Posting on forums

[Tobman]

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It's pretty easy to go through google and find related forums to your niche. Does anyone have any luck with this, as a form of getting backlinks? I don't want to be one of these people who's always spamming. :-) I did a test post to a forum earlier and included a good reply that wasn't spam.

Just wonderin' if this is a strategy people are really using?

Thanks!!

Tom

[sabian1982]

It is a strategy that people are using however some time ago Google actually devauled backlinks from forums hence they don't carry as much seo weight as they used to - that being said it will provide your site with a bit of link juice, plus you're likely to see quite a few visitors if your site relates to the niche of forum which can obviously help to generate some sales for you. You'll also find that a link from a forum, especially on a brand new website is very useful as forums tend to get crawled quite a lot (due to the constantly updating content) and hence this can help to get your site indexed that little bit quicker!

[benfriedman]

I have had some good results with this in the past. It is a worth while thing to do as long as the forum is relevant. It will mean that your site is getting crawled, as mentioned above, and also that you are getting your links.

I normally would put the links in my Signature on a forum if they allow it as this gets you a link from every post that you make without looking "spammy".

Ben

[Tobman]

Thanks guys,

Printed out the info for my SEO file. :tup

I made a test post to a forum earlier in the week and it seems to still be there. I used to run a forum so I'm keen not to spam anyone elses. :-) So looks like as long as you're adding content, it's OK to have a sig with a backlink. Cool!

[sabian1982]

What you will find is that there are literally thousands of dead forums - ie forums that people have set up, they didn't work and the owner has completely forgotten about them. If you can find them, they are usually unmoderated so you can 'potentially' post away to your hearts content! Pretty much any one way link is a good thing, if you want to add some extra punch though (as mentioned) go for a relevant forum!

[benfriedman]

Feel free to post on my forum - All Discussions - Deals Online Forum - Online Voucher Codes as long as you write some decent content with it! I even allow you to put your own affiliate links in the posts!

[pallavi]

yea i think many are using forums not for SEO but for traffic generation.....

[silveraden]

It's pretty easy to go through google and find related forums to your niche. Does anyone have any luck with this, as a form of getting backlinks? I don't want to be one of these people who's always spamming. :-) I did a test post to a forum earlier and included a good reply that wasn't spam.

Just wonderin' if this is a strategy people are really using?

Thanks!!

Tom

It's good for fast traffic and at the same time backlinks... targeted traffic..

[verentia]

I have use forums for a lot and some of them I have my site as part of the public information. When I check my information in webmaster tools I see that Google use my login name as the word to link to my site - I feel abit uncomfortable about it any thoughts?

[phil72]

What effect does the 'nofollow' attribute have that some forums append to signatures/links within posts? AFAIK this stops search engines from following the link, but how effectively does it actually do that? Is it very common for forums to use this or is it realtively rare?

[Josh-A]

Nofollow attribute was introduced by Google to prevent the problem of comment spamming in Blogs. But now it seems that all the major search engines have adopted this technique to prevent spam.

If your link is on a website with nofollow attribute then it means that you will not get the benefit. It will not count towards link popularity and your website will not get boost in search engine rankings for that specific keyword.

[Sandis]

Forums do work, but you have to understand how Google sees/discovers links and how it distributes pagerank juice.

See if you post in a thread and then after 3 months this thread is 25 pages deep (e.g. 7+ clicks deep from homepage), then the PageRank going to that one thread will be very small.

So one of tactics would be to post in a sticky threads as they are easier to access for Google (less clicks to them, more PR will flow in as well) and also you can post in forum sections that are less busy to get similar effect or at least slow down getting your posts buried down deep.

Third option would be to make good posts and then submit to social sites and build links from other sources to these threads/posts of yours. This way you will ensure your posting efforts stays longer on Google radar and you would benefit also from extra PR boost from these social sites.

[plexpert]

Forum posting will give you some link juice but nothing compared to that of article marketing and press releases. I try to write one article (with targeted keywords) per day for 30 days and submit it to ezine/goarticles this results in a few great high pr one way links.

[Dazza30]

Can anyone point me in the direction of some tech/mobile related forums that allow you to place a link in the sig?

[benfriedman]

You can try Digital Spy Forums - Entertainment and digital TV news discussion

It covers most topics and has a tech board.

Also feel free to post on All Discussions - Deals Online Forum - Online Voucher Codes

Hope that helps.

Ben