Links from the same or related forums

[intravino]

Hi Guys,

I own a website that sells <widget> accessories.

I ran the Google webmaster tool for links and I noticed that 60 % of my links are from <widget related> forums, but I just noticed that some of those different forums are hosted by the same company or have a similar IP address, should I disallow the ones with the same IP address?


Thanks for your time,

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 7:57 pm (utc) on Jan 8, 2014]
[edit reason] removed specific niche, per forum Charter [/edit]

[Robert Charlton]

It's likely that if 60% of your backlinks are from forums, your backlink profile is very weak.

should I disallow the ones with the same IP address?

I'm assuming that you mean "disavow" here. You are correct that multiple links from the same IP looks spammy. The dilemma is that multiple forum links also look spammy.

If the links are dofollow... then yes, disavow those from the different forums... but, more important, you need to add some linkworthy content to your site and then promote it.

Keep in mind that a predominance of any backlinks you build yourself will be seen as spammy. Forum links, whether from related or unrelated forums, are self-placed and do fit into this category.

[intravino]

Thanks Robert,

Yes, I made a mistake, it's disavow.

But If lose let say 40 % of my backlinks because of the clean up, if that bad too?

Or it's better to have better quality links then quantity?


Thanks again,

[ohno]

I own a website selling widgets. We also get many links from forums. Seeing as forums discuss widgets it's only natural for people to link to sites that sell what they discuss. Has the Internet really come to this? It was built on links but now this is considered spam?!

[Robert Charlton]

If you're dropping a link in every post or thread, or if you're using forum signatures with links to your site, that's obviously self-linking, and that's considered spammy.

We consider that spammy enough in WebmasterWorld that, even though our links don't pass PageRank, our Charter and our terms of service prohibit self-links. That was a decision made quite independently of Google, and it's been our policy for many years.

If other forums link to you occasionally, I don't think that Google is going to penalize you. But, if those represent over half of the links you have, and you don't really have any "freely given editorial links", Google's likely to look upon those links with suspicion... and at best discount them.

[n00b1]

I own a website selling widgets. We also get many links from forums. Seeing as forums discuss widgets it's only natural for people to link to sites that sell what they discuss. Has the Internet really come to this? It was built on links but now this is considered spam?!

I agree with this. I also get many links from forums. These communities discuss my website, my articles and other content because they like it and are trying to help others out by pointing them in the right direction. These are not self-placed links, I have no control over them (other than to stop producing good content people like to link to) so I don't see how they are spammy? I also get a lot of referral traffic from these links so they are serving a useful purpose to the readers. If Google doesn't see it this way then it is fundamentally broken.

[dethfire]

Google revalues forum and blog links, but I highly highly doubt google penalizes for these types of links. Newspapers sites get massive links from forums. Do you think these newspapers are sweating over this? no way, c'mon.

[Robert Charlton]

n00b1 - Point taken. It's likely that how Google sees this, though, varies by niche. In the niches the majority of my clients have been in, forum links would not have natural.

But as I look at many areas where I do research, yes, you are right... I do find articles via links, and there are many times when these links are given by experts. Additionally, Google gives good treatment to forum discussions.

That said, 60% of backlinks coming from forums seems like a large figure to me. In the OP, the question also has to do with common IP address, which might raise a flag.

So, it would help to clarify the type of link (article or signature link), whether anchor text is involved, etc.

[aakk9999]

I am with Robert on forum links in signatures, mostly coming from one member of a particular forum.

And I am with Ohno on forum links within the messages, where links are in post content and in pretty much all natural cases, such link is URL (ie. no specific keyword rich anchor).

I think these two patterns are easily distinguishable for Google.

As from percentage of links coming from forums, this may be a norm in certain niches, but not norm in others.

[ohno]

OK, here's another scenario. As mentioned we noticed links from forums where members are asking about products & linking to our site. We decided to join one forum so we could answer the queries directly. No signature links just posts that answer the question & link to the correct product if the poster hasn't already done so. I don't think that is spamming & think that is doing what the Internet was (is?) all about. Ironically we get people trying to register on our own forums to spam, eg, register & link directly to a domain that has NOTHING to do with out niche. Now that IS spam. Trouble is, can the SE distinguish between the two? (& should it even try to?)

ps, with regard to "no specific keyword rich anchor" many forums these days take the link text from the URL linked to which in most cases IS keyword rich (you use keywords to describe a product!).

[Jez123]

I see a proper forum link where people have actually discussed or endorsed my products as VERY positive. I doubt google sees them as spam. I think it's what they want to see. Independant endorsement of products and service. Though they probably can't discern if this is negative or positive.

[Martin Ice Web]

@intravino, ist not the same but maybe you can make your own thoughts out of it.
In November a pseudo widget search engine put up 160 links to different widget pages on our site. With Google crawling this links These widgets started to disappear in google from page 1 to page 2.

[netmeg]

I've always gotten lots of forum links (in discussions, not signature links) Doesn't seem to hurt.

And I have a B2B client (kind of like office supplies) who has a gazillion backlinks from a hunting forum because one of their employees is a hunter who participates heavily and has his place of employment in his signature. It's only one guy, but there's twelve or thirteen years worth of posts with signature links. I can't point to any damage it's caused; maybe these things are left alone if the other signals are ok, and it's seen as an isolated incident. I dunno. Depending on the scale you're talking about, I think you can overthink this stuff.

[intravino]

So, it would help to clarify the type of link (article or signature link), whether anchor text is involved, etc.

Ok, I have some (really a lot) links that are not really related to my field and those one are in my signature or on the profile of the control panel of forums or forums posts.


Honestly, several years ago 2008-2009, yes when business was booming, I had some temporary employees(when I had employees) scan the internet and use the Google alerts on the search for keywords in forums. They would try to reply in the most naturally they could in posts on forums. They used obviously anchor text on the links.

My website took a plunge around the end of 2011 (panda 3.0 I guess).

In 2013, I finally updated my website (long overdue) but I noticed that the gain has been marginal.


Thanks again for your time,

[intravino]

Should I do a disavow request with Google about those forums links?