Do you make member profiles on sites that have public member profile listings?
-
Or do you find that this takes more time than it is worth? I mean there are literally thousands of websites that allow you to signup and create a public profile and drop your link in there. But is this really worth the efforts?
Would like to hear from some people on both sides of the argument, as i am sure there are people who do this, and also people who don't on here.
-
then why do other SEOers do it so much?
Just sayin my philosophy... You don't have to agree... and I hope that most people don't agree.
You will not defeat a competitor by mimicing his strategies. You defeat them by doing something more effective. Keep in mind, there are only ten positions on the first page of Google for any given keyword and EVERYONE ELSE ranks lower.
-
then why do other SEOers do it so much? it must work if people do it this much, look at any of these for example. You will find literally thousands of fake profiles on each, and this is just a tiny microscopic subsection of what is out there.
http://cartthrob.com/forums/member_profile/memberlist
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/forums/observer/memberlist
http://ee.twitchfilm.net/site/forums/member/memberlist
http://www.crossfitbrandx.com/index.php/forums/member/memberlist
http://www.andrewjohnstonmusic.com/forum/member/memberlist
http://www.miniaturewargaming.com/index.php/forums/gamers/memberlist
http://www.trakax.com/software/forum/member/memberlist
http://www.realmacsoftware.com/forums/index.php/forums/member/memberlist
http://www.asbcla.org/forums/member/memberlist
http://www.cbi.com/member/memberlist -
My general rule of thumb is that if I can create a link quite easily myself then it's likely not going to be valuable.
So, if I can easily sign up for a profile on a site and create a link back to my site quickly it's likely not going to be that helpful.
With that being said, if I genuinely want to be a member of that website then I'll definitely set up a profile and take advantage of the link back. It's not going to hurt! But I wouldn't put in special effort to create profiles on sites that I really don't care about.
-
What about sites other than forums? like what about our links here on our SEOMoz profiles?
-
I don't do it.
Many of these links are nofollowed.
Many of them that are followed have very few (if any) links into them if you are not an active participant in the site, making posts and comments.
I believe that search engines can recognize these types of links if they want to and a backlink profile filled with them would look like a desperate manipulation attempt instead of a worthwhile site.
I think that my time is better spent on content. One genuine link into an article would be worth a ton of profile links on the rear ends of forums.
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
-
Alt text from an external site
We have a relevant external website that is linking to our site through an image. What ideally should the alt text of this image be? Should it just be non-commercial as generally advised with the anchor text of an external link? Or should it include where suitable relevant keywords? Keen to know people's thoughts here! Thanks.
Link Building | | Gavo0 -
Free PR Sites
Is it advantagous to post to PR sites such as this one: http://www.i-newswire.com/fitness-professional-online-launches/218349 I've seen posts like these on several sites - same post on multiple sites. I'm wondering if it's even worth having them on one, or multiple. Thoughts?
Link Building | | DougHoltOnline0 -
Classified Sites Ranking on Page 1
How is it that Craigslist, and Backpage get a boost from google and take over 1 or more of the page one results in my niche? Ive also seen people ask a yahoo question, and answer with a link to their website? Are these just temporary boosts?
Link Building | | TP_Marketing0 -
Why do internal, fake profiles on revebnation sit so high in their linking profile?
I was researching the link profile of Reverbnation to understand where they get most of their links from and a number of these fake reverbnation profiles showed up that seem to be about drugs- is this spam? Here are some examples: http://www.reverbnation.com/fan/tramadolfordepression http://www.reverbnation.com/page_object/page_object_bio/fan_1340318 There are about a dozen of these on their site. Super curious and would love any feedback or knowledge that may be out there! Thanks
Link Building | | Kendi0 -
To list in paid directory or not to list in a paid directory?
Can anyone give a yes or no as to whether paid directory listings are any use from an SEO perspective or is money better spent elsewhere? Thanks!
Link Building | | ebowdublin0 -
Link profile looking unnatural
Hello, I checked out link profile and noticed that we have 169 linking root domains with 501 links containing the same KW anchor text - all pointing to our homepage. I found out that it's actually a friend of the owner who is getting the links as a favor. All links were in a short time, and it's making our link profile look unnatural. The linking root domains look like... www. iraqculturalattache-prague .org/ I did notice a positive increase in rankings for the KW; however, i'm sure that this will be short lived, as Google will pick up on the unnatural link profile. Should i ask that he remove the links? Or just leave them? I don't want out website to be penalized. Thanks!
Link Building | | ShaneO0 -
Where are all the sites that are linking to me?
I need to compile a list of all the siters linking to my site, but my open site explorer analysis shows very few links. I know for certain that there are many many more sites linking to it (it's an academic site and there are links to it from a lot of academic directories). What am I doing wrong?
Link Building | | michalseo0 -
Photography Site ranking!
Hi I am working on a photography site: www.daffodilwaves.co.uk now there isn't many pages nor is the that much text. However you will see that they have a blog (poorly designed one which we are addressing) Now blog posts I feel can be really good as there is generally alot of naturally written text which I don't feel I need to influence. Also generally people will comment so I also believe that is good for rankings too. However I find that the blog ranks higher than the actual website and I dont want that to occur the website is the one that generates the bookings. So can you give me some ideas to transfer the ranking from the blog to the website? I was thinking that within the article I could simply link back to the homepage - would you think that is a good idea? If so would you suggest I use particular anchor text? such as "Wedding Photographer" or "Comtemporary wedding Photographer" Thanks
Link Building | | Springnik0