Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I was just introduced to a new concept of developing high pr backlinks by just opening profiles and adding your site information on that particular site.
I want to ask the experts out here, if I need to spend time on this , is it worthwhile ot its just crap and waste of time.
Thanks and regards
Mithun Rao
[edited by: martinibuster at 12:33 pm (utc) on Nov. 11, 2009]
[edit reason] Removed specifics. [/edit]
Secondly, the PR of the homepage is irrelevant. What is the PR of a profile page a few days/weeks/months old? Are the profiles actually crawlable? Are the links nofollowed?
Finally, and many here would disagree with me on this one, I wouldn't do it because it is in no way adding value to the web (as opposed to the established method of contributing *quality* posts with a link in your signature).
nb. a lot of forums don't serve signatures to the search engines!
The links I would be generating would not be completely based on profiles, Secondly all are do follow links. Yes if the pages are crawled by search engines or not is not know. My point is would such an link count to add up the reputation of site , SEO point of view.
Thanks for all the replies.
I've been using this method for awhile with good results but you should test it for yourself.
Try and target less competitive keywords and make sure the links are dofollow and can be reached by the SE's.
Try ... and make sure the links are dofollow and can be reached by the SE's.
From the types of sites people seem to be doing this on, you aren't getting any benefit (since there will be no links to the user profile other than those you create yourself), it's spam and it is very irritating to have to install mechanisms to ban people doing it.
These are not, incidentally "high pr" links. They're high PR if you believe inheritance from the toolbar's little green bar, when in fact the pages you get listed on have no PR whatsoever.
Finally, some of the people using this as a link building method for clients are leaving a substantial footprint that allows people like me to identify all the sites you use this method for. I'm not in the habit of reporting competitors, but I am in the habit of identifying this type of spam so that others are also able to stop it too.
it's spam and it is very irritating to have to install mechanisms to ban people doing it.
I very much agree. On my forum, unless you are logged in, you cannot view user profiles, and neither can search engines. This way there is no point for spammers to register on my forum for the purpose of placing their URL in their user profiles. They still do it, though. But they get banned and submitted to anti-spam service.
While I do not support this as a legitimate link building practice, I would need to disagree with that statement.
In fact, in several genres I watch involving in health, people utilizing this tactic alone have managed to get single articles written around that topic on article repositories to upper positions.
A check on all backlinks to the article show only profile links, and these are pages that were previously on page 2-5 for the same term.
The key point is that the user does not have a choice whether a page (and link) is generated. You could do this for all your competitors.
I can't see a search engine giving a penalty for such a link, but at best it can be dealt with by existing relevance factors in the algo, thus it is a very low value link.
While I do not support this as a legitimate link building practice, I would need to disagree with that statement.
I guess it is case by case. I've tracked down a high number of people doing this, even down to spreadsheets with lists of all the logins they've created. What I've seen is creating profiles on sites powered by popular Content Management Systems, and using the toolbar PR of the homepage as the "value" of the link.
On the overwhelming majority of those sites, the user profile pages do not get a link unless the user has created content (there's no "user list"). Thus, the "clever" people doing this are then creating their own miniature "link farms" throwing a link at the profiles they've created so that they get the URL indexed, and, presumably, then charge their client for the link.
Thus, the "clever" people doing this are then creating their own miniature "link farms" throwing a link at the profiles they've created so that they get the URL indexed, and, presumably, then charge their client for the link.
Agreed. Often they point a large number of those at one specific article, then create a hub of articles to magnify the effects of that niche to the client.
It is important to note that there are many places that allow you to create a profile, even if you do not post content.
As dirty as I feel doing this method, it works and it's not like I'm spamming their content saying "buy my crap". Just put together your own list, build the profile links, ping them, and move up the rank.
People have been selling lists of profile links but be careful as most of the links are going dead due to high volumes of spammers all hitting the sites at once.
But if the only place that links to the profile URLs is created by the link builder themselves, they gain no external value
I don't think this is what the poster or I am saying. What is being said is that gaining inbound links by way of profile page propagation is something that some people are doing because they see results from it. Others further are reducing the direct risk to their websites by pointing the profile urls instead to a single article, and then pointing links from the article to their important pages.
Great comments.
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