Getting backlinks - is this a good idea/

[Humf]

Do most people here manually build their own backlinks as I saw some software that will do it for you but it seems a bit spammy.

What is the best way to build links? Blog commenting, forum profiles, article submission and social bookmarking? How many sites should I submit my link to? Doing the DIY way seems to take a very long time.

 

[wb]

What is the best way to build links?
Avoid automated 'blackhat' software. Build variety of quality links and keep things varied.

How many sites should I submit my link to?
How long is a piece of string? Depends on a number of things including how competitive the niche is and how much weight the links provide for you.

Doing the DIY way seems to take a very long time.
No pain, no gain. Look at it as having a profitable website for long term, not as a get rich quick scheme.

 

[Humf]

Thanks for your help. I am a little worried now as I paid a company to create me 1000 backlinks in forum profiles, hopefully it isn't spammy because I didn't ask.

 

[cc976a]

1,000 backlinks on random forums IS spammy - you may get penalised but then again you may not, it's going to all depend on how Google sees it (and frankly no-one know until it's happend).....but imagine going to Google and saying I've paid a company £xx to put 1,000 backlinks to my site from random sources with the main intention of increasing my search engine position. Do YOU think they may interpret this as spammy?

I think people focus too much on the goal of backlinks - and what's the cheapest and easiest way to get these. Really my personal view is to see backlink building as marketing.

I want to see a bit more from backlinks than random link pages. I would rather build links with the basis of attracting visitors, traffic and potential customers. Would I be seeking out this backlink IF I knew the benefits on Google would be zero. If I wouldn't then don't bother.

Keep on this premise and not only will your backlinks be relevant but Google will love you even more and you may be able to start generating traffic outside of Google (no, you heard it here first, it does exist!)

1,000 random links from random sites in one go - not sure if I could get more spammy really (yes I do 10,000 links )

In all honesty if this is a test site and not end of the world if it is penalised then give it a go. There's no experience like your own experience

 

[AuthorityDomain]

Some great advice there from cc976a

Think Organic

Find related sites/blogs to try and get links/banners on as not only might they give you some nice link juice, they may also send you more traffic to your site.

 

[Boiler repair]

...What is the best way to build links? ...

The best way to get back links is actually really simple when you think about it.

When you go back to the basics, the root purpose of seo is to get more traffic to your site.

One of the most effective way of achieving that is getting people to WANT to tell their ( web ) friends: “Hey, check this out!” because they find it really useful. Some of them will then link to you on their own website, write about you in their blog, or stick a link in forums they visit. I have a number of pages on my website that give practical, step by step information about what to do and what not to do when there is a suspected gasleak. I even tell them how to get it made safe in less than an hour, and paid for by the industry.

Click here to see how -> Useful LINK example

Not only are the chances good that people will create/posts links to that part of my site, it is also very likely that a significant percentage of those links will come from sites with related content. Content related links are far more valuable than random links. For example, in my line of business ( gas boiler repairs in south London ) I want links from gas sites, consumer sites, boiler sites, diy sites, home improvement and that kind of subjects preferably located in the UK.

What are the chances of somebody in Rome who finds a link to boiler repairs on a website about tomato growing in Italy is actually going to look at a site about boiler repairs and gas problems? How about a home owner in Bromley ( south east London suburb ) who finds it on an English diy forum?

Google's algorithms also recognise this, and allocate many times more weight to a link from a related website than one from a random site.

The moral of the story: provide helpful content in your website and “tell” people that are likely to benefit from reading it, and your site will naturally get more traffic.

 

[Ashton]

Woah Boiler repair,

3 Hyphens in a domain? Huge wall of text with no line height set, nearly none of the images work.

I'm back in the 90s

Check your competitors, if they have bought links and haven't received any penalty then you are going to have quite a hard time beating them, without buying links anyway.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/paid-links-can-you-rank-well-without-them

However I am no SEO guru/genius/expert!

 

[Boiler repair]

Woah Boiler repair,

3 Hyphens in a domain? Huge wall of text with no line height set, nearly none of the images work.

I'm back in the 90s

I know, tell me about it.
The site was originally set up by an "expert" using some stupid "all in one" provider using templates and diy website compilers.
When I took control of the site myself and moved it to a normal host, all the images, buttons and such stopped working. I had to learn the basics of webdesign and seo in my spare time on the double, so steep learning process.

Nothing much I can do about the domain name unless I want to ditch it and start again, loosing the maturation and links in the process.

It doesn't seem to be to bad as the authoirty is good, rising fast, and the traffic and google ranking pretty impressive for a zero budget diy site.

I am learing as fast as I can by joining webdesign/seo forums, reading blogs and books about it, and applying what I read/learn as I go along.
My greatest asset is that I am an engineer publishing about what I know, rather than a webdesigner who knows nothing about the actual subject of the site he is building. One thing is for sure, my content quality is top and that is something Google likes a lot.
It also gets me mentioned on forums, blogs, and people create back links to my pages without me having to ask or pay for it.

 

[rob]

...and you spam forums

 

[Boiler repair]

...and you spam forums

One thing I strive for myself, is exposing my site in such a way that most people ( I hope ) who click on links that I publish for whatever direct reason ( example of my latest page, example of what I want to improve looks wise, etc ) also find some information that can be of help to them.

I have found that as long as you don't abuse it, dropping the occasional link very rarely leads to objections from forum members/moderators if it really contains useful info.
Regardless of knowledge and/or interest in the subject, I have at least two pages on my website that have useful tips for just about anyone who is not a heating engineer.
You have to be a really hardcore no-links-campaigner to judge those pages as spam.

The vast majority of people are happy to read something they can benefit from, which is the "secret" of generating free links.

 

[rob]

Username boiler repairs, homepage dofollow profile link, links to own site in first posts - and posts on link build on domain forum.

Ticks the spam box to me.

 

[Boiler repair]

Username boiler repairs,

Why not? My business and website are what it says on the tin.

homepage dofollow profile link,

Only because the choice was homepage or no page. Linking to your homepage is the last thing you should do if you have a choice of links options. I only use it if box explicitly says: HOMEpage url.

links to own site in first posts

Of course their is a link to my site; this forum is about domains.

- and posts on link build on domain forum.

Since the Panda overhaul, it appears that one of the most significant changes has taken place since the penalties for keyword stuffing came in.
Where it used to be a case of: the more links the better, it is now QUALITY links that matter.
Not only that, sites are now heavily penalised for using bad ( irrelevant artificial ) links.
The two pages I have on my site about ch controls and gas leaks, are ( I think ) excellent examples of pages that people link to without being asked to do so.

Ticks the spam box to me.

The key concepts of the qualification of spam, are irrelevance and no-value-added .
Examples of useful content pages are neither irrelevant, nor no-value.
I have posted links to David Amerland's site and book on numerous occasions of forums when diy seo came up. Would you call that spam too?

 

[bensd]

When I took control of the site myself and moved it to a normal host, all the images, buttons and such stopped working. I had to learn the basics of webdesign and seo in my spare time on the double, so steep learning process.

The images aren't working because they're aren't there!

Did you copy across the "imgs" folder when you moved host?

 

[Boiler repair]

The images aren't working because they're aren't there!

Did you copy across the "imgs" folder when you moved host?

The original host company ( sitsell )were extremely unhelpful and basically did what they could to stop accounts from leaving. They went as far as giving me wrong information as to what was needed to move my site, and simply refused me access to the images that were on their server.
In the end, I simply downloaded my pages from the web and uploaded the result onto the new server. It was the best I could do.

Let this be a warning to anyone considering sitesell, it is a bad idea and a normal hosting company gets you much better results.

 

[theonemanyuri]

I don't think you'll find anyone on here considering sitesell lol. The point you make is quite right though.

 

[harryhamlin]

NEVER EVER go with Auto Submitters..it's waste of TIME and MONEY..what ever you do..just do manually..it's worth doing..

 

[arold10]

I would recommend you to build your links manually. As you mention in your post there are various link building methods that you can use. I would suggest you to focus much more on the one that you more comfortable at. Using automated tool can also be a bad idea since those links can be seen as spammy.

 

[rob]

I would recommend you to build your links manually. As you mention in your post there are various link building methods that you can use. I would suggest you to focus much more on the one that you more comfortable at. Using automated tool can also be a bad idea since those links can be seen as spammy.

Also dropping a dofollow link into forum profiles works well doesnt it?

I await more spammers on this thread

 

[retired_member21]

Rob

Is there a plugin / something similar to automatically add-on 'nofollow' to any poster with < x posts ?

You seem to know your stuff on VB, perhaps there's a plugin to aid what you see as an issue

 

[Boiler repair]

Maybe a simple rule emphasis is enough. Something along the lines of: you can only post a link if: 1, 2, 3.

Personally, I think that it is logical to expect posting of links on any forum to do with websites. It just isn't realistic to expect people to follow instructions like: go to the website in my profile and find the page about such and such.

Nobody likes spam, and it is easy enough ( I think ) to tell the difference between a posted link that is perfectly functional in the context, and spam.