So who is right about this topic? Can someone clarify for sure that backlinks still have value even though they are pushed down, and burried? The other point, is it even worth it to invest time (or money) in doing backlinks on blogs and forums? Does anyone out there have a success story about using backlinks this way... or if not a success story, a real time experience with the methods discussed. Sorry for so many questions, I am kind of new, and just trying to understand.
It's really a matter of how the page that's linking to you got its rank and how it will change over time. With blog comments one thing to worry about is other link builders hitting the same page, making your link eventually count as 1 of 100+ comments rather than 1 of, say, 3. Also, does the page you commented on have ranking power because of internal linking? If so, there's a good chance it will lose weight over time. You can consider the same things with forum threads and ESPECIALLY forum profiles. So quality is a very important thing to consider here.
I am in much the same boat and put your question to the guys I work with. We use the free link directories to get a site started We then fine tune the results we get by placing deep targeted links to get the search phrases we want We then use forums or blogs for networking rather than link building They offer low value links which don't last and not because they get buried. Sites which accept link spam either die a natural death or trip a spam filter. And whilst some will argue that the same can be said about link directories, we are still getting good results from the sites we have used. We have in-house, non client sites in relatively competitive local markets that rank with backlinks from the free directory lists only. Some of those sites go back seven years or more, the links are buried deeply by now but they do still work. So I don't think that really matters. I also understand that rather than being devalued over time. Links mature and make up for those that are lost through attrition.
Yes and whenever i try to search something in google i always get forum posts which are very old and so i don't agree that old backlinks don't have the same effect as the new ones.
As far as I know links from quality sites are getting stronger by time, but links from poor quality websites are sometimes punished by Google updates, or simply getting weaker by time only because it has no value at all. Maybe a link building strategy that worked in the past doesn't work at all in the present.