Do NOFOLLOW backlinks have ANY value? or did I waste money?

[limens]

So, I hired a helping hand to create some back-links for me (in form of comments on some blogs and forums etc)

About 60% of those links created are using "nofollow" attribute in the link.

Is there ANY - ANY! value in creating such links? or is just wasted time and money and Google will absolutely not give any love for NOFOLLOW links?

please share you insight.

thnak you.

[Jinx14678]

Every Link is not necessarily counted....

If the Blog comment was a nofollow outside of his niche, and on a completely irrelevant subject, it can't necessarily "hurt" but it sure wont help.

Maybe back in the days when Authority was based solely on the amount of links or Page Rank. But sorry, from a long term Internet Marketing and Strategy perspective it is a waste of money to get 60% Nofollow blog comments, especially since it was done by someone who there is no idea what he was posting.

So maybe if you just want to make your clients do good for a few weeks or even months, but as a longterm strategy paying someone to do this is a wasted effort in the grand scheme/big picture.

Where you are correct, a link is a link in the fact that someone looking for a service may see the post and if it is genuine and on topic you may get residual traffic, or even a conversion.

But as a strict link building tactic... It is very weak and money could be alloted to other places for more return on investment.

It is not always about just gaining links... it is about Return on the money invested.

SO in the aspect of return, it was a waste of money, but sure your right, he gained a few links.....

[lluisgerard]

Maybe those links have little SEO value but in the other hand, if you really help on specific forums, you have potential clients there. It all depends, let me explain:

We had this experience with Spanish forums about joomla (we don't use joomla anymore). My partnership helped other people never thinking about SEO or whatever, just helping about things that she know that she was ahead of others and giving right answers. Our experience was that some people just tried and failed to create his own website with joomla and then, searching about it on forums and google, to find help, found our answer and thought, ok, this person knows it better than me, so I'm gona hire her.

So I don't think you wasted your money, it all depends on the focus of these forums, at least, our experience was good, and we never expected it.

[APICDA]

Hi,  Limens

Having someone put together back links for you can be a risky move.  As you have found quality control can be an issue.  Value is in the eye of the beholder.  Links are good to have.  And good could come from anywhere.

I would focus on fostering links on your own in the future.  Take a look at where your competition is getting em..... and maybe where they are not.  With that information there may be a number of directions you may go.

Open Site Explorer and Competitive Link finder can be of great help.  Good Luck!

[SlavaRybalka]

You didn't waste your money. A link is a link.

Check your competitors using SEOmoz tools. What is their ratio of nofollows/dofollows.

To me it seems that if you had 60:40 that is awesome.

To those who claim you wasted your money - don't you guys remember that nofollow isn't the same as noindex? Every link you have is counted.

[icecarats]

Agreed with these others. At best, the NoFollow link will generate actual traffic but will have little ranking influence. I've always found this kind of tactic somewhat risky myself, because there's always a chance you could end up on something spamtrackers.eu or stopforumspam.com, which in turn feed into other services like Web Of Trust, URLVoid, etc. To me it seems chancy to trust your good name with a third party in edge cases like these.

[Jinx14678]

Lets say a REALLY powerful and trusted site in your Niche gives you a NoFollow, then the user/traffic benefits are good. Also Some NoFollow helps to make you look more natural.   but 60% that is REALLY HIGH

In my opinion, sorry... You wasted your money, Live and Learn right?

Maybe not a waste of time as maybe you might get some residual traffic, but cannot say that for sure.

Happy SEO'ing

w00t!

[SimonCullum]

Hi there, from how you've described the link building that you outsourced, 'commenting on blogs and forums', there will likely be little SEO value to be had there, especially as so many links are not followed (though some no follow links can still pass link juice). It's the non-relevance and poor quality factors of those blogs, forums and links that will not help to add any Search value for your website, if that's the case which is very likely when outsourcing such link building, depends on the professionalism and competence of the agency being used.

Though can't be sure without a proper analysis of the blogs and forums in question.

Guest blogging is an important part of inbound marketing, helping to build up ones' profile and Authoritiveness. However simply commenting for the purposes of link building is all too often wasted effort and money.

I'd suggest focusing on creating some really useful socially shareable content and distribute it well. You'll find the links being obtained as a result of great content work far more valuable and beneficial.

Regards, Simon

[webfeatseo]

They will not help you rank. But they help with your link diversity by having a wide range of links from multiple sources making it look a bit more natural. But then it could also hurt if the links are on totally irrelevant sites and look spammy with 200 other poorly posted blog comments.

Short answer you wasted your money and need to come up with a better strategy.