Protecting Backlink Sources?

[IM Ash]

Warriors,

Will a 301 redirect using a service like bit.ly or buying a domain and redirecting it to my primary domain be enough to hide my backlink sources. If I just backlink to the URL that redirects will these links show up in Majestic, OSE or Yahoo Site Explorer?

The reason I ask is because I just hit the first page in the SERPs within a marginally competitive niche (lots of IMers) and these dudes have already started reverse engineering my backlinks...lol

Thanks!

[Crystal Love]

This is something I am interested in. I know how to spoof the backlinks but many tech savvy individuals can get around that and steal my backlinks.

I'd be willing to pay anyone who has an answer to this.

[JSProjects]

I wouldn't worry too much. It's going to be more of a hassle than it's worth, IMO.

Though I do tend to stay as far away from the IM niche as possible.

[IM Ash]

Someone??? Anyone?? No one?

No SEO ninjas on the forum today?

@JSP
When you have power backlink sources you will want to protect them. Reverse engineering is common practice and I'm sure there are ways to blanket my link sources. Hopefully someone chimes in with a solution.

@CL
Let me know if you find a solid solution - I'll do the same!

[yukon]

I havn't tested this, you could try adding a hash tag after the url & maybe even stuff the keyword at the end of the url?

1) hxxp://mydomain.com/blog/internal-page-1/#keyword1-keyword2


2) http://www.warriorforum.com/#seo-software

Again, I havn't tested this as far as trying to hide links from competition.

You might find someone on fiverr to do a backlink blast running the url like the example above, with the hash tag, keyword at the end of the url is optional.

I'm not sure if tools like yahoo explorer will follow URLs with hash tags?

Anyone? Bueller?

[Jaysmyne]

I find its hard to "protect" sites you do not own. So for myself I tend to work with sites I do own, like creating hubpages, squidoo lenses, blogger blogs, wordpress sites and interlinking them with revenant content that is going to make my main site an authority site.

[Matt Ward]

In my opinion, any method of "protecting" your backlink sources is going to leave far too much of a footprint. If you used a URL shortener or 301 redirects, it's going to be extremely obvious what you're doing to any search engine. No legitimate website would have every backlink going through a URL shortener or 301 redirect. Furthermore, certain backlink/site explorers would list those 301 redirects, anyway.

In short, I don't believe that this is possible without leaving a huge footprint, and probably not possible at all.

[yukon]

Originally Posted by Jaysmyne

I find its hard to "protect" sites you do not own. So for myself I tend to work with sites I do own, like creating hubpages, squidoo lenses, blogger blogs, wordpress sites and interlinking them with revenant content that is going to make my main site an authority site.

I think that's the path most people take.

Backlink --> Free Blog --> My Site

I still have a tendency to build direct links to my site.

[IM Ash]

Originally Posted by yukon

I havn't tested this, you could try adding a hash tag after the url & maybe even stuff the keyword at the end of the url?

1) hxxp://mydomain.com/blog/internal-page-1/#keyword1-keyword2


2) http://www.warriorforum.com/#seo-software

Again, I havn't tested this as far as trying to hide links from competition.

You might find someone on fiverr to do a backlink blast running the url like the example above, with the hash tag, keyword at the end of the url is optional.

I'm not sure if tools like yahoo explorer will follow URLs with hash tags?

Anyone? Bueller?

Thanks Yukon,

Interesting approach... I will have to test it and see what happens. Any idea if the link juice will be diluted if I use a hash at the end of the URL or is the URL treated as though it were a normal URL without a hash?

I guess what's important for my purposes is whether or not the link will be registered in backlink checking tools.

Originally Posted by mattward

In my opinion, any method of "protecting" your backlink sources is going to leave far too much of a footprint. If you used a URL shortener or 301 redirects, it's going to be extremely obvious what you're doing to any search engine. No legitimate website would have every backlink going through a URL shortener or 301 redirect. Furthermore, certain backlink/site explorers would list those 301 redirects, anyway.

In short, I don't believe that this is possible without leaving a huge footprint, and probably not possible at all.

I don't intend redirecting all my backlinks - just the high PR links! And companies who send out tweets often use a URL shortener so I don't think search engines are going to be bothered about that, but as you said, if the 301 redirects are listed in backlink checking tools then it is pointless!

I have just built a few links to a bit.ly shortened link that points to my main URL - will see if these links are listed in Yahoo Site Explorer!

[Alexsson]

Well, I can't say anything about this, I'm not so experienced but I'm trying to learn this kind of advance things.

[yuxx109]

If google lower the value of 301 backlinks, you may waste a lot of time and work.

[samual james]

Reverse engineering always work dude if you create backlink then no one can protect your links

[IM Ash]

Originally Posted by Jaysmyne

I find its hard to "protect" sites you do not own. So for myself I tend to work with sites I do own, like creating hubpages, squidoo lenses, blogger blogs, wordpress sites and interlinking them with revenant content that is going to make my main site an authority site.

Thanks for your input Jaysmyne. I do that as well, but I am looking for a method that will allow me to mask backlinks so that anyone who reverse engineers my links will not find the masked links... not sure whether there is a way to do this yet!

[HKSEO Rotzee]

Originally Posted by Eleva8

Warriors,

Will a 301 redirect using a service like bit.ly or buying a domain and redirecting it to my primary domain be enough to hide my backlink sources. If I just backlink to the URL that redirects will these links show up in Majestic, OSE or Yahoo Site Explorer?

The reason I ask is because I just hit the first page in the SERPs within a marginally competitive niche (lots of IMers) and these dudes have already started reverse engineering my backlinks...lol

Thanks!

No, redirects show up in google webmaster tools. Google made that change several months ago, so as many as google wants you to see. Hope that helps.

[IM Ash]

Originally Posted by HKSEO Rotzee

No, redirects show up in google webmaster tools. Google made that change several months ago, so as many as google wants you to see. Hope that helps.

Thanks so much HKSEO Rotzee,

Do you know whether these redirects appear in other backlink analyzing tools like Yahoo Site Explorer or Open Site Explorer?

Thanks!

[Matt Ward]

They do in Open Site Explorer, at least in my experience. It will show the 301 redirect URL as a backlink, not the source of the backlink itself, but from there it's not hard to check the backlinks to that 301 redirected URL if you're smart enough to be reverse-engineering backlinks as it is.

[HKSEO Rotzee]

Originally Posted by Eleva8

Thanks so much HKSEO Rotzee,

Do you know whether these redirects appear in other backlink analyzing tools like Yahoo Site Explorer or Open Site Explorer?

Thanks!

Honestly, I'm not sure...we don't worry about checking backlinks, once we build them and ping them...google knows about them and we move on