Advice on forum links

[ROIcomau]

Hi guys,

Looking for some good advice on forum links and there potential negative impact.

I am analysing the links of a URL and around 60% of the links are coming from a forum (on a different domain). The forum is very relevant - about the same product he is selling and also has a decent user base.

This 60% of links account for roughly 6,500 links. All with different varying keyword anchor text's, and some with excessive usage of a particular keyword anchor text. They are also all do-follow.

They are in a mixture of signature links and in post links.

The site they link to has been hit by penguin which also has an EMD.

MY question is even though these links are relevant and on a good site with good traffic, do you think they have likely been picked up in the penguin algorithm?

My initial thought was yes only because they are all do follow and mostly keyword based.

But id love to hear thoughts on this as well as possible recovery options, i.e should he remove the forum links, reduce drastically or make them all no follow so traffic can still pass through?

Thanks!

[Debdulal]

Ok, this is going to be a bit lengthy.

As you have said, your website has been affected by Penguin update; I would like to know if the website had received any mail in Google Webmaster Tool regarding unnatural links? If yes, then it is a manual penalty. In that case, you need to remove all the links that look unnatural or coming with exact matched keywords. Try get as many links down with it as possible and then give Disavow link a try before sending a reconsideration request.

But if you have not received any mail, this is probably affected by Penguin Algorithm. In that case, Disavow Link is the only way to exonerate.

Now, let me come to real part of your post. Yes, you need to get all the links down from site; all of them as the links are coming with exacted match key phrase and they are do follow. Or, else just add no follow attribute against each link.

[GoodAtMarketing]

You can post on forums but most forum links are no follow. Anyways just make sure the forums are relevant and do not to link exact text anchors. Just put you URL or Brand name.