Commenting On Other Blogs to Build Backlinks?

by Sevin

Posted: 12 years ago 23 replies

INTERNET MARKETING

I was looking at a site similar to mine and was about to make a comment on one of his reviews... After all, isn't that a good way to get a link back to your site?

But before I did, I noticed there were literally thousands of comments. And most of these comments were just spam. Obviously people are just using this guy's page to get backlinks.

My question: Does google consider a page with thousands of comments and links to be a link farm? In other words, if I leave a comment with a link back to my site, will I get penalized for it? Will that backlink even do me any good?

Thanks!

#backlinks #blogs #build #commenting

Alexa Smith

Banned 12 years ago

Originally Posted by Sevin

My question: Does google consider a page with thousands of comments and links to be a link farm? In other words, if I leave a comment with a link back to my site, will I get penalized for it?

Nobody can answer this with complete certainty, but to me it seems very unlikely indeed that you'd be penalized for it; in my opinion the worst that would happen is that the backlink would simply be ignored. Which would make no difference anyway, because the linkjuice you'd get from it would be more or less in inverse proportion to the number of links on the page anyway.

Originally Posted by Sevin

Will that backlink even do me any good?

In my opinion, no: it's not worth having. I don't comment on pages like that.

(The moderators may feel that this should have been posted in the SEO Forum. I'm just mentioning that in case the thread disappears and you wonder why: that'll probably be the reason).

Thanks

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Jay Wessman 12 years ago

I doubt you'd get penalized for it but it wouldn't be worth much. I tend to steer away from auto-approve blogs with thousands of spammy comments and just stick to quality blogs.
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- fluffythewondercat 12 years ago
  
  My question: Does google consider a page with thousands of comments and links to be a link farm? In other words, if I leave a comment with a link back to my site, will I get penalized for it? Will that backlink even do me any good?
  
  Others have answered this question.
  
  The other equally-important reason for blog commenting is to build a relationship with the blogger. In this instance, you can't, because the blogger has obviously left the building.
  
  You might say, "Aw, I'm not into that social stuff, I don't really want to know this person, I just want to promote my site." I'm not recommending you and the blogger become BFFs.
  
  But the way to get ahead, advance your site, build a reputation, become an authority and (finally! she gets to it!) make more money is to think social in everything you do online.
  
  fLufF
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cragar 12 years ago

No one can really give you that answer unless they know the latest algorythm. But what if you were to be one of the first to post on the topic in a blog. After being listed as one of the first would it mean that google would see you as part of spamming after ther were 100'ss more added? No one knows that answer for you.I have had good success with backlinking by being one of the first to post and have seen good results.
I use software to help with finding these latest posts to reply on. Shhhhh.
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Ich 12 years ago

I wouln't recommend you to post a comment on that blog. It was useful to get any link even those ones several years ago but after Google Panda algorithm was applied it became obsolete.
Even if it doesn't hurt your site it definetely not worth your time.
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prasanth5 12 years ago

I don't think you will get penalized by Google unless you place your links on irrelevant or unrelated blogs. On the other hand Google I believe encourages links placed on related blogs.
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RonLeroy

12 years ago

I found guest blogging isn't way effective. You search for blogs, than realise that blogs with high PR don't allow comments or don't place them until moderation. Too much time involved in searching. You can wait answere for you comments for ages. Not fun.

In forums like this you can speek with real people enjoy conversation and see how links in your signatures added.

Thanks
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fluffythewondercat 12 years ago

I found guest blogging isn't way effective.

I'm not surprised.

I looked at your blog. It's poorly-spun incomprehensible gibberish.

"The financial issue is always worried about everyone. Their presence determines the range of human capabilities and the lack of difficult life. How to keep them, how to treat them and how to increase their financial situation?"

Professional bloggers care about what they link to. One look at that and they'll hit the Trash button.

fLufF
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Alexa Smith Banned 12 years ago

Originally Posted by RonLeroy

You search for blogs, than realise that blogs with high PR don't allow comments or don't place them until moderation.

A comment on a blog that doesn't hold them for moderation probably has no value to me, anyway. There's no value in commenting on a spamfest blog - that's the point of this thread. :rolleyes:

And "PR" isn't something I check, when blog commenting. It's just missing the point. The linkjuice is determined by the relevance of the site, and hardly at all by the page rank.

But primarily, I'm commenting for traffic and (hopefully) relationship-building, anyway. Those are the things that translate into income, for me. I'm running my business to pay money in to the bank, not to accumulate as many backlinks as possible ...
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Viramara

12 years ago

I would refrain from blogs that have thousands of unmoderated spammy comments, it simply has too many Outbound links. Not worth the time. But blog commenting works. My new website recently jumps from page 7 to page 2 from dofollow (with a bit mix of nofollow) blog commenting backlinks alone

Originally Posted by RonLeroy

what do you mean guest blogging? Maybe you mean blog commenting? Guest blogging is when you contribute a post to a blog that accept guest bloggers, to gain backlink as well as traffic (especially traffic).

Thanks

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Brendan Carl 12 years ago

No, you would not have your page rank be penalized.

Either way, the point of blog commenting is not to build backlinks, but instead to drive targeted traffic from the target blog to your site.

I have written a blog post about this on my site - the link is in my signature if you want to read more about blog commenting (or "oil rig hopping" as it is sometimes called).
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- fluffythewondercat 12 years ago
  
  Brendan, I looked at your landing page.
  
  If you're going to use that format (first three lines or so, then a "Read This Article" button), work on writing really good hooks that will compel the reader to read more.
  
  The benefits are obvious: Increases their time onsite, increases the likelihood of a conversion, reduces your bounce rate, makes it much more likely they'll read all the way through and leave a comment you can respond to.
  
  Yes, you have to build traffic. But you also have to get them to click that button.
  
  fLufF
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megawarrior

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Sevin

My question: Does google consider a page with thousands of comments and links to be a link farm? In other words, if I leave a comment with a link back to my site, will I get penalized for it? Will that backlink even do me any good?

Thanks!

Those links are created using an automated tool like Scrapebox which posts comments on autoapprove blogs ('autoapprove' means that the blog's admin doesn't need to pre-approve the comment before it goes live in the comment section).

Since the page you refer to has a high OBL (out-bound links), the backlink you'll get from commenting will be of little value since it will pass on very little link juice to your site. Furthermore, if you create too many of these links and your site is relatively new, Google may penalise your site for having spammy backlinks. That's why people attempt to create high quality links to their main sites (e.g. low OBL, high PR links) and build spammy links to their buffer sites (such as Web 2.0 properties that in turn point to their main site). The Web 2.0 properties are from authority sites so they aren't penalised, plus you don't mind what happens to them as they are not your main domain anyway.

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Sevin 12 years ago

Okay, thanks everyone! I just wanted to make sure Google didn't look down on it. I think I will leave the comment because I actually want to contribute something. Then again, if this blogger has it set on auto-approve he might never read my comment, anyway. Hmm...
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DWaters 12 years ago

Generally you want to look for blogs that have "do follow" links so that the links have SEO value. It can waste your time if you post links on "no follow" blogs as you do not get the link benefit from that.
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- Alexa Smith Banned 12 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by DWaters
  
  It can waste your time if you post links on "no follow" blogs as you do not get the link benefit from that.
  
  Respectfully, I disagree with this.
  
  Having done the difficult and time-consuming part of identifying relevant blogs of reasonable quality on which to comment, I don't now check any more whether or not they're no-follow, before commenting, because I get very worthwhile benefits from no-follow backlinks anyway.
  
  Many search engines seem to ignore "NoDoFollow".
  
  Many people believe that Google doesn't discount "nofollow" nearly as much as it sometimes claims: it's ambiguous at best.
  
  People who have already decided that "no-follow" backlinks are no good for SEO perhaps won't be interested, but those like yourself who are a little more open-minded will find many threads here explaining/discussing some interesting things about no-follow links.
  
  This one might start you off.
  
  And then there's more here, here, here, here, here, and so on.
  
  Originally Posted by Andy Button
  
  WordPress comments require moderation
  
  Many do; some don't, Andy.
  
  It depends whether they're using "Akismet" or an equivalent.
  
  Thanks
  
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JSProjects

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Sevin

I was looking at a site similar to mine and was about to make a comment on one of his reviews... After all, isn't that a good way to get a link back to your site?

But before I did, I noticed there were literally thousands of comments. And most of these comments were just spam. Obviously people are just using this guy's page to get backlinks.

My question: Does google consider a page with thousands of comments and links to be a link farm? In other words, if I leave a comment with a link back to my site, will I get penalized for it? Will that backlink even do me any good?

Thanks!

Don't bother. There are plenty of quality moderated blogs that will be more than happy to approve your comments if they're good. Sharing link juice with thousands of other spammy comments / websites isn't really something I'd want to do.

Thanks

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The Copy Warriors 12 years ago

WordPress comments require moderation, they don't show up until the blog owner approves them. So, comment on WordPress blogs
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- JSProjects 12 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Andy Button
  
  WordPress comments require moderation, they don't show up until the blog owner approves them. So, comment on WordPress blogs
  
  Not all of them are moderated.
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
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  The Copy Warriors 12 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by JSProjects
  
  Not all of them are moderated.
  
  default setting is to require moderation, i'm pretty sure.
  
  Thanks
  
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koz 12 years ago

A link farm is generally very obvious. It has the same system running throughout the network. Often from the same domain. Link building is obvious stupid blackhat work.

Commenting on a blog with thousands of comments is not a negative. In most cases comments go into pages so it then becomes a process like this forum, constant changes.

Tell-tale signs of a link farm are things like post a message and it will be sent to all members. They make you sign up and then you get all the emails like everyone else. In essence a pyramid scheme made with getting people locked into spam.

I think you would be ok, just make sure that you have links from various places and not just one place or even worse all links from the same ip address.
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DWaters 12 years ago

Many search engines seem to ignore "NoDoFollow".

Many people believe that Google doesn't discount "nofollow" nearly as much as it sometimes claims: it's ambiguous at best.

I appreciate what you are saying and I have heard from other marketers that the nofollow vs dofollow situation may not be that important. Of course sometimes it is hard to know exactly how Google is looking at things. Thant for your insight.
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Noel Cunningham 12 years ago

I wouldn't post on those sort of blogs - don't want my site to be associated with them at all. Better way is to just search around and build a list of relevant, active blogs that you can visit and participate in.

At least you know you'll be safe and you may even get a little traffic back to your own site.
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