Lots of Links

[thebassman]

Ok... I've come a long way from when I first joined this forum... learning tons from everyone here. I've been reading posts not only here, but other SEO forums as well (sorry ) and was wondering if I could get people's reaction on getting links through forum sigs/profiles and guestbooks.

A couple useful articles I've found here include:

• http://www.internet-marketing-resear...-0-asc-20.html and...
• http://www.internet-marketing-resear...-0-asc-60.html

Both these threads mention it, but no one really gives a thumbs up or thumbs down. From what I've gathered myself, all links are good links... but what about 100's from guestbooks (even related guestbooks) and forums (even related forums)?

[sem4u]

The problem with guestbooks and forum sigs is that the pages tend to have a low PR. I think Google is trying to reduce the benefit of guestbook links. They are a pain to webmasters who have a guestbook and just want comments about their sites rather than a load of URL drops!

[Johan007]

These account to a drop in the ocean.

[thebassman]

But, as JS has said, links, regardless of the PR, are good...

Originally Posted by JohnScott

Forum links and top rankings in Google:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...st.com+profile

His site in the #1 position:

http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...regnancy+signs

That guy registers on hundreds of forums every day. He has tons of #1 spots.

For instance, for my photography forum, if I were to go to various photography-related guestbooks and sign them with my site in there, not only will it probably get a little traffic from the site owners, but wouldn't my backlinks go way up, which would help PR, would would help my SERPs?

[scisoft]

Since you managed these 900+ posts since March, you should already have some your own data.

[spidersam]

my opinion is that they definitely help. you'll need several higher PR links to get something good going for competitive terms, but for non-competitive terms, they can be quite helpful

[thebassman]

Yeah, that's what I thought... I just haven't found anything definitive yes or definitive no... it's not something I can get blacklisted for or anything, is it? Like, it can't hurt....?

[ccb056]

From what I understand Google does not penalize you by who links to you, rather they penalize you by who you link to

[thebassman]

C'mon... there are lots of SEO gurus wandering around these forums... or is it a pretty stupid question?

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by ccb056

From what I understand Google does not penalize you by who links to you, rather they penalize you by who you link to

They have manually dropped sites that were aggressively buying links.

But it's very rare.

[Johan007]

I suppose Google needs have some sort of proof or they run the risk of banning innocent sites or/and getting taken to court. Buying links for PR is not diplomatic and that’s what Page Rank has always tried to be.

[compar]

Originally Posted by scisoft

Since you managed these 900+ posts since March, you should already have some your own data.

Thebassman,

You seem to have totally ignored this message. Scisoft's point is excellent? Why are you asking all these questions With 900 plus sig links in this forum you have the data to answer your own question.

Use the allinanchor: or allinurl: or other searches to tell yourself whether these links have been indexed. Then use this tool to see how you compare with the top ten sites for the search term 'video montage'.

[RonHollingsworth]

That tool is a dead link compar.

[thebassman]

The link worked for me... Ok, so I have 900+ sig links here at this forum alone... I just ran the test there... but the numbers weren't what I was expecting...

[cray]

That's a neat link, thanks Bob.

[wbstein]

Originally Posted by thebassman

The link worked for me... Ok, so I have 900+ sig links here at this forum alone... I just ran the test there... but the numbers weren't what I was expecting...

hey thebassman, what source is that .jpg coming from?

[thebassman]

Well, the tool is from compar's post above: http://www.mcdar.net/KeywordTool/keywordtool.asp and I just uploaded the pic via the attachment mod here on the forum... is that what you were asking? I just did a printscreen on the tool's results...

[wbstein]

perfect.

[thebassman]

What's perfect? Glad I could help nonetheless... hehe.

[wbstein]

I've been looking for something like that.
Another one pointed out to me is: http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/keywords/

The sweet thing about that, is that you have to login, and it will keep a history of your keywords. Like if you go up three, or down two. . . . .