Are Profile Backlinks Effective For SEO?

[irdone]

Hey Warriors,

I read an article about profile link building that made the following points:

1. Inner profile pages dont carry the same PR as the homepage as the website so it's a low quality link.

2. Since the profile page linking back to you has no backlinks of its own, it has no link popularity from google.

3. Google never indexes these inner profile pages.

Overall, the guy says that his experience tells him that profile link building is a waste of time.

So I wanted to hear what you warriors think.

Share your results with profile link building.

Peace & Love...

[bay37]

They are. Look at all the banner ads selling xrumer blasts (at the top of this forum) - go read the reviews.

I personally do not blast my money websites with 5k profile links at once, but that's mostly just a personal preference. You won't be de-indexed or w/e just for doing this stuff.

Also, just to counter some of the points made in that article:

1. It is a low quality link, so what?
2. Why not blast those profile links with another set of profile links? Easy and effective.
3. Google only indexes a small % of these profiles, that is true - BUT there are ways to make sure that nearly all of them get indexed. You just have to test this stuff for yourself.

[ShirleyS]

1. True. However I will only consider it as low quality depending on the site.
2. You can add link popularity to the page as well.
3. No, Google does index them.

Originally Posted by irdone

Hey Warriors,

I read an article about profile link building that made the following points:

1. Inner profile pages dont carry the same PR as the homepage as the website so it's a low quality link.

2. Since the profile page linking back to you has no backlinks of its own, it has no link popularity from google.

3. Google never indexes these inner profile pages.

Overall, the guy says that his experience tells him that profile link building is a waste of time.

So I wanted to hear what you warriors think.

Share your results with profile link building.

Peace & Love...

[Kim Lauren]

Originally Posted by bay37

BUT there are ways to make sure that nearly all of them get indexed.

Such as? Maybe pinging and social bookmarking all of these links? That sounds too time consuming for just indexing forum profiles. There has to be some other zany automation tool that does this kind of job, no?

[bay37]

Originally Posted by Kim Lauren

Such as? Maybe pinging and social bookmarking all of these links? That sounds too time consuming for just indexing forum profiles. There has to be some other zany automation tool that does this kind of job, no?

Pinging and RSS feeds can be fully automated in a few minutes. Not time consuming at all, however, this strategy doesn't work anymore (for profile backlinks).

Blog and forum farms is the answer, but that is time consuming (so choose your backlinks well).

ALSO: indexing is not a requirement at all. If you want them crawled - just mass ping the profiles.

[stevmark008]

I think it is good and effective but still there are lots of links better than profile links.

[chrisadams008]

Yes I think they are good but don't just depend on them. Try another link building techniques.

[Heavenstorm]

everytime i do a xrumer blast of profile links, I upload all the links into tom's backlink booster which ping..rss..bookmark them... and I see alot of them being indexed. You can also use sean's backlink booster...or another tool called backlink energizer i think. they all do the same thing though.

[ann1986]

Hi,

If you are afraid of being penalize then its better to point your profile links to your web 2.0 properties that link to your site. This way your site wont get penalize directly.

You should also do some effort to get your backlinks indexed. There are ways to get your backlinks indexed unless the site owners block search engines for their sites. For example your forum profile is not publicly viewable.

For clients that are not sure on what to do with our customization options we just suggest them to point the blog comments and forum profile links to their web 2.0 properties.

[faysal969]

Profile backlink is not all for SEO. But they have geed effect in SEO.

Profile links are DoFollow and they get indexed by Google. It is not completely west of time.

[irdone]

Originally Posted by ann1986

Hi,

If you are afraid of being penalize then its better to point your profile links to your web 2.0 properties that link to your site. This way your site wont get penalize directly.

Hey Ann1986,

I'm not concerned with being penalized. I just wanted to make sure it's worth the time and effort (or cost of paying a VR).

[DavidCutter]

I'm not expert on this, but I will give you a snapshot of my limited experience with them.

I have an exact match domain that only has about 3 pages of content (just haven't spent much time on it). It was sitting on page 2 for a month or so. I used a profile link service to get a few thousand profile links to it and it is now on page 1, spot #4. That is the ONLY thing that changed - no new content, nothing else done on the site.

Here's a good write up on profile link "best practices" which may help you:
Best Practices
(not an affiliate link, or my site)

[dvduval]

Benefits are going to be short term at best. Don't be fooled to think that Google can't determine if the links pointing to your site are of quality or not. It is common for new sites to get a very small temporary boost, but that is short lived, and if your quality suffers with bad links, it is a difficult hole to get out of once you have low quality links.

[DavidCutter]

Originally Posted by dvduval

Benefits are going to be short term at best. Don't be fooled to think that Google can't determine if the links pointing to your site are of quality or not. It is common for new sites to get a very small temporary boost, but that is short lived, and if your quality suffers with bad links, it is a difficult hole to get out of once you have low quality links.

I'm assuming you are directing this post at me, but maybe not. Either way, the plan would certainly be to supplement profile links with other higher quality link building efforts, and then use future profile links to link to these tiers of "better" links.

[bay37]

Originally Posted by dvduval

Benefits are going to be short term at best. ... it is a difficult hole to get out of once you have low quality links.

Not really and... not really.

I have done both and never really experienced what you're talking about. Profile links can be drip fed - completely hands off and extremely effective.

A difficult hole to get out of? Google doesn't penalize websites for profile backlinks. I could take one of your sig. websites and send a 100k profile blast to it tonight if I wanted to - I'm pretty sure it wouldn't cause any harm - too easy.

[Georgech]

Profile backlinks is only powerful only when you do it right...

It's true that profile pages are usually having lower pagerank than their homepages. That's why you may need many profile backlinks to for maximum results.

The biggest problem many marketers face is that it usually takes quite a long time for search engines to crawl and follow the profile backlinks. Sometimes, they are not indexed at all!

No matter profile or other forms of backlinks (like article and comment backlinks...), the key point to getting your backlinks worthwhile is to inform search engines that the backlinks are exisiting... Good social boomarking, RSS strategies can achieve that result.

If you are not planning to build up a good number of profile backlinks regularly over time, the profile backlinks effect on search engine rankings might not be so significant.

[satrap]

In my personal experience, I have come to realize that the best think you can do is get links from different sources. Especially if you are concerned about Google and its rule of "natural seo". The more different kinds of links you have, the more natural it looks. So mix them up.

And by the way, dont you think if it was that easy to get penalized or deindexed, competitors would build thousands of profile backlinks fro their rivals and get them out of the picture?...

[iAmNameLess]

Originally Posted by irdone

Hey Warriors,

I read an article about profile link building that made the following points:

1. Inner profile pages dont carry the same PR as the homepage as the website so it's a low quality link.

2. Since the profile page linking back to you has no backlinks of its own, it has no link popularity from google.

3. Google never indexes these inner profile pages.

Overall, the guy says that his experience tells him that profile link building is a waste of time.

So I wanted to hear what you warriors think.

Share your results with profile link building.

Peace & Love...

That is 100% true except indexing... The more correct way to put it is, google rarely indexes profile links, and when they do, they are almost useless.

Originally Posted by bay37

They are. Look at all the banner ads selling xrumer blasts (at the top of this forum) - go read the reviews.

Also, just to counter some of the points made in that article:

1. It is a low quality link, so what?
2. Why not blast those profile links with another set of profile links? Easy and effective.
3. Google only indexes a small % of these profiles, that is true - BUT there are ways to make sure that nearly all of them get indexed. You just have to test this stuff for yourself.

WHAT? LOL. So just because you see ads you think it works? So if I purchase an ad spot advertising the secret to making 100 trillion dollars, it MUST be true.

Check this out, profile links don't give you traffic. If it doesn't get you traffic, then don't focus on it. Plain and simple.

Yes, all the artificial ways to make sure they are indexed are sure fire ways to lose the value that they didn't have in the first place lol.

Blast profile links with another set of profile links? Has to be the worst logic ever.

Originally Posted by ShirleyS

1. True. However I will only consider it as low quality depending on the site.
2. You can add link popularity to the page as well.
3. No, Google does index them.

Its a profile link, it is not quality no matter how great the site is. When people talk about getting profile links, it is usually a mass amount, like 5-10K. Adding link popularity to each page would be so time consuming and just DUMB. I don't advise that at all.

Originally Posted by Kim Lauren

Such as? Maybe pinging and social bookmarking all of these links? That sounds too time consuming for just indexing forum profiles. There has to be some other zany automation tool that does this kind of job, no?

Kim, it just isn't worth it. People think that pinging their links help, it actually does not help. The best way is to let them go until google finds them, otherwise it is deemed worthless and artificial in my opinion.

Originally Posted by stevmark008

I think it is good and effective but still there are lots of links better than profile links.

Almost every link is better than profile links, but I'm glad you acknowledge that.

Originally Posted by faysal969

Profile backlink is not all for SEO. But they have geed effect in SEO.

Profile links are DoFollow and they get indexed by Google. It is not completely west of time.

In a sense of it adding variety to your link building, it isn't a waste of time. Does it get traffic? No. Does it push you up in the SERPs? I really don't believe it does.

Originally Posted by DavidCutter

I'm not expert on this, but I will give you a snapshot of my limited experience with them.

I have an exact match domain that only has about 3 pages of content (just haven't spent much time on it). It was sitting on page 2 for a month or so. I used a profile link service to get a few thousand profile links to it and it is now on page 1, spot #4. That is the ONLY thing that changed - no new content, nothing else done on the site.

Here's a good write up on profile link "best practices" which may help you:
Best Practices
(not an affiliate link, or my site)

Congrats on your rank! I don't believe it had anything to do with profile links though. I believe it had everything to do with an EMD. I think that it is just a coincidence, and hell, even if 5 of those links got indexed it probably would have pushed you up in the SERPs, simply because you have an EMD, and you probably have pretty decent on page SEO.


Guys, I know some of you spend money on profile links, just don't do it. Find about 20 forums to register on and leave it like that lol. I'd hate to see you guys waste your money and hopes on profile links. You're better off spamming blog comments. I believe it could benefit you to focus a little on profile links for variety, but don't blast out 20K thinking it will help because it probably won't.

I can get you thousands of profile links for cheap, why don't I advertise it? Because it just doesn't work like people believe.

[jacked]

Profile links are effective for SEO, but combining them with other types of links is the best method. With that being said, I have ranked many sites just using profiles, but I usually use them to make a nice stable base of links on fresh sites before going onto other links such as comments and bookmarks. I also use profile blasts everyonce in a while to maintain rankings. I like the fact that they are indexed slowly over time so they are able to keep your backlink numbers steady. Profiles are effective, but I would recommend combining them with other types of links.

[bay37]

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

WHAT? LOL. So just because you see ads you think it works? So if I purchase an ad spot advertising the secret to making 100 trillion dollars, it MUST be true.

These are not "guru" products. Profile backlinks have been around for ages, and they do work. Look at what results people are having, no the sales letter.

Check this out, profile links don't give you traffic. If it doesn't get you traffic, then don't focus on it. Plain and simple.

They do through a massive rankings increase (especially if you support them with more links). Plain and simple.

Yes, all the artificial ways to make sure they are indexed are sure fire ways to lose the value that they didn't have in the first place lol.

And you know this how? I have test websites sitting in spots #2-#6 using ONLY profille link blasts. That's no value how?

Blast profile links with another set of profile links? Has to be the worst logic ever.

In your opinion, what is logic? (because you sure like to state your opinion as a fact). I doubt that you have any idea what you're talking about. Reading forums doesn't make you an expert, testing and doing things does. This is what works, and works really good. Page one rankings == traffic == sales, simple as that.

You are so full of crap my friend.

[moumee]

Inner profile links are not so low as were described in the article. In fact there are many good and useful techniques to build back links and when we consider that techniques with profile inner links we just discard this and say it is waste of time. Inner profile links have their own effects and techniques to be used and they can also give you a traffic. It may be a slow and pain taking but it will be effective at some time. This is true that these are not indexed by Google cache but we can make them indexed by Google and rather more effective.

[bay37]

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

Because it just doesn't work like people believe.

I does work. Please stop spreading complete misinformation here - some newbies might actually trust you on this.

I urge everyone to please test this stuff before making any sort of judgement. Profile backlinks are cheap, buy a 5k blast for a site with no backlinks and see what happens (and it'll only cost you like $10).

At this point I believe I'm actually being trolled here, so I will stop responding to his messages.

[Tony Marriott]

Like all backlinks they shouldn't be your only ones.
You need a variety of types and sources of backlinks to keep your site looking "natural".

Yes many types of backlinks work on their own, often quite quickly but for long term success keep it varied.

Besides Google changes what it values and what it doesn't all the time. If you rely on one type of backlink you could find your whole site dropping dramatically if Google make changes. All your eggs in one basket???

[iAmNameLess]

Originally Posted by bay37

I does work. Please stop spreading complete misinformation here - some newbies might actually trust you on this.

I urge everyone to please test this stuff before making any sort of judgement. Profile backlinks are cheap, buy a 5k blast for a site with no backlinks and see what happens (and it'll only cost you like $10).

At this point I believe I'm actually being trolled here, so I will stop responding to his messages.

Yes, I urge everyone to test it out too so they can not see results. Profile links USED to work. They don't anymore. I have tested this out, RECENTLY, it just doesn't work. You are more likely to get ranked with great on page SEO for low competition keywords than you are using profile links. I don't believe you had the results you say, and if you did I would bet it is a long tailed keyword you ranked for anyway through on page SEO.

I have used thousands and thousands of profile links, probably more than you ever had. I know that they DID work, but they don't anymore. I suggest using a new site for this to try and test it out NOW. IF you tested this out 2 months ago, you would be right, not anymore though.

Unfortunately, people buying profile links just started with a new site, and they're going to rank for their low comp keywords in tags anyway, then they think the profiles are magical, that is simply not the case.

In fact, I had about 10K profile links done by one of the most reputable members here, I had less than 1% indexed, no change in SERPs. Sure, you can MASH and PING but even links in RSS feeds only have a 10% index rate IF THAT.

Do you honestly think google hasn't realized what is being done here?

"Both webspam and search quality folks are crunching on linkspam and content farms, so I hope we'll have more to talk when some of the things in the pipeline make into production." from mat cutts.

What do you think? All these advertisements for profiles, don't you think that maybe they're smart enough to figure this out.

All these PR N/A links, you really believe its worth something? I just don't get it, I'm not trolling, I'm not giving misinformation here. Profile links are the least effective in my opinion.

Oh well, you're right though... you can get thousands for ten bucks.... you get what you pay for.

[Bryan V]

I had a site stable at #8 for months and sent 10k profile links at it 2 weeks ago. 10 days after, it's sitting at #28, as I'm trying to index all of these links ASAP. We'll see what happens...

[John Williamson]

They are definitely effective. It's my primary method of linkbuilding. Then I just use Backlink Energizer to make sure most of them get indexed.

[martinreeves]

I do think Profile backlinks are not waste of time and it helps in SEO even.. especially when someone targets with hyperlinked keywords. It can turn more effective if its done in nice way.. every profile should appear unique, your profile id should be unique.. and if you keep on repeating same thing over and over again in all forums.. it will look more spammy.. Make it unique and get some benefits of it.

[DThornton]

I have only just started to try profile backlinks and pinged them as well. Only tried it on my lower PR sites and none have improved and one has dropped from a PR1 to PR0. Cannot be totally sure that it was the profile links but it seems the most likely candidate. So far from my experience it is inconclusive and I might do some occasionally but it will not become a main focus unless the testing proves otherwise.

Happy linking.

[sahincse]

This is very Good

[lamandy]

profiles links is less value in google's eye but it does index and index well if you work to index them

[prismkuet]

Profile link building is not so effective than other backlinking. I appreciate that the inner pages of a website are less significant than the homepage. However the inner pages are greatly affected by the valuable keywords. So try to make profile link based on higher traffic value of keywords.

[usaimarketing]

Well profile backlinks is a quick way to get backlinks from high page rank domains to your website. Profile backlinks can be found on most forums and many social networking sites.

There are three ways you are able to use profile backlinks to rank your site in search engine:

1. low competitors key phrases
2. precise keyword domains
3. long tail key phrases

[bay37]

Lolz. Low competition key phrases...

Of course profile backlinks shouldn't be the only backlinks you build, but they do help. Quoting Matt Cutts? Are you ****ing serious?

You "don't think" that I got websites ranking using profile backlinks? Well, I got dozens of test sites (all testing different stuff), and hundreds of money websites... You "not thinking" something means absolutely nothing.

You "had 10k profile backlinks done"... "Thousands of backlinks built, more than you ever"... You are so out there my friend. Seriously, a mid range dedicated server with a good list can push 10k profile links in under 10 mins - all completely hands off.

Lets just agree to disagree. I'm fine with that.

For everyone else - test things out before you draw conclusions. Testing this stuff is extremely cheap and not time consuming at all (under 5 mins and under $10).

[Cantbedone!]

@ Iamnameless

I'm going to have to agree with you. I know there are many people who promote profile links and swear to their effectiveness but I've tried it and I'm not drinking that koolaid anymore. Flame me all you want, profile link promoters. I wish it did work for me. It would be an easy way to get some of my sites ranked. Maybe too easy...you know what they say.

I'm glad it works for some people but it did not work for any of my sites. I bought very popular profile link packages here on the forums a few months back. These packages were 30k profile link packages. They were created with Xrumer.

I paid for it, I got the report, spot checked several of the urls and sure enough they were created. I then got to work pinging them which took me a month (lol).

So what was the result in the serps.... nothing... at all.... Oh wait, there was some google dancing and then when the dust settled, I was right where I had been before on page 17. I have great on-site seo and tons of very relevant content as well so there is no blaming it on the site. It simply did not work.

I was amazed and disappointed at the same time but then again, the whole idea seems kinda shady and obviously provides no real value to the net, the forum, the world or anything else so is it really hard to believe that nothing good came of it? Nah, not really.

Again, I'm glad it seems to work for some of you but it certainly was not worth my money and I doubt that I'll be doing it again any time soon unless I can do it for free and test it some more.

This is just to let newbies know. There is misinformation on both sides of any argument. There is NO guarantee that it will help your sites. It might but you'll have to test it for yourself. Apparently, mileage will vary.

[jzorro]

I haven't been lucky with profile backlinking...

Although it's a good way to rapidly build a massive number of backlinks the strength of this type of links is weak... They are at the base of "Link Pyramid"

Check: online-reference.org/doc/20101123001555_seo_link_pyramid_small_med.jpg

What you should do is combine this strategy with all other types of backlinks in order to look "natural" at the eyes of Google!

[rosesmark]

Save Time
Affordable
Proven Results

[iAmNameLess]

Originally Posted by bay37

Lolz. Low competition key phrases...

Of course profile backlinks shouldn't be the only backlinks you build, but they do help. Quoting Matt Cutts? Are you ****ing serious?

You "don't think" that I got websites ranking using profile backlinks? Well, I got dozens of test sites (all testing different stuff), and hundreds of money websites... You "not thinking" something means absolutely nothing.

You "had 10k profile backlinks done"... "Thousands of backlinks built, more than you ever"... You are so out there my friend. Seriously, a mid range dedicated server with a good list can push 10k profile links in under 10 mins - all completely hands off.

Lets just agree to disagree. I'm fine with that.

For everyone else - test things out before you draw conclusions. Testing this stuff is extremely cheap and not time consuming at all (under 5 mins and under $10).

All in all I've probably had about 50k profile links done in the last month. 10k on one site, and that was the only method used, to test this out. I don't believe they work anymore, thats it. I agree, people should test out every strategy to see what works for them.

If profile links are working for you, then great, I wish I had the same luck as you. That would be wonderful, and I'm not just trying to be different or pessimistic, I really would love to rank with just profile links.

Humor me though, can you PM me some of these sites you are ranking for, only with profile links?

[vikramd]

Originally Posted by Cantbedone!

Again, I'm glad it seems to work for some of you but it certainly was not worth my money and I doubt that I'll be doing it again any time soon unless I can do it for free and test it some more.

This is just to let newbies know. There is misinformation on both sides of any argument. There is NO guarantee that it will help your sites. It might but you'll have to test it for yourself. Apparently, mileage will vary.

How competitive was your keyword? Did you use a tool like backlink energizer or backlink booster?

I didn't buy into profile links either - I was turned off by how the packets advertised "PR5-PR9 backlinks!" - but those were never of the pages you could get your links on. Those were of the main site pages.

However - I have bought double pass profile blasts, had those links "boosted" and seen some good results. The 'double pass' helps keep the original forum profile live. The 'boost' makes it show up in the google index.

And yeah, it's spammy, crappy and won't get me ranked for 'weight loss' anytime soon - but it does work for low comp keywords. These aren't always exact match domains either.

[veryshant12]

Yeah It is true that the home page have higher page rank.But profile back links are effective.But use the Website that have 6+ Google page rank.And for creating profile use keyword as username,spend a minute to write a short bio to include with your links. This is what adds value and relevance to the page and lets it stand out ‘contextually’.

[OrganicSeoGuru]

Dude, dont go and do any mass profile linking to your main site, make sure you have buffers in place or your going have a bit of an issue on your hand.

Know your existing link graph before you go out an start uses link packets that everyone and their dog use, make sure it makes sense for your site and your ranking needs.

[first response]

yes it effects alot especially anchor links in facebook pages.

[bay37]

Originally Posted by OrganicSeoGuru

...or your going have a bit of an issue on your hand.

Issues like what..? Not disagreeing that using "buffer" properties is a good idea, I just don't know of any current issues that a profile blast can cause to a website.

[vcaldwe]

Well I can say in my experience they are. On a site that I only use this method, I have seen significant increases in rankings for certain keywords and this is building them manually.

I only comment on one site because I only have one that I only use this method on. For the keywords that are my priority they have been very effective and its not for low competition keywords.

Perhaps its in the how, not the what...

[dagaul101]

Profile backlinks as long as they are do-follow is still effective, although Paul and Angela type links are not as effective as when it first came out, it's still good

[nlquyen]

Yes, they are effective!

[SteveSam]

Me too was thinking the same, because, earlier the Profile link building method worked well for me and I was able to rank well for the keywords with just the profile link building, but nowadays, It is not possible, even the profile links are not being indexed by Google (Note: I am using PR3-PR4 forums for profile link building, may be I need to use PR5 or more Forums to get success)

[4webmaster]

I'm not sure if it's still effective but last year I've got a site witch keyword was very hard to rank high and with 7000 PB blast, I've land on page 2, did not do more effort to rank on page 1 because I was too busy. Anyway Yes it was effective. Now, from what you say above, I don't know now.
So I've got a site witch is a month old and done everything from unique contents, seo pages, commenting, pyramid, directory, press... but not done forum backlink direct to site because I was afraid of penalized but when you think if you get penalized that way, then great for competitors, use this method to outrank others. My conclusion was, no could not be this way! So I will experiment here and will update of it's effectiveness. Actually on page 2 since a month now and want to get on page 1. Also I'm not trying to better rank with a junk site but in my opinion, deserve to be ranked on page 1 for a real quality site when I see all other websites don't deserve their places (low quality sites).
SEo: 7000PB + ping.

[Steven Miranda]

Originally Posted by bay37

Not really and... not really.

I have done both and never really experienced what you're talking about. Profile links can be drip fed - completely hands off and extremely effective.

A difficult hole to get out of? Google doesn't penalize websites for profile backlinks. I could take one of your sig. websites and send a 100k profile blast to it tonight if I wanted to - I'm pretty sure it wouldn't cause any harm - too easy.

I agree with you 100%. I have been telling people this for a while now.

[4webmaster]

5 days after 7000 p blast, zero, nada, niet,... site ranking have not change a line, still same. Also adding more unique contents, still stuck to page 2, how do I move to page 1?

[Dominium]

All of that is true, that's why whenever I build forum profile links, I build a couple of blog comment links pointing to my forum profiles. This GREATLY increases index/cache rates as well as increases the power of the forum profile link a lot.

Cheers,
Dominium