Are forum profile links a waste of time?

[Paleochora]

Hi,

Just want to ask something about backlinks within forum profiles.

In the backlinks packet I subscribe to there are many fora with PR 6 - 8 which its easy to drop a bare link into the profile.

However, when you look at the PR of the actual page (user profile page) where the link is contained, its PR is usually 0 or unranked.

So are we wasting our time doing this if we are after authority backlinks?

[DelorseBSkow]

Yeah, if the PR of the profile page where you drop the link is 0 or N/A, it is pretty much has no use and offer none to little link juice.

But if you can make an rss of these profile links and blast them in Social sites, it will help your site indexed faster.

[ambalaldarji]

No It is not waste of time. I would suggest you tips.

1. Create nice profile with fresh content
2. Post a signature links
3. Always post informative threads

[Clyde]

No.

Just take my words for it.

[mbmehmet]

DelorseBSkow, why, why, why?

Although your theory on the profile page having no PR is correct on what assumption is your theory that profile links have "no use" and "little link juice"?

Have you tested this yourself?

From having used profile links for over a year or so I can tell you they ARE effective, whether they have little or no link juice is another argument, but they DO work.

I have had some amazing results from these back link packets and they are one of my main sources of backlinks. So long as you get a large majority of them indexed you will reap the benefits.

Paleochora, take the time to find out yourself, that's the best advice I can give having listened to so much BS from the likes of people who have no idea. Who knows, maybe I am talking BS ;-)

[nichemarketninja]

Absolutely, emphatically NO, they are most certainly not a waste of time, but you may need to change your thinking about why they are valuable.

1. With regards to the Backlink and the never ending debate about internal pages with links not having the same PR value as the Home Page, the thing is Google is more about relevancy than page rank. If you are linking from a page within a forum that has relevant content to both your anchor text and your landing page, this Trumps any page with high PR an irrelevant content.

2. Forum Signature links are a great way to try targeted traffic outside of Organic traffic, I have quite a few Niches that get more traffic from forum posts than Organic search results despite their #1 rankings, not only this but that traffic tends to convert better as well.

Cheers
Nick

[rahulbatra]

Its not a waste of time it is because these site contains lot of pages and Google takes some time to cache it and if the home page contains high PR this means Google crawlers have fast activity on them.

[Paleochora]

Thanks, folks.

I always add a URL when I join a forum anyway as a matter of habit and I understand the advantages in indexing a new site. Just wasn't sure about the quality of the link.

@ambalaldarji. there are fora that I actually want to join and be a part of and where I can make a (hopefully) valuable contribution like this one and there are fora contained in my backlinks packets which I will just join to get a profile link because of the PR of the forum. i understand that the majority of link juice and sig traffic will come from the ones I am active in.


I will err on the side of caution and stick the links in anyway.

[jesda]

Originally Posted by DelorseBSkow

Yeah, if the PR of the profile page where you drop the link is 0 or N/A, it is pretty much has no use and offer none to little link juice.

But if you can make an rss of these profile links and blast them in Social sites, it will help your site indexed faster.

for me, i prefer 10 pr 0 backlinks better than 100 backlinks from the same pr 3 domain.

[lstoops]

No backlink is a waste of time!

[Steve Murphy]

Hi,

It is normal practise when building links packets to relate to the main page (and its PR) so don't worry about this. Such profiles are always worth building.

The theory is that, even in the lower ranked inner pages, you will derive some benefit from the site's overall authority.

Don't forget to include these profile as a part of a balanced, robust, sustainable strategy using different types of links too.

Cheers,

Steve

[bgmacaw]

They aren't a waste of time.

They aren't authority links for the most part but can be helpful as an overall link portfolio. There are some indications that Google may not be giving as much weight to these links now but this is still very open to debate.

Wide open forums where you can leave a link with no moderation tend to get spammed to death, thus killing the value of the site for links.

More and more forum owners are adding additional layers of new user moderation to block mass automated spammers and list outsourcers from filling up their profile pages with useless (to them) links. This makes it harder to get them and harder for them to stick over the long term.

[yukon]

Originally Posted by rahulbatra

Its not a waste of time it is because these site contains lot of pages and Google takes some time to cache it and if the home page contains high PR this means Google crawlers have fast activity on them.

If it takes a long time for Google to cache that profile link, it's only because the person creating the profile link doesn't tell Google the profile exist.

Go to a high PR-page on any site, then backlink from the high PR6+ to the low PR (profile). This will get your profile backlink page cached way faster.

I've had plenty of profiles cached in less than 24-hours.

I always use the punctuation backlink trick on the high PR6+. I don't care about the anchor-text towards the profile, all I care is that Google finds & cache the profile ASAP!

[edit]

A high PR backlink is better than a ping, the high PR backlink will last for years. Google will keep finding that profile.

A ping is a one time deal.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

Wide open forums where you can leave a link with no moderation tend to get spammed to death, thus killing the value of the site for links.

Hmmmm. Where was I discussing that the other day? Quite right but there are so many forums that at least for now they do still have value

[drifter73]

I've found that profile links are primarily good for the foot traffic (referral clicks) they bring. Even sites with "No-follow" profile links work. The key to using profile links is to be a contributing member of the community you created the profile at though. What you ideally want is people to check your profile after reading your insightful input and maybe curiously visits the link in the profile to see what type of things you have going on for yourself.

Even "IF" (and that's a big if) profile links don't provide much or any value being Do-follow, you should at least focus on the brand awareness / recognition that it provides you (Every little bit counts). Each link is a doorway to reach you, the more doorways that are out there, the more potential visitors you'll find (Do-follow or No-follow alike).

I have sites that do great with organic search traffic & other sites that do 10 times better with referral & direct traffic. I don't rule out one of the three though and try to combine organic search, referral, & direct whenever possible for each site so that I can maximize on their potential.

In short, Profile links have the potential to help in several ways, so don't rule them out.

[Paleochora]

Originally Posted by yukon

If it takes a long time for Google to cache that profile link, it's only because the person creating the profile link doesn't tell Google the profile exist.

Go to a high PR-page on any site, then backlink from the high PR6+ to the low PR (profile). This will get your profile backlink page cached way faster.

I've had plenty of profiles cached in less than 24-hours.

I always use the punctuation backlink trick on the high PR6+. I don't care about the anchor-text towards the profile, all I care is that Google finds & cache the profile ASAP!

Thanks...this was my next question....how to get the profile backlinks noticed and followed by the google bots.

So basically what you are saying is backlink the backlinks? This could be a never-ending process.

I know the sig trick with punctuation marks but I am only creating forum profiles on high PR sites to begin with. If I put a Forum profile link in a PR6 & higher forum, how do I get that link noticed by Google? And how do I 'ping' it?

[Defunct]

How do you normally get the profile page spidered, i usually just use social boomarking, for example delicious?

[Ehsan_am]

Originally Posted by Paleochora

Thanks...this was my next question....how to get the profile backlinks noticed and followed by the google bots.

So basically what you are saying is backlink the backlinks? This could be a never-ending process.

I know the sig trick with punctuation marks but I am only creating forum profiles on high PR sites to begin with. If I put a Forum profile link in a PR6 & higher forum, how do I get that link noticed by Google? And how do I 'ping' it?

There are other ways. For instance you can create a couple of WEB 2.0 propreties. Go to ping.fr and blast your backlinks list to them in order to get them indexed quickly. However I would build backlinks to those web 2.0 propreties as well to make the bots crawl them on a regular basis and I would post general content to them just to avoid them being flagged as link farms.

[gabquotesl]

profile links work but most of them dont get indexed and lots are being deleted. i think only 20% of my profile links are good.