How effective is leaving comment links?
-
Has anyone seen evidence of rankings improvement from leaving do-follow comment links or is it a waste of time?
-
I'll build on what Mike said in that comment links are less valuable than they used to be due to the proliferation of this as a spam tactic. And I expect they'll become even less valued as time marches on. For the most part the value is weak at best nowadays, and requires a lot more time and effort to get right given the attention this type of link has garnered from Google due to the spam issue.
-
I think comment links are more valuable for building relationships with other sites and for branding with targeted audiences. I think the links themselves are diluted as far as SEO value goes.
Google knows when links are comment links, and might even disregard them all together on certain sites. If the blog has an editorial policy (needs approval for comments, or deletes spammy ones) they might offer more value. Plus the links are generally at the bottom of the page, and may send less value. It really comes down to a case by case basis. I would use the same criteria for blog posts as I do for links in general:
-Page rank or moz rank?
-Regularly cached pages from the blog in the index?
-Good content? Is it related to your site?
I would say if it's good related blogs it's not a waste of time, but don't expect to climb up the rankings just because of those links. I also wouldn't differentiate too much between no follow and do follow links. Google still tracks the no follows and having some will look organic and would still give you some of the networking and branding benefits mentioned above.
Vinnie
-
You can't go crazy and do just that, or do 10,000 instances of that with no other types of link building. Yes, having comment links looks natural. Up to a point. And it depends if the links are on human moderated boards or on spam farms. The latter will produce no value. If you can get a link to pass moderation from a credible site then it has value. Your comment will need to add to the discussion and often the moderators won't allow links in comments or they will no-follow them to discourage spammers.
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
-
Facing Link Crisis
Hi Link Heroes, I have just come across a link crisis on my site. There is a sharp and sudden rise in No. of Links. Latest details are as under: External Followed Links 582 Total External Links 710 Total Links 30548 Followed Linking Root Domains 92 Total Linking Root Domains 126 Can somebody come to help that : What are the reasons for sharp rise in total number of links and How it impacts my site (I notice a drop in DA) What are the solutions Tanveer
Link Building | | Sequelmed0 -
Link removal
We were hit by penguin and have been going through the process of removing bad links. Things were looking up but then wasa 20% jump in our bad links. They all seem to be related. There are over 100 different domains that all seem to go back to mbiz. examples include http://www.5stone.com.cn/Literature-holders-.html http://www.building-stone.com/Display-furniture.html http://www.china-tombstone.com/Display-exhibition-products-.html It looks like they have automatically gathered data from google to create these pages. I would hope that the guys at Google are clever enough to be aware of these sorts of links. But if not I need to get them removed. I have tried whois but I cant find out how to contact these guys. Has anyone got any bright ideas? Thanks
Link Building | | Discountdisplays0 -
Link Building - Affiliate Link Programs
I'm getting some conflicting information when researching this... I want to create the most organic link building strategy that not only gets high authority sites linking to a website, but relevant websites. I'm creating an affiliate link program where I link to partner and affiliate companies, who in turn link back to me. The question is where to put these links. I was initially thinking of putting them in the footer so they add credibility to every page, and in turn ask my affiliates to do the same thing. However; some sources say that Google no longer looks at links in the footer section. Is it true that Google doesn't count links in footer sections? And do you have any tips on creating this Affiliate Link Program?
Link Building | | reidsteven750 -
The effect of a links from a search engine?
Hi everyone,
Link Building | | AMA-DataSet
Iv recently been conducting a link analysis on one of my sites, I downloaded the list from web master tools, but iv noticed a number of links coming from a search engine websites. At a glance there are maybe 10-15 links from these search engine sites each with a slightly different domain name (e.g: 10search.com, 20search.com, 30search.com etc.) but the same design, same logos and similar results. What effect would these links have? and should I remove them? Thank you in advance0 -
Link over-building?
Hello all. One of the first things we do for our clients is to claim their local listings, include them on a set of selected directories (8-10), and blog directories (5), if applicable. Since they will all be linked to the client site, could doing all of this at once run us into problems with unnatural link growth? Thanks! Frank
Link Building | | FrankSweeney0 -
Looking at Page Authority of a link to our website... what Page Authority number should we use in deciding the link is junk?
What are the Page Authority ranges? 1. Excellent link 2. Moderate 3. Total junk link Of course you look at the anchor text you can use, how many links are on the site, how often it is cached. Thoughts?
Link Building | | RezStream80 -
Link Churn - where have all my links gone?
I am sure most of you have asked yourself the question I'm asking right now.. Where have all my links gone? I am starting to get twitchy now. I would estimate we have lost around 60% of our links in the past 3 weeks. Does anyone have any comeback stories? Feel like I am back to the start again. I have made a number of changes on the site not least removing a reciprical link page.. that had over 200 links on it but from reading one of Rand's tweets is it true that linking out could be good again?
Link Building | | robertrRSwalters0 -
Acquiring a link
once I get a list of links from ontolo or the link acquisition assitant here on seomoz what is the next step? do i email that site? what do i actually do to get acquire the link? thank you for answering this! I am new to link building and so new that I dont actually know the steps and need help from someone. thank you VIjay
Link Building | | vijayvasu0