8 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
8 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

Article links are worthless (according to LinkVana)

by Ron Douglas
6 replies
Is this just a biased sales tactic or does it have some merit?

From Linkvana's site:

"Article, forum, and guestbook links used to work, and are easy to get, but now search engines do not give you as much credit for these types of links because of constant abuse by link spammers... and are now basically worthless."
#article #links #linkvana #worthless
  • Profile picture of the author bgmacaw
    I think that it is both, a marketing tactic and at least partial correct.

    Forum links typically get diluted by the number of links on the page. Older forum pages get deindexed or ignored by Google or archived by the forum owner and links disappear. A good, contextual link in a forum post is still worthwhile though. Posting a link to a site in a niche related forum that Google grants some authority to can help with indexing and prevent some sandboxing algorithms.

    Article links can be tricky to even get indexed within the directory since so many articles are submitted every day. But, if an article gets proper distribution to blogs and other content sites with the resource box links intact then this can be effective. While the blog with the duplicate content probably won't rank well, the links get counted and your target site gets the 'points'.

    Guestbook spam, yes, that probably went out of style 8-9 years ago. I have heard, however, that oldies like this can be goodies in some cases.
    Signature
    Product Reviews | Earn Online Cash | Free HTML Templates
    Free WordPress Themes: Boring Memo | Dateless Mini-Site | Info Magazine | 100 Twenty-Ten Niche Headers
    Discount Templates, Graphics and Scripts: Templates for Website
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[267807].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author DavidO
    It could be just as likely that blog post links (as performed by Linkvana) are just as worthless! It's hard to know. I use Linkvana and articles and many other resources to get a balanced link profile. I wouldn't count too heavily on any one resource.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[267826].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author sylviad
    The benefits of article links can fall off as directories move the articles into the archives. And I would think that databases with thousands of people linking back to similar products to yours can cause a dilution in quality. Consider just one category and how many marketers are adding to it every day with links to various related products. Recently, I couldn't help noticing that SearchWarp puts Adsense right within your articles that are selling the exact product you're promoting. So from that standpoint, your articles are bound to become much less profitable for you.

    Sylvia
    Signature
    :: Got a dog? Visit my blog. Dog Talk Weekly
    :: Writing, Audio Transcription Services? - Award-winning Journalist is taking new projects. Warrior Discounts!
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[267844].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author spudzz
      If I look at my own incoming links as reported by Google there seems to be a definite hierachy:-

      1) Blog comments on high ranking blogs
      2) Trackbacks from high ranking blogs
      3) Home page static links
      ..........
      4) Article links
      ..........
      5) Commercial blog farm links

      Links from articles in article directories come a poor fourth, whereas the blog comments always seem to appear. As I always spin my articles I have been interested to see how Google treats them; after about 12 months it seems to be between 10-30 retained incoming links per distributed spun title. The more you spin your article titles, the more links seem to be retained.

      And apologies to LinkVana, Traffic Kahuna, Article Marketing Automation, Article Underground - even Search Engine Trust when it was alive (thanks for that one Ed :-( ) - but those links appear least often and disappear fastest from the SERPs. They may give an initial jump in rankings, but the links just don't seem to be retained for very long.

      This is just my own experience and I'm sure that others, particularly the blog distribution service providers, will disagree, but all that matters to me are my own results and blog commenting is far and away the most productive use of my time at present.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[267931].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author CanuckMike
    I just read an article recently where some guys from Google were interviewed and that question was asked. I will try and find the link to post so you can read the full interview as it was very enlightening.

    EDIT: I can't find it just yet, but I found this one that has some interesting points as well.
    Interview with Google's Matt Cutts at Pubcon

    They said that the quality of the article directories may not be what it used to be and the links are not worth as much as they used to be. Yes they are not worth as much, but I don't think they are useless. They are still worth something even if it is a small something...a really really small something.
    Signature
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[267948].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author warpri
    Yes, most people use article as a sales tactic, some times they send same article into the more than 500 Article directories. As you say at the cause of Article links+SE's perhaps they may be worthless. But at the marketing they're GREAT.
    Signature

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[268196].message }}

Trending Topics