And I also believe that you should strive for balance with link building, meaning you should try to get a little bit of everything, both related and unrelated.

Even if it works today to just drop your link anywhere and don't have ANY related links at all, who knows if it's going to work tomorrow?

[juniorich]

I made a test to solve that question last year. I took four brand new sites. For the first two sites I built only closely relevant backlinks. For the last two sites, I built bulk backlinks from unrelated sites with scrapox blasts and xrumer blasts. The results:

- Site 1 and Site 2 are number 1 and number 3 for the keyword I was targeting. Moreover, some weeks later they got respectively PR3 and PR2. I built less than 100 relevant backlinks from PR0 pages.

- Site 3 and Site 4 are still on page 3 and 4 with keywords that get less competition than site 1 and 2. They are still at PR0 months after with over 1k backlinks.

Conclusion: relevant backlinks really matter! people think that anchor text alone is sufficient. They are wrong!