many times i have seen link builders selling forum profile links, NOT signature links but profile links, my question is, do you guys think google and other serach engines pick up forum profile links as a link? im thinking it will only get picked up as a link if the person has many posts and or is always on the forum,,,i could be wrong, what do you guys think or know?
Profile links will eventually get indexed by Google, but why pay for a single link on a deeply buried profile page. At least with signature links, you get a link on every post.
Agree with you here. Honestly I don't think so that someone should pay to buy just profile links of Forums, because it does not required if someone does on his own.. then Why to pay?
They're not powerful at all, but people have software to drop hundreds of thousands of them so the volume can get you ranked. People have been doing it for years but now it's common because lots of other methods are defunct and forums are getting way overspammed.
They do count which is why people do it and as DanAbbamont pointed out, it is the bulk factor which a lot of people who buy such links are going for. If you just get a few hundred then it is likely that it won't make much difference because it will take Google a while to index them all and forum links are devalued to an extent anyway because they are so easy to get. The most valuable forum links that you can get are those where you are actually participating in the forum, then you get the benefits of Google spidering your links faster and click-through traffic from those who are interested in finding out more about you or the link in your profile / signature.
They count but most forum sites are nofollow. You would have to post thousands of post to make a differences though
Profile Links are the bottom of the barrel linking. not only the bottom of the barrel, but the dirt that is under the barrel. They are almost worthless as they contain nothing of real value. ...and profile link spammers could care less, they would rather lower the true value of your forum just to get a worthless backlink, if they get it at all. If you own a forum, then do yourself a favor and seek higher quality content. do not settle from those that signup just so they can drop a link and run.... and I know this is just pissing off the profile link spammers, but how is dropping your links going to contribute anything of value to the forum...?
Profile links aren't used to contribute value to any forum, they're used to get cheap link juice at the forum owners expense. That's what makes spam spam.
a Signature link would surely hold higher value over a profile link any day of the week. For obvious spam reasons, I have also disabled sig links for new members as they attempt to drop a link and run. They have to get some posts in first. I think of it this way. I think of members having more value if they come to my forum and provide content of value. I think of members having less value if they come to my forum just to drop sig/profile links. Good Content = value / links only low value, spam. I do not mind sharing if the member is going to share content, but I have big problems when the member just wants to take, take, take... If members just drop sig links and profile links, then this does not provide any content value to the forum. I also assume if a member just drops a link then runs, then they are pretty much already useless to the forum, as I know their only intention is to drop links.
It's not real people, it's just bots. You just press a button and you've got profiles on 100,000 forums. That's the whole point, it's easy and you do it in high volumes.
thanks for all the replies, i guess my real question is, should a web owner spend time and finding forums and registering just for a profile link if it is a dofollow link, and does google actually index these profile links,if say the member never logs on and posts anything?
Seems like forums should straight out ban people that don't ad anything to the forum. Especially all of the obvious spam.