Could blog posting for links be considered blackhat?

[Newman8r]

Well, it's something we all do so I wanted to get some opinions.

Do you think Google or other search engines will ever devalue blog comments since they are so easily manipulated for SEO purposes? Google's aim is to identify popular sites with backlinks, but does a webmaster posting a ton of comments to blogs really denote actual popularity, or is it just artificial?

A lot of my strategy involves blog backlinking and it works very well right now - I'm just paranoid for the future because I think it's pretty easy for google to see when most of your backlinks are coming from comment sections.

I'm definitely thinking about incorporating some new strategies just in case this ever happens.

thoughts?

[Newman8r]

lol... just learned that black + hat gets turned into "BlueFart".. nice.

[walterstewart1949]

If it is relevant and makes sense it will always be worth it and valuable.

[Newman8r]

Originally Posted by walterstewart1949

If it is relevant and makes sense it will always be worth it and valuable.

I'd like to believe that, it's just that so many spam backlinks originate from blog comments that I'm afraid the entire system could get screwed.

[JohnMcCabe]

Originally Posted by Newman8r

I'd like to believe that, it's just that so many spam backlinks originate from blog comments that I'm afraid the entire system could get screwed.

Blog comment links probably will lose some of their value purely as backlinks, but I don't think they will ever be penalized. If that were the case, you could ruin me by buying a run of spam comments from one of the many services selling them. Google, for one, has explicitly said that they won't penalize a site for links pointing to it.

Links pointing from a site are another kettle of fish. If you run one of those autoapprove blogs and count on endless infusions of spam links to generate 'fresh' content regardless of what they link to, you could be in trouble.

[ameerulislam10]

Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe

Links pointing from a site are another kettle of fish. If you run one of those autoapprove blogs and count on endless infusions of spam links to generate 'fresh' content regardless of what they link to, you could be in trouble.

Yeah those will be marked as link farms. Blog comments still work, but I too think it will not be the same in the future.

[Newman8r]

Right, I don't think they'd ever be penalized (but hey, who knows how things will work in 5-10 years)

I just want to make sure I'm not investing an inordinate amount of time building those links now when their future value could be heavily diminished by an algorithm update down the road.

I think I'm going to spend more time guest blogging rather than commenting, but it's still going to be a big part of my strategy.

[ameerulislam10]

Originally Posted by Newman8r

Right, I don't think they'd ever be penalized (but hey, who knows how things will work in 5-10 years)

I just want to make sure I'm not investing an inordinate amount of time building those links now when their future value could be heavily diminished by an algorithm update down the road.

I think I'm going to spend more time guest blogging rather than commenting, but it's still going to be a big part of my strategy.

yeah, that should work for the long term (Guest Blogging). Has high editorial value.

[ichl13]

Depends how you do the blog commenting. If you do it manually and actually add value to the website by promoting your website then it'll be fine