its a bit unfair to say "useless " NO link is useless its just "how" good that link is and on a sliding scale those links are at the lower end of the quality bar
Sure, maybe I should have said "less than or equal to zero"
Link ARE useless if they come from pages that have no value, and you should know better than to suggest otherwise.
1. Article submissions - in 99% of cases - =0, and less than that if the article farmer has played naughty games. Any benefit from article farming goes to the farmer. Ask any turkey.
2. 99.999% of blog posts are useless, because 99.99% of all blogs are useless. People seem to imagine that every blog is like zdnet. Wrong. The average blog is terminally dire, and is held in contempt by readers, SEs, and often the writer. Go look at a few.
3. Forum signatures are a pathetic form of spam; most forums that allow them have been filled with garbage, recognised - years ago - by Google et al as a form of link spam. Quality forums - and those who want to retain any Google profile - simply don't allow them. It's a shame, but they've been terminally abused. Go look at a few forums that allow them.
4. Similar logic covers wikis too.
5. Social bookmarking is much abused, and (probably) has minimal value for the vast majority of users. I say probably, because the field is now so vast and varied, that I no longer believe the statements made about social spamlinking, and my money is on the SEs being wise to it. But no, I can't prove it.
6. Link wheels are probably the most stupid scam invented since the Internet. SEs live to explore links, to understand them, and to set a value on them. Even Bing could spot one at 4,000 miles, Google can probably see them from outer space, and they are exactly what you'd expect - simple bad neighbourhoods.
for some webmasters getting these types of links are the only type they can get
My solution would be to give up and get a job, if there sites are so awful they can't get links. Your solution is to defend spamlinking - because that's what all these methods are. No more. No less. Spamlinking.
HOW DO I STOP RECEIVING FOLLOW-UP POSTS TO THIS TOPIC?
Good question; nothing in this thread is new or controversial; my only defense for continuing to contribute is that I have a genetic failing - I cannot let twaddle go unresponded to. Yes, I know. It's sad. Worse; it's futile. The same six spamlinking suggestions appear so regularly it's boring.
