Value / Risk of links in comments (nofollow)
-
Recently I noticed a couple of comments on our blog that seemed nice and relevant so I approved them. The site is wordpress and comments are configured nofollow. We don't get many comments so I thought "why not?". Today I got one and noticed they are all coming from the same IP. They all include urls to sites in the same industry as us, relevant sites and all different. Looks like an SEO is doing it for various clients.
My question is what is the value of these nofollow links for the poster? Are these seen as "mentions" and add value to Google?
And am I better off trashing them so my site is not associated?
Thanks
-
Would that be Google's "Badger"?
-
I think that there are a lot of people out there who have not gotten the "message" about nofollow.
Also, a lot of people, maybe including me, who believe in the "reverse psychology algo".
-
Thanks Patrick and EGOL. I will be trashing them.
Still curious about why the tactic when it is a nofollow. The clients appear very reputable but have no clue what the SEO is doing, no doubt. Feel bad for them.
-
lol Yes. We sell hammers here. I have some good ones and have close to seven decades of experience at swinging them.
-
In other words, the hammer came down.
-
I have opened my blogs to comments on a couple of occasions. Each time weasels came in and posted their rubbish. Some of them are idiots who leave comments that are obvious spam. However, some are so skillful that you don't realize that they are spam with a shallow reading.
So, my decision was between not allowing links and closing the comments. I closed the comments and am happy about it.
-
Hi there
I would trash them, especially if you can see that they are manipulative and repeating.
You want to have integrity for your comments section, so even though they are nofollow, you don't want to become a link dump for a SEO who is a hack.
Hope this helps! Good luck!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
C-Block and link juice
We manage a couple of different domains on different hosting providers. I want to consolidate to one provider, but one site has some good links juice to another site (actually just one link). Should I worry about having both sites on the same C-block - and probably the same IP address?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ThomasErb0 -
Low quality links
Hi I have found a lot of links from a majestic report (not found on moz open site explorer). inwhich I have found lots of links from 2010 and possibly earlier which either I can't get hold of the webmaster. Is a disavow the right way to go if I can't get them removed myself? Also I have noticed that there are a lot of free directories listing new pages from our site and I am concerned Google are going to find these. I surpose there is nothing I can do about this, does anyone have any recommendations.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Cocoonfxmedia0 -
No cache still a good link for disavow?
Hi Yall, 2 scenarios: 1. I'm on the border line of disavowing some websites that link to me. If the page is N/A (not available) for the cache, does that mean i should disavow them? 2. What if the particular page was really good content and the webmaster just has the worse seo skills in not interlinking his old blogs, hence why the page that's linking to me is N/A for cache, should i still disavow it? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Shawn1240 -
Are Directories Still of Any Value?
I know directories are an out-dated way to gain backlinks but the more I look into competitors that rank high link porfolio - many of thier top links come from paid directories. Granted, these can be old links but they still maintain highest authority, etc. Do you guys find directories still valuable as a linking building strategy?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | PaulDylan2 -
Does posting a source to the original content avoid duplicate content risk?
A site I work with allows registered user to post blog posts (longer articles). Often, the blog posts have been published earlier on the writer's own blog. Is posting a link to the original source a sufficient preventative solution to possibly getting dinged for duplicate content? Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | 945010 -
Link quality warning from GWT and drop in keyword ranking.
So last December we saw our hard work pay off as our Panda penalty was lifted and our traffic shot back up to pre-Panda levels. Then in February we received this note: We've reviewed your site and we still see links to your site that violate our quality guidelines. Specifically, look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could be intended to manipulate PageRank. Examples of unnatural linking could include buying links to pass PageRank or participating in link schemes. Since December we've lost position on 80% of our top 100 keywords. I've gone through our links and can't figure out what the problem may be. Maybe I'm not using OSE properly. We don't buy links so I'm not sure what the problem is. If someone can walk me through using OSE to see what the problem may be I would appreciate it. Our domain is http://bit.ly/rbkYkp
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | IanTheScot0 -
The Link in Profile Page is it good BackLink or not?
Well, i see that we need 200mozpoints to be able to put our Website Link (DOFOLLOW) into our profile in SEOMOZ.. the way i know it, it would be a good BackLink for my site. Here is the questions, please do answer from top to bottom, because if you have answered "NOT GOOD" for the first question, then the rest of the question will definitely be "NOT GOOD" too Every single back link source i used below (for question #2 and #3), comes from a good domain (it is an extremely wellknown website in Indonesia) 1. Is the DOFOLLOW link from my SEOMOZ Profile Page , a good back link? 2. is the DOFOLLOW from http://www.indonesiaindonesia.com/m4g1c14n a good back link 3. is the DOFOLLOW from http://www.kaskus.us/member.php?u=10407 (click the Contact Info), a good back link? okay, only if you answered the first 3 questions with "It is a good backlink, and it will definitely help your SEO Standing for your site", then i ask you my real question.. i was planning to use the service from http://www.monsterbacklinks.com , and i asked them to show me what kind of "High Quality Backlink" they will be giving me, here is their reply, 10 examples of profile they use to backlink to one of their client Domain PR 4--http://www.sanramon.org/user/12548
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | IKT
Domain PR 5--http://extratasty.com/profile/42069/paulc4312
Domain PR 5--http://www.bug.co.uk/forums/members/paulc4312.html
Domain PR 5--http://www.offspring.com/forums/member.php?u=84973
Domain PR 5--http://www.massify.com/profiles/paulcpaul
Domain PR 6--http://www.gamezone.com/member/159751/
Domain PR
5--http://www.indyarocks.com/profile/profile_vview_main.php?uid=6155724
Domain PR 6--http://classic.mapmywalk.com/user_profile?u=866130762956343886
Domain PR 5--http://www.netbookreviews.com/forum/members/paulc4312.html
Domain PR 5--http://www.thepoint.com/users/paul-c-2/profile
Domain PR 5--http://forums.cagepotato.com/members/paulc4312.html In my eyes, all of those links are as good as the one link coming from SEOMOZ Profile, hell in fact i have already purchased from them the 750 High Quality BackLink package (cost 197$), but my PayPal is being lock down just now, because i login to my account from both my cellphone and pc (they think my account is hacked)... so will i increase my SEO Standing if i used their service? if they are, i will finalized my purchase tomorrow (after i settled the problem with paypal) Their FAQ Page is also very convincing .. such these 2 questions Will I get penalized for paying you to do my backlinks? There is no way you will get penalized for paying us to do your backlinks. It is possible to get penalized for paying people to put links on their sites but that's not what you're buying from us. When purchasing from us you are paying us to place thousands of free backlinks. There is absolutely no way Google can penalize you for this. Will Google ban/sandbox me for getting so many backlinks? We have never had any problems with getting sanboxed or banned by google. None of our customers have had any problems either. If our methods of placing backlinks were to get a site penalized or banned then we would be sending thousands of links towards our competitors sites. But since our methods work great for increasing search engine rankings, we would never use our backlinking on our competitors because that will damage our rankings and boost theirs. Please enlighten me 🙂0 -
What's been your experience with profile link-building?
What have your experiences been? Short Term? Long Term? There isn't a lot written about it, and I'm wondering where it falls in the order of things. I was very hesitant to jump in, but have launched a few campaigns, both for local geo targeting phrases, and national accounts. Surprisingly, I've seen a surge in rankings, but also wonder how short lived they will be. I've noticed the links still don't come up in tools like open site explorer, but I'm able to find them when searching for the unique username I used while building the profiles. The sites I'm listing on have no relevance to industry, unless by chance, although the PR's I'm using are all 4 or higher. Is this considered gray hat?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | skycriesmary720