Forum Backlinks?

kkkrisss · Dec 10, 2008

What do you think about forum link building when the the forum topic is not relevant to your web site? Do these links improve your rankings?

Alex-Z · Dec 10, 2008

A few thoughts:

every little helps

the juice passed is almost nothing

more than one link from a given domain doesn't make that much a difference

if you drop many, statistically some will accidentally be considered relevant by the search engines because of other stuff that happens to appear in that thread

Webtoolkeeper · Dec 12, 2008

kkkrisss said:
What do you think about forum link building when the the forum topic is not relevant to your web site? Do these links improve your rankings?

I would still want it if it is free.

accelerator · Dec 12, 2008

A better technique for building links would be writing quality articles and submitting them to article distribution sites.

Rgds

khalid · Dec 15, 2008

i wouldn't rate it, i personally think static backlinks on homepages or established sub pages are the best seo technique you can do. it's not the only technique, but definately the best imo.

Webtoolkeeper · Dec 22, 2008

kkkrisss said:
What do you think about forum link building when the the forum topic is not relevant to your web site? Do these links improve your rankings?

This article and ebook can answer all of your questions regarding forum signature advertising
Blast your ad to 300+ dofollow forums! | Webmaster Resources

kkkrisss · Feb 10, 2009

Alex-Z said:
A few thoughts:
every little helps
the juice passed is almost nothing
more than one link from a given domain doesn't make that much a difference
if you drop many, statistically some will accidentally be considered relevant by the search engines because of other stuff that happens to appear in that thread

Actually I believe that forum signatures may improve the traffic but they can't really improve the ranking of a website.

Business SEO · Feb 12, 2009

I actually did an experiment with this. I used forum posting exclusively for six weeks. I compared the results and noted improvement in all areas that I targeted. However, it meant spending several hours a day and generating a hundred links or so a day. Which isn't that difficult if you start the discussion. I must note that these were all relevant to what I do.

I did a similar test on unrelated topics and while it did help, it was not nearly as effective. It seemed to maintain positioning in the SERP's but not improve it much.

Admin · Feb 12, 2009

The impact of this is also that is causes Forum Admins, such as myself, to impose stricter registration and signature rules as people sign up just to post "thanks" in threads to promote a signature.

Admin

kkkrisss · Feb 12, 2009

Business SEO said:
I actually did an experiment with this. I used forum posting exclusively for six weeks. I compared the results and noted improvement in all areas that I targeted. However, it meant spending several hours a day and generating a hundred links or so a day. Which isn't that difficult if you start the discussion. I must note that these were all relevant to what I do.

I did a similar test on unrelated topics and while it did help, it was not nearly as effective. It seemed to maintain positioning in the SERP's but not improve it much.

Was there an improvement in ranking? And how many post are we talking about?

newbie · Feb 12, 2009

Forum signatures are backlinks - and all links count. The benefit will be dependant on the relevance of the site and content of the page with the link. After the first link from that particular site, the rest are still counted but i'd imagine to a lesser degree.

I've improved rankings using forum signatures so they definitely do count as real links.

jj1 · Feb 13, 2009

I recently saw one of our back pages shoot up from 23 to 16 in the serps after adding just forum link signatures and 1 or 2 squidoo lenses. However, these were related forums.

ddwebguru · Feb 14, 2009

Yes, it helps you get valuable oneway backlink.

Arleigh · Feb 16, 2009

I find forum sig links effective for increasing backlinks, increasing keyword rankings in serp, and traffic. Though this may depend on how active you participate on a forum and how much it is relevant to your site...

Business SEO · Feb 21, 2009

kkkrisss said:
Was there an improvement in ranking? And how many post are we talking about?

Yes, the improvement was in the SERP's.

I never advocate a "nice post" link building strategy. We believe in give to receive link building where you actually actively participate in the discussion. Linking building for links only is a short sighted approach. We understand that you should also be focusing on network and branding.

There is much value in a "nice post" comment for anyone involved. Short sighted idiots make life difficult for all. On our blog we teach ethical link building methods that ad value in exchange for links.

I am willing to add value to this forum even without signature links. Eventually, I will earn them!

kkkrisss · Feb 25, 2009

Business SEO said:
Yes, the improvement was in the SERP's.

I never advocate a "nice post" link building strategy. We believe in give to receive link building where you actually actively participate in the discussion. Linking building for links only is a short sighted approach. We understand that you should also be focusing on network and branding.

There is much value in a "nice post" comment for anyone involved. Short sighted idiots make life difficult for all. On our blog we teach ethical link building methods that ad value in exchange for links.

I am willing to add value to this forum even without signature links. Eventually, I will earn them!

Well forums are not made for backlinks in the first place.
Judging from my experience forum backlinks do not help much as far as the ranking is concerned. Apart from that I do not think that having many backlinks from the same domain is much better than having only one link from that same domain.

newbie · Feb 26, 2009

kkkrisss said:
Well forums are not made for backlinks in the first place.
Judging from my experience forum backlinks do not help much as far as the ranking is concerned. Apart from that I do not think that having many backlinks from the same domain is much better than having only one link from that same domain.

Forum backlinks definitely do help.

More than one backlink from the same domain is marginally better than a single link from that domain.

As far as numbers go, every backlink is counted. As to the weighting of each, that's another matter.

marka · Mar 2, 2009

I found that for niche domains then forum backlinks work well as a starting point. For keywords with more competition then a more broad based link building strategy is essential. Then you need to add relevance and content into the mix as well. The bottom line is that link building is a never ending exercise.