do forum links have value?
- Thread starter mugatea
- Start date
N
Ninja Commerce
Hi Jamie.
A lot of forums links will be nofollowed, so these will probably have little if any value.
Dofollowed forum links should have some value I would have thought, although these types of links are easily spammed, so that could potentially weaken the value of genuine links.
Personally I find forum links are very valuable to my business, but that is based on the traffic they supply rather than any SEO value.
If you find that forum links provide good, targeted traffic then any SEO value is just a bonus.
Unfortunately it's pretty hard to guess how much weight google puts on such links but I would have thought it would also depend on how much content is in the relevant posts and possibly even; who actually made the post with the link.
A lot of forums links will be nofollowed, so these will probably have little if any value.
Dofollowed forum links should have some value I would have thought, although these types of links are easily spammed, so that could potentially weaken the value of genuine links.
Personally I find forum links are very valuable to my business, but that is based on the traffic they supply rather than any SEO value.
If you find that forum links provide good, targeted traffic then any SEO value is just a bonus.
Unfortunately it's pretty hard to guess how much weight google puts on such links but I would have thought it would also depend on how much content is in the relevant posts and possibly even; who actually made the post with the link.
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eventdomain
Forum links are pointless. People who buy from a 'business' will use a search engine or directory to find suppliers.
Forum link spam is what it is, and the reason for spamming is also obvious - if a link is easy to obtain, then its probably worthless - a good chance at least its going to be. Worthless is mostly anything totally free, that makes it difficult to locate your weblinks.
Basically, its a waste of time, I personally think its a desperate way to get work, and forums tend to be NOT set up very well to promote businesses, as the promotional features are flawed and minimalistic compared to proper, bespoke web design.
And its the advertising features you need to consider - but the obvious thing is a forums audience - the majority of forums are way too general a community to convert the sales necessary to sustain a business OR bring en-mass traffic that does any good or has significant value.
Forums do help to advise a tad, but you'll rarely find that 'Gold' that turns you into a millionaire. Such people dont promote themselves so openly like forum members do, they don't need to, as they already know how to promote a site and thus don't rely on forum links.
Forum link spam is what it is, and the reason for spamming is also obvious - if a link is easy to obtain, then its probably worthless - a good chance at least its going to be. Worthless is mostly anything totally free, that makes it difficult to locate your weblinks.
Basically, its a waste of time, I personally think its a desperate way to get work, and forums tend to be NOT set up very well to promote businesses, as the promotional features are flawed and minimalistic compared to proper, bespoke web design.
And its the advertising features you need to consider - but the obvious thing is a forums audience - the majority of forums are way too general a community to convert the sales necessary to sustain a business OR bring en-mass traffic that does any good or has significant value.
Forums do help to advise a tad, but you'll rarely find that 'Gold' that turns you into a millionaire. Such people dont promote themselves so openly like forum members do, they don't need to, as they already know how to promote a site and thus don't rely on forum links.
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Short answer is no they are not valuable, however they can have some value.
Most forums are nofollow; as has already been pointed out; so they carry no link juice; and if they did the juice would be weak and they wouldn't offer good value anyway.
Whether or not the links (i.e. signature links) are valuable in the sense of direct referral (i.e. user reading post and clicking link) would really depend on what you do, your reputation on the forum, the audience of that forum etc.
It's not going to be a highly lucrative marketing effort. It's best just to use forums for the love of using them. Have a sig link just for the sakes of having something "on the off chance".
If you want value you need a strategy and a well thought our campaign.
Most forums are nofollow; as has already been pointed out; so they carry no link juice; and if they did the juice would be weak and they wouldn't offer good value anyway.
Whether or not the links (i.e. signature links) are valuable in the sense of direct referral (i.e. user reading post and clicking link) would really depend on what you do, your reputation on the forum, the audience of that forum etc.
It's not going to be a highly lucrative marketing effort. It's best just to use forums for the love of using them. Have a sig link just for the sakes of having something "on the off chance".
If you want value you need a strategy and a well thought our campaign.
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D
digital way
It's pretty hard for anyone to definitively say as the specifics of Google's ranking algorithms are unknown. All we do know is Google wants to serve up good, unique relevant content so people continue to use Google. My experience is forum backlinks do seem to help but I'm careful to post something useful and engage on the forum in a meaningful way (or humorous way). The reasons for this are I need to look after the forum as the forum is looking after me and spammy crap just makes you look like an imbecile. It's also a place where you can build relationships but only if you come across as honest and intelligent.
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- Original Poster
- #6
ok, I want to point out that the forum links I'm getting are not posted by me whatsoever, they are posted by forum members on related websites letting fellow members know about pages that are relevant to them.
That seems probably like the most natural link someone can get so surely it must have value in google, eh?
That seems probably like the most natural link someone can get so surely it must have value in google, eh?
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Suzuki
Why would Google want to trust links on forums? Look at your contributions here as a perfect example. You've gave yourself 4 highly targeted links... pointing to targeted pages with commercial anchor texts.
Sift or UKBF didn't place those links, and probably don't even know they are there. They weren't editorially given, they were stuck there by a random 3rd party (you).
I know they are signature links and not in post links... but the exact same issue applies of absolutely anyone can come along and link to whatever they want. There is no way those links should be passing any real domain authority.
You might get some that do temporarily... but its not a long term tactic. If most of your natural links are coming from this then imo you need a serious rethink of your online strategy.
Sift or UKBF didn't place those links, and probably don't even know they are there. They weren't editorially given, they were stuck there by a random 3rd party (you).
I know they are signature links and not in post links... but the exact same issue applies of absolutely anyone can come along and link to whatever they want. There is no way those links should be passing any real domain authority.
You might get some that do temporarily... but its not a long term tactic. If most of your natural links are coming from this then imo you need a serious rethink of your online strategy.
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Forums are used for product discussions, just like social media and review sites.
If a search engine sees a keyword rich, multi-thread post referencing a particular product-URL, and you've not obviously contrived/spammed/spun this across multiple-sites (or tried to game the system with a keyword-rich link anchor), this type of mention/link can be golden.
I've seen a number of these types of links in backlink profiles for highly ranked terms. You'll find these a lot more often than profile spam links, that's for sure!!
Getting people mentioning the brand, whether linked or not, across niche relevant forums = validation. It's part of the social buzz that we attribute to social media, but which exists outside of 'core social sites'.
You should be getting traffic from that forum thread. If it's a positive discussion, more than a few posts in length, and you're not getting traffic, then ask why not.
Build links for traffic, hope for conversions.
Build loyalty for repeat business, hope for referrals.
If a search engine sees a keyword rich, multi-thread post referencing a particular product-URL, and you've not obviously contrived/spammed/spun this across multiple-sites (or tried to game the system with a keyword-rich link anchor), this type of mention/link can be golden.
I've seen a number of these types of links in backlink profiles for highly ranked terms. You'll find these a lot more often than profile spam links, that's for sure!!
Getting people mentioning the brand, whether linked or not, across niche relevant forums = validation. It's part of the social buzz that we attribute to social media, but which exists outside of 'core social sites'.
You should be getting traffic from that forum thread. If it's a positive discussion, more than a few posts in length, and you're not getting traffic, then ask why not.
Build links for traffic, hope for conversions.
Build loyalty for repeat business, hope for referrals.
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E
eventdomain
Judging from various posts, their all heavily devalued eg: sitting at position 100+ and beyond in the SERPS - so they clearly aren't deemed of that much worth. Page 10+ isn't a good rank, ok its not awful - just not where most expect to be due to egotistical wants and all that as so many derive pleasure from the unobtainable No1 spot.
Also the forum content can only ever be of one type eg: forum posts, so it says nothing of originality in link-profile terms - Not good....
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D
Deleted member 62716
I think what is really being asked here is:
"How do I determine the value of a link?"
Here are a few criteria to consider:
1. The PageRank of the page that the link will be on. Everything else being equal - a link on a PR5 page is more valuable than a link on a PR4 page.
2. Is it a followed link? As had been pointed out 'nofollow' links are practically worthless for SEO purposes. Therefore a followed link on a PR2 page is more valuable than a nofollow link on a PR6 page.
3. Will the link contain anchor text? If you are trying to rank a page for the term 'UK bike parts for sale' - then a link with that anchor text will be more valuable than a link to your homepage.
In the case of forums links that you asked about:
Most of the pages in this forum are PageRank 0. The links are 'nofollowed'. According to the above criteria - they aren't worth very much.
Hope this helps.
"How do I determine the value of a link?"
Here are a few criteria to consider:
1. The PageRank of the page that the link will be on. Everything else being equal - a link on a PR5 page is more valuable than a link on a PR4 page.
2. Is it a followed link? As had been pointed out 'nofollow' links are practically worthless for SEO purposes. Therefore a followed link on a PR2 page is more valuable than a nofollow link on a PR6 page.
3. Will the link contain anchor text? If you are trying to rank a page for the term 'UK bike parts for sale' - then a link with that anchor text will be more valuable than a link to your homepage.
In the case of forums links that you asked about:
Most of the pages in this forum are PageRank 0. The links are 'nofollowed'. According to the above criteria - they aren't worth very much.
Hope this helps.
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No idea what posts you're believing, but have a look at the backlink profile for grayhost.com.
Their top 40 or so backlinks are from forums, including within the simplemachines.org/community/ which are dofollow links from a site with Ahrefs Domain Rank of 99.9996 (*whistles*) and Ahrefs Rank (think page authority) of 9K.
With a TrustRank of 10 (out of 10) a Trust Flow of 29, plus the above stats, I'm thinking the demise of forum links has been greatly exaggerated.
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Suzuki
Grayhost.com is a parked domain that doesn't rank for anything presumably, so not sure how looking at its backlinks tells you much?
If anything it tells you those type of links didn't work, or someone wouldn't have chose to let it expire in the first place
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graywebhost.com - is what happens when I type instead of copy and paste....
And is the first link I saw when I randomly clicked into the simplemachines community section.
If a site has 1,000 links and you judge any one of them based on how it ranks for a term, you've probably misjudged it by a factor of 999:1.
We have to be able to judge link quality on metrics we personally believe are correlated to rankings. You can't build the link AFTER you have the link and measured the rank changes to decide if you should build it.... You have to decide BEFORE you build it whether or not it's worth the effort/expense.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc just doesn't hold water.
And is the first link I saw when I randomly clicked into the simplemachines community section.
If a site has 1,000 links and you judge any one of them based on how it ranks for a term, you've probably misjudged it by a factor of 999:1.
We have to be able to judge link quality on metrics we personally believe are correlated to rankings. You can't build the link AFTER you have the link and measured the rank changes to decide if you should build it.... You have to decide BEFORE you build it whether or not it's worth the effort/expense.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc just doesn't hold water.
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Suzuki
Yes but if you look at the search results all day long and you consistently see people ranking well with one type of link profile, and another set of people consistently doing badly with another profile, you start to get a picture of what works and what doesn't.
You don't even really seem to be making a point... anyone can pick a random site and choose a bunch of links that point to it. I don't see how you can make the jump from it having these links, to them being quality links. The links are quite clearly crap to me.
You don't even really seem to be making a point... anyone can pick a random site and choose a bunch of links that point to it. I don't see how you can make the jump from it having these links, to them being quality links. The links are quite clearly crap to me.
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There are two threads on forum links with the overall signal that forum links are crap - considering some of the first engines for link spam was built off forums which worked then and still works now suggest forum links aren't crap.
For a white hat site, forum links could lay the foundation for something to build on if done correctly.
But guestbooks are crap, and they still outrank you
Trust rank metrics is crap too
To answer the question do they have value, yes they do. I still doubt signature links are deemed in Google eyes as signature links, but in context link building works as it did before.
For a white hat site, forum links could lay the foundation for something to build on if done correctly.
But guestbooks are crap, and they still outrank you
Trust rank metrics is crap too
To answer the question do they have value, yes they do. I still doubt signature links are deemed in Google eyes as signature links, but in context link building works as it did before.
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I have often thought about this because I too get most natural links via forums; I came to the conclusion that I just don't care... Forums (as with Facebook and Twitter) are places where customers and potential customers share our products and services with others... It is good not to just rely on search engines for traffic and have other sources which Forum links give us.
Sorry that doesn't answer your question but as I said, I just don't care. Slightly off topic but I have also wondered how search engines would distinguish between a good referral link (i.e. "look at this great product <link>") and a bad one (i.e. "don't use this company <link>") and are they able to give a different link weight to each?
Mick
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I think Mick has the right idea.
Post to give value, build links with an eye to traffic as a primary consideration. When you're starting to work in concerns about backlink building, look to high trust and authority sites.
The more traffic you build from diverse sources, the less dependent you become on the benevolence of big G. As organic traffic % goes down, so too does the risk of making a small site change and losing tons of traffic, or finding that something which used to be standard best practice is now felonious link building.
Post to give value, build links with an eye to traffic as a primary consideration. When you're starting to work in concerns about backlink building, look to high trust and authority sites.
The more traffic you build from diverse sources, the less dependent you become on the benevolence of big G. As organic traffic % goes down, so too does the risk of making a small site change and losing tons of traffic, or finding that something which used to be standard best practice is now felonious link building.
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PawsPlaza
I was advised by an SEO expert to use forums to create backlinks, but I find the few I do bother with (incl this one) actually to be more beneficial for contacts and advice and maybe, hopefully brand awareness (ie I am good guy! and if some WANTS a pet product, they might think of me).
You probably know this but if you type in to google "links: http://www.yourdomainname.co.uk/" or .com as appropriate, it will show you your back links, and interestingly for me the first one that comes up when I do this is a petforum I use
You probably know this but if you type in to google "links: http://www.yourdomainname.co.uk/" or .com as appropriate, it will show you your back links, and interestingly for me the first one that comes up when I do this is a petforum I use
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I have thousands of forum links going back to the dim and distant past. I didn't put them there, they are all linking to various products and pages real people wanted to recommend to their friends. They are genuine natural links.
In recent times these links have become basically worthless due to the machinations of crumby SEO companies perverting the use of links on forums.
I'd say these days, link for traffic, not for juice. Forum links can still contribute a little to the former. So, if anyone needs a fart machine or some fancy dress?
In recent times these links have become basically worthless due to the machinations of crumby SEO companies perverting the use of links on forums.
I'd say these days, link for traffic, not for juice. Forum links can still contribute a little to the former. So, if anyone needs a fart machine or some fancy dress?
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