Link Building - The Rules have changed | Warrior Forum - The #1 Digital Marketing Forum & Marketplace

13 years ago

Guest blogging can be a "don't" if you engaging in a lot of article spinning or duplicate content or just submitting poor articles to sites filled with other poor articles.

Submitting to directories should be to those well edited by humans. Many have a good pagerank today but don't help you if they are filled with junk. Interestingly I am seeing pagerank get passed but not anchor text more and more, or the anchor text harming your site if coming from many low quality sources, including those with a high pagerank, for example look at the comments from this pagerank 6 page.

Thanks
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LogoDesignExpert

13 years ago

Originally Posted by dvduval

Guest blogging can be a "don't" if you engaging in a lot of article spinning or duplicate content or just submitting poor articles to sites filled with other poor articles.

Submitting to directories should be to those well edited by humans. Many have a good pagerank today but don't help you if they are filled with junk. Interestingly I am seeing pagerank get passed but not anchor text more and more, or the anchor text harming your site if coming from many low quality sources, including those with a high pagerank, for example look at the comments from this pagerank 6 page.

Thats why i said this - " No Gibberish Web 2.0 Articles and keyword stuffing "

means NO low quality or copied articles or articles spun using automated software's.

Thanks

Thanks

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Andyhenry

13 years ago

Originally Posted by LogoDesignExpert

PS - I thought forum posting with signatures was OK until yesterday but my site came down on rankings yesterday so even that method too is spam now.

Wrong. I have almost 10,000 posts in this forum and I have always had only positive impact from my sig links.

Please don't create imaginary Google problems just because spamming forum sigs is bad - doesn't mean forum sigs is bad.

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LogoDesignExpert

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Andyhenry

Wrong. I have almost 10,000 posts in this forum and I have always had only positive impact from my sig links.

Please don't create imaginary Google problems just because spamming forum sigs is bad - doesn't mean forum sigs is bad.

Thanks for your post but please read it the google webmasters guideliness, I have pasted a part of it below :

Here are a few common examples of unnatural links that violate our guidelines:

Text advertisements that pass PageRank

Links that are inserted into articles with little coherence, for example:
most people sleep at night. you can buy cheap blankets at shops. a blanket keeps you warm at night. you can also buy a wholesale heater. It produces more warmth and you can just turn it off in summer when you are going on france vacation.

Low-quality directory or bookmark site links

Links embedded in widgets that are distributed across various sites, for example:
Visitors to this page: 1,472
car insurance

Widely distributed links in the footers of various sites

Forum comments with optimized links in the post or signature, for example:
Thanks, that’s great info!
- Paul
paul’s pizza san diego pizza best pizza san diego

PS - I never spammed on forums everything was manual posting - relevant to the thread topics its just the "keyword" Sigs that hurts. I never used any automated software whatsoever.

Thanks

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Andyhenry

13 years ago

You just said the same thing as me - crap spammy forum profiles - bad.

Normal forum profile with normal forum interaction = good.

Thanks

Thanks
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LogoDesignExpert 13 years ago

Originally Posted by Andyhenry

You just said the same thing as me - crap spammy forum profiles - bad.

Normal forum profile with normal forum interaction = good.

Thanks

You are welcome !!
- Thanks
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Mike Anthony

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Andyhenry

You just said the same thing as me - crap spammy forum profiles - bad.

Normal forum profile with normal forum interaction = good.

Thanks

SO you are saying that Google can and will differentiate between normal and abnormal forum interaction? Good luck with that. I won't say that Google penalizes now based on sig links but to say they are "good" is quite a stretch. They are WAY down the food change and spammy when combined with keyword anchor text. I don't know of many regular here that use their sig for keywords.

Thanks
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Andyhenry

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

SO you are saying that Google can and will differentiate between normal and abnormal forum interaction? Good luck with that. I won't say that Google penalizes now based on sig links but to say they are "good" is quite a stretch. They are WAY down the food change and spammy when combined with keyword anchor text. I don't know of many regular here that use their sig for keywords.

I think you're misunderstanding me.

I was not making the point that they're good - but that they are not inherently bad (which was the point made by someone else that I was responding to).

My evidence is that I have over 30,000 forum posts across several forums over many years and these have NEVER had any negative impact on my marketing efforts.

Now, of course I am not saying that people should go out cranking out crap forum one-liners in order to get lots of sig links - I believe that THAT would get your link profile above Googles radar and once a real person does a quick check they'll be able to see if you're a sig spammer or not.

Anyway - I'm not trying to make any point here and was only responding to a sweeping generalisation being pushed as some sort of new seo fact. I don't care what people do - it's up to them how they market their business, I'm not selling anything and don't have an ego to stroke by wanting to convince you of anything. Just here doing my bit to help stop myth and misunderstanding pose as facts.

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LogoDesignExpert

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Andyhenry

Anyway - I'm not trying to make any point here and was only responding to a sweeping generalisation being pushed as some sort of new seo fact. I don't care what people do - it's up to them how they market their business, I'm not selling anything and don't have an ego to stroke by wanting to convince you of anything. Just here doing my bit to help stop myth and misunderstanding pose as facts.

Well I think the Google Webmaster Guidliness Makes it clear no - optimized links in the signatures. and they have given clear examples like what others do, whether we spam using automated software or do manual forum posting we cannot use our signatures as anchor texts. That Era of SEO is over.

Thanks

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WraithSarko

13 years ago

Originally Posted by LogoDesignExpert

Hello All,

I'm no expert on SEO, but providing my personal experience - yesterday there has been a massive change in website rankings thanks to an unconfirmed update in algorithm by google, my website too went down along with others - the defination of spam link building strategy is pretty clear -

The Don'ts

No comments on blogs with anchor texts

No Anchor text Signatures in forum posts

No Mass social Bookmarking

No submission to directories that low PR or PR 0

No Participation in Link Exchange Scheme

No Gibberish Web 2.0 Articles and keyword stuffing.

( courtesy - Google webmasters guidelines)

The Do's What matters now..........

Quality Content on your website

Guest Blogging

submission to just a few high PR directories ( most of them are paid )

Promotion of your website in a proper way on Social media

..............................If anybody else here know about more about the DO's please contribute to this post and correct me if i'm wrong at any place.

Thanks

PS - I thought forum posting with signatures was OK until yesterday but my site came down on rankings yesterday so even that method too is spam now.

was this posted LAST year, or this year? Cause I could have swore that the game changed LAST year, not just yesterday.

Thanks
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LogoDesignExpert 13 years ago

Originally Posted by WraithSarko

was this posted LAST year, or this year? Cause I could have swore that the game changed LAST year, not just yesterday.

It was last year, I read it a couple of months back, realized it yesterday !!
- Thanks
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paulgl

13 years ago

Originally Posted by WraithSarko

was this posted LAST year, or this year? Cause I could have swore that the game changed LAST year, not just yesterday.

People seem to misquote google. They hear a guy who knows a guy...
Anchor text is one of the biggest misquoted bit of nonsense.

Actually, nothing has changed. Good link building is still GOOD link
building. The only ones who think things have changed, are those who
are still trying to camouflage their bad linking.

And that, *sigh*, seems to never change.

Originally Posted by yukon

So many people have the idea in their head that Google can detect quality content, which is wrong. Google detects quality keyword placement which doesn't mean it's a quality page for traffic. These two things are completely different.

As far as Google knows, this is a quality page of text, which is gibberish to traffic.

I have given many tips on using that to get targeted adsense ads. Which, BTW, is
related to the other googlebots. Quality, unique, yada yada, are just buzzwords.

Paul

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LogoDesignExpert

13 years ago

Originally Posted by paulgl

People seem to misquote google. They hear a guy who knows a guy...
Anchor text is one of the biggest misquoted bit of nonsense.

Actually, nothing has changed. Good link building is still GOOD link
building. The only ones who think things have changed, are those who
are still trying to camouflage their bad linking.

And that, *sigh*, seems to never change.

I have given many tips on using that to get targeted adsense ads. Which, BTW, is
related to the other googlebots. Quality, unique, yada yada, are just buzzwords.

Paul

Google is clear with what it says there is no misquoting here........ no anchor texts in forum posts. I hope its clear now

forum posting links hold - moderate to high value - it was before penguin and panda. Now all of a sudden it has changed if you still think nothing has changed then let it be.

There has been an article on Forbes.com describing that SEO is nearing its end and its Social Media and PR that will decide the fate of website how it will rank on the web, i think we are getting pretty close to that.

Thanks
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minimalseo

13 years ago

Originally Posted by LogoDesignExpert

forum posting links hold - moderate to high value - it was before penguin and panda. Now all of a sudden it has changed if you still think nothing has changed then let it be.

There has been an article on Forbes.com describing that SEO is nearing its end and its Social Media and PR that will decide the fate of website how it will rank on the web, i think we are getting pretty close to that.

Depends I will say on what is your interpretation of SEO is and your best practices. And in my book atleast Social Media & PR are part of the fabric, not elements apart from SEO. For me personally, there has been no massive change in the way I run my clients campaign from 'before penguine' to 'after penguin' days.

I respectfully disagree on any doomsday predictions for SEO. The nature of responsibilities and functions evolve, from mere backlink builders to content marketers to complete web visibility managers..so if anything I only see SEO moving more to core to the lifecycle management of an online property or business, and not anymore a peripheral activity...just my two bits in the jar.

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Andyhenry

13 years ago

Originally Posted by LogoDesignExpert

Google is clear with what it says there is no misquoting here........ no anchor texts in forum posts. I hope its clear now

It is clear but THAT is not what it said.

You seem to be trying to stick to what you originally decided it meant without re-reading it after the feedback we've given you.

Here's what you quoted before:

"Forum comments with optimized links in the post or signature, for example:
Thanks, that's great info!
- Paul
paul's pizza san diego pizza best pizza san diego"

Take a look at that.........

The sig is OVER-OPTIMIZED.

You've taken their statement about not spamming over-optimized forum sig areas/links and completely generalised the whole thing incorrectly.

They have NOT said that forum sigs are bad.

Please re-read what you posted.

They have said that spammy over-optimized sigs are bad.

I think we all agree about that already.

They have not said that normal forum sigs and links are bad, so why you seem to insistent on pushing that they did I don't know.

The only thing that's changed is if you use forum sigs for spammy links - of course they would not want those, everyone knows this already but Google now just added a line to their guidelines to explicitly state it.

Normal sig profile links have not changed and there's no reason they should.

I often follow people's forum sigs to find out more about them and check out their blog etc.. The spammy ones no-one wants, so Google is doing us all a favour with this small change.

Thanks
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LogoDesignExpert

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Andyhenry

It is clear but THAT is not what it said.

You seem to be trying to stick to what you originally decided it meant without re-reading it after the feedback we've given you.

Here's what you quoted before:

"Forum comments with optimized links in the post or signature, for example:
Thanks, that's great info!
- Paul
paul's pizza san diego pizza best pizza san diego"

Take a look at that.........

The sig is OVER-OPTIMIZED.

You've taken their statement about not spamming over-optimized forum sig areas/links and completely generalised the whole thing incorrectly.

They have NOT said that forum sigs are bad.

Please re-read what you posted.

They have said that spammy over-optimized sigs are bad.

I think we all agree about that already.

They have not said that normal forum sigs and links are bad, so why you seem to insistent on pushing that they did I don't know.

The only thing that's changed is if you use forum sigs for spammy links - of course they would not want those, everyone knows this already but Google now just added a line to their guidelines to explicitly state it.

Normal sig profile links have not changed and there's no reason they should.

I often follow people's forum sigs to find out more about them and check out their blog etc.. The spammy ones no-one wants, so Google is doing us all a favour with this small change.

Yes I have already agreed with that.....not all forum links are bad but optimizing them as anchor texts is bad......thats what I think the GWM guideline says. Thats my opinion it could be wrong, correct me if it is, I just posted the webmaster Guidelines here so that other web masters can check on whether they are not doing anything silly that will cost them their rankings.

Thanks

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yukon

Banned 13 years ago

Originally Posted by LogoDesignExpert

Google is clear with what it says there is no misquoting here........ no anchor texts in forum posts. I hope its clear now

forum posting links hold - moderate to high value - it was before penguin and panda. Now all of a sudden it has changed if you still think nothing has changed then let it be.

There has been an article on Forbes.com describing that SEO is nearing its end and its Social Media and PR that will decide the fate of website how it will rank on the web, i think we are getting pretty close to that.

I have hundreds of same niche forum links for direct traffic, those links are still active today & Google does follow those links. I'm still ranking the pages those links point to, I never intended on those links for SEO, they're traffic links. My point is, Google still follows those links.

Please, I'm begging everyone (lol), never quote anything SEO related from sites like Forbes or WSJ, those sites are basically link farms pimping out paid services related to the page content. Go back & read that Forbes SEO page, I'm sure the source of the article is a paid SEO service, probably Slingshot, those guys are big budget media hoes.

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anwar001

13 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

Please, I'm begging everyone (lol), never quote anything SEO related from sites like Forbes or WSJ, those sites are basically link farms pimping out paid services related to the page content. Go back & read that Forbes SEO page, I'm sure the source of the article is a paid SEO service, probably Slingshot, those guys are big budget media hoes.

Also never believe everything that Google guys say or mention in their webmaster guidelines. Google staff, including Matt Cutts, have been known to lie on more than 1 occasion. What they say doesn't work might work and vice versa.

By the way, as OP has said, good quality original content on your website might not always be rewarded by Google. There have been many sites which had excellent content and they were thrown off the Google rankings while a ton of crappy and spam sites are still on top.

Thanks
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LogoDesignExpert 13 years ago

Originally Posted by anwar001

There have been many sites which had excellent content and they were thrown off the Google rankings while a ton of crappy and spam sites are still on top.

Anwar Bhai, I agree with that
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yukon

Banned 13 years ago

Originally Posted by LogoDesignExpert

The Do's What matters now..........

Quality Content on your website

So many people have the idea in their head that Google can detect quality content, which is wrong. Google detects quality keyword placement which doesn't mean it's a quality page for traffic. These two things are completely different.

As far as Google knows, this is a quality page of text, which is gibberish to traffic.

<title>Affordable Insurance Rates</title>

<h1>Insurance</h1>

<h2>Risk Management</h2>
Insurance can equitable transfer will the risk was loss, can one entity did another will exchange or payment. While form casualty as risk management primarily will rate to hedge against can risk don't contingent, uncertain loss.

Google bot would look at that paragraph of gibberish above & consider that quality text. The reason that's quality text for SEO is, the page/text targets a group of LSI keywords & has focus on the insurance niche. The punctuation is correct (considering the example). The HTML tags are focused on the niche. The anchor-text for the internal link points at a targeted same niche page.

Traffic would look at that text & say WTH? For SEO it doesn't matter, that page/text could still rank for multiple niche keywords.

My point is, LSI, links, & keyword placement are important, you can't just say Hey, my content is better than everyone else's page, why am I on page 17 of Google SERPs?

Doesn't matter If your Charles Darwin, If you don't use everything that's available for SEO, you might as well have Homer Simpson writing your web page content.

I'm defiantly not suggesting anyone junk up their pages, what I'm suggesting is think about what your actually trying to accomplish in the SERPs, stay focused on the subject, link to same subject pages, not the latest funniest cat video on Youtube (unless that's your niche (I hope not)).

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LogoDesignExpert

13 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

So many people have the idea in their head that Google can detect quality content, which is wrong. Google detects quality keyword placement which doesn't mean it's a quality page for traffic. These two things are completely different.

As far as Google knows, this is a quality page of text, which is gibberish to traffic.

Google bot would look at that paragraph of gibberish above & consider that quality text. The reason that's quality text for SEO is, the page/text targets a group of LSI keywords & has focus on the insurance niche. The punctuation is correct (considering the example). The HTML tags are focused on the niche. The anchor-text for the internal link points at a targeted same niche page.

Traffic would look at that text & say WTH? For SEO it doesn't matter, that page/text could still rank for multiple niche keywords.

My point is, LSI, links, & keyword placement are important, you can't just say Hey, my content is better than everyone else's page, why am I on page 17 of Google SERPs?

Doesn't matter If your Charles Darwin, If you don't use everything that's available for SEO, you might as well have Homer Simpson writing your web page content.

I'm defiantly not suggesting anyone junk up their pages, what I'm suggesting is think about what your actually trying to accomplish in the SERPs, stay focused on the subject, link to same subject pages, not the latest funniest cat video on Youtube (unless that's your niche (I hope not)).

Thanks for the explanation, helped a lot.

Thanks

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G0nzalez

Banned 13 years ago

What do you think of social bookmarking, it is good?

Thanks
1 reply

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LogoDesignExpert 13 years ago

Originally Posted by G0nzalez

What do you think of social bookmarking, it is good?

Low-quality directory or bookmark site links

That's what the Google Webmaster Guidelines says no Low Quality Bookmark sites
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solemanali

13 years ago

I agree with you and I think guest posting is the best way to build backlinks.

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shipwrecked

13 years ago

Originally Posted by LogoDesignExpert

Hello All,

I'm no expert on SEO, but providing my personal experience - yesterday there has been a massive change in website rankings thanks to an unconfirmed update in algorithm by google, my website too went down along with others - the defination of spam link building strategy is pretty clear -

The Don'ts

No comments on blogs with anchor texts

No Anchor text Signatures in forum posts

No Mass social Bookmarking

No submission to directories that low PR or PR 0

No Participation in Link Exchange Scheme

No Gibberish Web 2.0 Articles and keyword stuffing.

( courtesy - Google webmasters guidelines)

The Do's What matters now..........

Quality Content on your website

Guest Blogging

submission to just a few high PR directories ( most of them are paid )

Promotion of your website in a proper way on Social media

..............................If anybody else here know about more about the DO's please contribute to this post and correct me if i'm wrong at any place.

Thanks

PS - I thought forum posting with signatures was OK until yesterday but my site came down on rankings yesterday so even that method too is spam now.

Wicked response, mate...

You say "don't" do these:
No comments on blogs with anchor texts - would that be really so bad?
No Anchor text Signatures in forum posts - I've seen plenty such signatures pointing to successful sites, personally I think it's rather the proportion that's important
No Mass social Bookmarking - this actually worked well to me (if you mean a lot of people bookmarking and spreading the news)
No submission to directories that low PR or PR 0 - perhaps rather because of the directory, not the PR... it's rather the way they are is the problem
No Participation in Link Exchange Scheme - agree 100 %
No Gibberish Web 2.0 Articles and keyword stuffing - depends on what "gibberish" is, but over SEO-ing is a "no do"

What you called "Do's":
Quality Content on your website - it's there, but Google is too sluggish to see it!
Guest Blogging - especially if you post quality guest articles with referential links, yes
submission to just a few high PR directories - well, honestly this is what surprisingly "almost didn't work" to me in some cases...
Promotion of your website in a proper way on Social media - what do you mean by this?

In my opinion, you should add YouTube advertising. It still works.

Thanks

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Make Money Ninja

13 years ago

I dont want to call you wrong sir..

But you are wrong.

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LogoDesignExpert 13 years ago

Originally Posted by Make Money Ninja

I dont want to call you wrong sir..

But you are wrong.

Thanks for posting here, But let me make it clear its not my own opinion - I have just pasted the webmasters guidelines here, so if you say i'm wrong then you are saying Google is wrong.

Anybody who think that its my personal opinion please read the google webmaster guidelines before you post.

Thanks
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smodha

13 years ago

Forum posting is great for free traffic. It's what I use to get between 200-500 unique visitors per day when launching new products.

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Make Money Ninja

13 years ago

You ever thought that google could tell you a lie?

You do realize there is a conflict of interest between telling them that "spam" works.

Thanks

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SerenaGomez

13 years ago

Thanks for the share.

IMO, Google will consider those links that adds value to the community. Here are some of the techniques:

Answer questions
Participate in Social Media
Participate in Conferences
Create how tos & tutorials
Develop extensions, plugins and widgets (open source)
Produce videos

Originally Posted by LogoDesignExpert

Hello All,

I'm no expert on SEO, but providing my personal experience - yesterday there has been a massive change in website rankings thanks to an unconfirmed update in algorithm by google, my website too went down along with others - the defination of spam link building strategy is pretty clear -

The Don'ts

No comments on blogs with anchor texts

No Anchor text Signatures in forum posts

No Mass social Bookmarking

No submission to directories that low PR or PR 0

No Participation in Link Exchange Scheme

No Gibberish Web 2.0 Articles and keyword stuffing.

( courtesy - Google webmasters guidelines)

The Do's What matters now..........

Quality Content on your website

Guest Blogging

submission to just a few high PR directories ( most of them are paid )

Promotion of your website in a proper way on Social media

..............................If anybody else here know about more about the DO's please contribute to this post and correct me if i'm wrong at any place.

Thanks

PS - I thought forum posting with signatures was OK until yesterday but my site came down on rankings yesterday so even that method too is spam now.

Thanks

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