Webmasterworld.com profile appears in backward links in google toolbar?

Just curious about the effects this can have.

[Hobbyist]

I'm sorry if this has already being discussed..

Recently I was looking at the backward links to my site using the google toolbar and found that there was a link back to my webmasterworld profile where i added my url.

The googlebar shows a PR of 0 for the webmasterworld profile page, but why does it show up in the backward links? I thought it only showed links of high enough PR?

Just wondering if google is using these links to track people who read web forums such as this...Not that I have done anything to be fearful about.

[SmallTime]

No, Google likes Webmasterworld :)
There are some past threads on how this is handled, if you are curious try the site search.

[martinibuster]

I did a site search and couldn't find anything relevant to the original question.

Hobbyist is correct that a backlink shouldn't show up because this contradicts the standard line that google only shows pr3 links and above. (Or, is that pr4? Whatever.)

I checked several member profiles, visited their sites and did a backlink check and none of them showed up, as well they SHOULD NOT.

But Hobbyist's site DOES show up. That's weird. Maybe it's a temporary anomaly?

[deejay]

I think Brett mentioned something recently about member profiles having been moved in the last couple of months, and therefore don't currently have PR flowing to them correctly. It's not a penalty though, and PR is expected to show up in the near future.

[Mardi_Gras]

I seem to recall that the profiles of members with fewer than 100 posts are not supposed to be indexed, but apparently some have been.

[lindavh]

I too have a backlink to my profile page in Webmaster World and so I deleted my site url so that hopefully it would not be included in the next crawl.

Not that I don't appreciate and support my membership here, but in all honesty, I would prefer to keep my posts private within the community.

Is there any option for "privacy" or do we have to remove our the url as I have done in order not to be posted in Googles backlinks?

I would prefer to have my url listed so that members know what site I am refering to in my posts if needed, but my privacy regarding SEO concerns within our industry is an issue for me.

Thanks, Linda

[Brett_Tabke]

Interesting linda. That is the first time that question has ever come up. I will consider an option to do that.

DeeJay is correct. We switched the urls of the view profile program to thwart email harvestors. How that worked out with Google getting mass 404's on the old profiles is yet to have settled. We'll wait and see for another update.

Also, the noindex tags and other metas are only visible to logged out members. The main reason is bandwidth savings over the long haul. They serve no purpose to logged in members, so there wasn't a point in wasting the bytes.