Do Links from About.com count as Backlinks?

Is it worth paying sprinks for a backlink

[workinghard]

Hi

Do engines like Google take into account paid for links like those in the about.com network.

Is worth opening an account with Sprinks and getting listed in about.com just for the extra backlink for Google.

If so is there a list of places like that where you can pay to advertize (and get the added benefit) of a backlink?

Thanks

[marcs]

Those links are most likely links to some about.com tracker, not direct links to your URL.

This would make it not count as a Google backlink.

[mfishy]

No.

[annej]

Do links count if they are not in the advertizing but from a content page on about? How about from the related links a topic has listed.

[jimbeetle]

How about from the related links a topic has listed.

One of my sites has a handful of links from different sections of about and I've never seen them show up on any engines. Just checked alltheweb to be sure and, nope, they ain't there.

But they do bring a not bad number of visitors

[Jenstar]

I have a link from a higher PR page on about.com but it doesn't show up as a backlink to the internal page it links to (or for the main site, for that matter).

If you can get your link on the content of a page, I have gotten a fair amount of traffic and sales from that link.

The PR does not seem to transfer either, because of the way they redirect to external pages using their frames.

There was also a recent discussion on About.com with these issues in this thread. [webmasterworld.com]

[Tropical Island]

Our in column link in About does NOT show up in Google backlinks. We also advertise with Sprinks and these are just like any other PPC - there is no PR benefit.

[fuego]

While Sprinks does embed your URL in their tracking URL, I have yet to see a page with Sprinks on it show up in a backward link search.

Having said that, I would reccommend trying to get a page from your site listed at About, especially if it's a new site. About gets crawled very frequently. So, for new sites, its attractive to get a link from About because Google will likely find your site quickly and begin to crawl from the page that you get listed at About. So, make sure that you have a link to your site map on the page that you submit to About.

Quick tips for getting in:
* Submit deep links, not homepages
* Spend the time to figure out where the link belongs in the site and paste that URL into your email request
* See if there's a page on the About site that's link-worthy and mention where you've linked to the Guide's site
* Link to content, not promotional copy

[annej]

I hadn't seen a backlink from About for a very long time. In fact they may have still been the Mining.co.

It kind of irritates me though. I've linked to good related information on About. I feel like when they link to my information I should get credit and they have linked to me here and there.

OTOH they probably bring me some visitors.