An Experiment on Forum Backlinks.........

[rafiseo]

Hi All,

In WF as well as in lots of IM relevant forums one type of thread is very common and I see newbies are frequently asking questions about this matter. And The question is about forum profile/post backlinks, Whether these are working or not? Also some members are reporting they have noticed these forum backlinks are casting negative votes to their webpages!! It means they wanted to say Google is penalizing webpages for having forum backlinks and pushing the pages to the bottom of the SERPs!!

Even though I dont trust that Google or other SEs develop algorithm to behave like this. However I myself lil bit confused as well as skeptical too!! I dont trust Search Engines penalize webpages for forum backlinks coz anyone can put a backlink on any forum in the reply or started thread to share their experience with others. For an example if anyone start a new thread by asking "which Rank checker tool is good and also free?" And then if some members reply with the url of SEOBook rank checker with anchor text "Rank Checker" then do u think Google will remove SEOBook rank checker from the #1 for the keyword "rank checkr"?
And I am lil bit confuse coz lots of people are reporting that they are getting negative results for these forum backlinks!!

So I have decided to run an off-page optimization campaign with only forum backlinks. I am going to start the campaign for the wordpress blog homesforsaleinchattanoogatn.com and the keywords are Chattanooga Homes, Chattanooga homes for sale.

Well this blog is brand new one and only few on-page optimizations has done. I am going to add 100 forum backlinks to the page over the next 7 days for the experiment purpose. In-fact I have divided the forum backlinks within 2 types.

1) Profile Backlinks without posts And
2) Profile Backlinks with posts

First of all I will create 50 profile backlinks. No posts will be added. Then I will monitor whats happening there. After first sets of profile backlinks I will create 50 new profile backlinks and post at least one post to each forum. Then I will monitor the changes in SERP.

Just want to see whats going to be happen! Advices, comments, new ideas everything from expert and new all members will be accepted cordially. I hope warriors will be with me and help me by giving their valuable opinions.....


Thanks ...............


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
21/07/2011

Current ranking........

Chattanooga homes-------->183(21/7/2011)

Chattanooga homes for sale-------->190(21/7/2011)

** I am relying on Rank Checker of SEOBook

Chattanooga Homes For Sale

[Jeremy Banks]

How will you measure results?

You would almost have to register to similar domains and target the same keyword.

[rafiseo]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Banks

How will you measure results?

You would almost have to register to similar domains and target the same keyword.

I will check the rank of the blog for the keywords and If I see any improvement on SERP it will surely prove that forum backlinks are still working and If I see any demotion then people who are talking about negative impact of forum profiles are true.

Hmm google dance is just the only matter to be worried in this experimental period........

[JamesGw]

You need two sites to compare the two. One website increasing in ranking means nothing really.

[rafiseo]

Update 22-July-11

Well here is a good news for forum backlink lovers......

Last day for the keyword "Chattanooga Homes" the page was at #183 And After adding just 13 backlinks the page is now on 136th position for the same keyword.

So its a good improvement indeed.

And if u compare the same page for another keyword "Chattanooga homes for sale" u will be noticed now the page has gone from #190 to #194 position! Keep in mind I am not building any backlinks for the keyword "Chattanooga homes for sale" at now.

Thanks........

[2233190]

For the past 10 days I am adding forum profile baclinks without posts.Till date I have not received any single backlink!But yesterday I joined one forum and put profile link with one post.Today the backlink checker showed taht backlink.

[rafiseo]

Originally Posted by 2233190

For the past 10 days I am adding forum profile baclinks without posts.Till date I have not received any single backlink!But yesterday I joined one forum and put profile link with one post.Today the backlink checker showed taht backlink.

Not sure what are u doing but here are some tips for u....

To get indexed
*make sure backlinks are do-follow
*Ping
*Bookmark (u can use Amplify FF Add-on to deploy the backlinks over google's fav websites)

To Search
*when u are creating backlinks use an uncommon word as user ID(also u can use the keyword as UID). When u are searching the backlinks use this ID as keyword.

*Also u can use some operators to find ur backlinks......

site:forum-name.com "UID"
inurl:forum-name.com "UID"
"forum-name.com" + "UID"

*The easiest way is Scrapeboxing.


I think google is hiding backlinks specially forum backlinks! Em not sure why but I have noticed often google is counting my forum backlinks but not showing in search results! I did some experiment on this matter. Hope in another post I will be able to show warriors that "Google is hiding forum backlinks"

Thanks.

[MikeFriedman]

Originally Posted by rafiseo

Update 22-July-11

Well here is a good news for forum backlink lovers......

Last day for the keyword "Chattanooga Homes" the page was at #183 And After adding just 13 backlinks the page is now on 136th position for the same keyword.

So its a good improvement indeed.

And if u compare the same page for another keyword "Chattanooga homes for sale" u will be noticed now the page has gone from #190 to #194 position! Keep in mind I am not building any backlinks for the keyword "Chattanooga homes for sale" at now.

Thanks........

In my opinion, that is no big deal. Websites in the 100's move all over the place in the SERPs all the time.

Lastly, if you really want to check the effectiveness of forum profiles, I would suggest a more competitive keyword. Something people are actually searching for. "Chattanooga Homes" is not competitive at all.

I think most people would agree that you can rank a keyword that is not competitive with forum profiles. Where the disagreements start is when you are talking about a semi-competitive term... something getting at least 10,000 searches a month or more.

That's when people start fighting about the effectiveness of forum profiles.

[JamesGw]

If your website is of any quality, it could have done that change completely on its own. Probably even more than that.

[Mikeys]

Forum profiles are tough, does it make sense from a google standpoint that a website would have a thousand profile backlinks?

[rafiseo]

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

In my opinion, that is no big deal. Websites in the 100's move all over the place in the SERPs all the time.

Lastly, if you really want to check the effectiveness of forum profiles, I would suggest a more competitive keyword. Something people are actually searching for. "Chattanooga Homes" is not competitive at all.

I think most people would agree that you can rank a keyword that is not competitive with forum profiles. Where the disagreements start is when you are talking about a semi-competitive term... something getting at least 10,000 searches a month or more.

That's when people start fighting about the effectiveness of forum profiles.

Okay I know that forum profiles have really very small amount of value to google. But I am doing this experiment to check effect after latest Panda update as some are complaining that google is punishing their webpages for forum profile backlinks.

I want to See whether google is punishing the webpages for forum backlinks or not.

Here is a WF thread somebody started it by asking about negative ranking factor of forum profile backlinks.......

Profile Links Are Negative Ranking Factors!!!!!

And I am actually testing reliability of this........

"DO NOT BUILD PROFILES. Google Recently changed profiles
into a negative ranking factor. I've seen 5-10 client sites lower
in rankings after this update, then rise back up after the
thousands of profiles on each site were deleted manually. Google
sees pages with a link but no content to be webspam, and they are
now treating links from those pages NEGATIVELY.

Profiles will kill your rankings, and I've had to get rid of
several of my sites because of it.

Rather than delete profiles from your sites, I recommend getting
rid of any site you own that has forum profile backlinks. I was the
biggest promoter of profile backlinks, as they worked up until
about May 2011. They're poison now. Stay away from them like the
plague.

Has anyone experienced any of this happening with their site????"

[Mike Anthony]

Sorry Rafi like Mike told you sites move around all the time
As of right now you are up on your first and back down again on your second keyword plus most of the reports of backlinks like that hurting you apply to sites that were much higher in the serps. the bouncing around on the tenth plus page doesn't show anything

but I do applaud you for putting up the test.

Will watch

[RevSEO]

I'll keep an eye on this as well.

To the person that claimed that profile links are like the "plague", don't bother listening.

If that was the case and people experienced NEGATIVE results from profile links, I can assure you that you'd see negative SEO services that help "harm" your competitors.

Profile links are way to easy to abuse with tools like Xrumer, Google knows this. Can they discount profile links? Sure. Although placing negative results/penalty is a different story altogether.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by RevSEO

Profile links are way to easy to abuse with tools like Xrumer, Google knows this. Can they discount profile links? Sure. Although placing negative results/penalty is a different story altogether.

People have gotten notices in webmaster tools for bad incoming links. Thats no longer theory its fact. There have been people in this very forum indicating they got one and reports are all over of other people getting them as well. In addition along with those notices have been people reporting they got slapped from the top of their serp to below 50.

We need to stop telling people google knows and cares that you can slap a competitor. Google CAN and WILL penalize for incoming links that in their words "manipulate paegerank" And that doesn't mean you can take out every competitor with backlinks either. Google can merely look and see whether the competitor has good quality links and existing authority that is mixed in with the garbage and on that basis not extend a penalty but if you have nothing but weak links then you may find yourself down the food chain.

Its a new day - the old rules no longer apply no matter how reasonable they sound.

[design2convert]

Originally Posted by rafiseo

Update 22-July-11

Well here is a good news for forum backlink lovers......

Last day for the keyword "Chattanooga Homes" the page was at #183 And After adding just 13 backlinks the page is now on 136th position for the same keyword.

So its a good improvement indeed.

And if u compare the same page for another keyword "Chattanooga homes for sale" u will be noticed now the page has gone from #190 to #194 position! Keep in mind I am not building any backlinks for the keyword "Chattanooga homes for sale" at now.

Thanks........

Nice to hear this , i lunch new sites and link building on relevant sites , now just waiting for results

[tolkein]

I have experimented with forum profile links myself on an aged and established site (which belongs to a competitor), and a less established site.

After hitting the first site with over 60,000 links with "Viagra" as the anchor text, the site didn't go drop at all for its main keywords (i.e. business related). In fact, it even started to rank well for Viagra-related keywords (side note: shows how much more important backlinks are over page relevance).

On the other hand, the 2nd site fell from page 1 to page 4 for its website name (the anchor text used was also its website name) and have stayed there ever since.

What we can conclude from here is that the forum profile links will help established sites but negatively affect the less established ones.

[rafiseo]

Update 25, July, 2011


Well last day after building 10 more backlinks the page jumped from #136 to #129. And today just now I see it sent back to #139.

I will keep adding backlinks. 10 per day and continue my experiment at least next 10 days.

Main target was to check whether profile links have any negative impact or not. Till now I didnt notice any negative impact on SERP. Hope within next 10 days I will get the final answer.

Thanks.....

[Spyder77]

Its an interesting experiment to follow in its own right. Not something many would undertake at their own time and expense for the benefit of the WF community. Kudos to the OP for putting to the test something that is one of the hotter debates post-Panda.

-Spyder