What are the worst methods of Link Building ?

Discussion in 'Link Development' started by Mr. Gill, Oct 14, 2009.

  1. #1
    Asking this because i want to give away with methods i currently follow to get backlinks.

    Rank them according to your knowledge.
    1. Forum commenting with Signatures links
    2. Blog commenting on dofollow blogs
    3. Directory submissions (all directories from PR NA)
    4. Social bookmarking on dofollow sites
    5. Any other worse methods please mention

    Thank You
     
    Mr. Gill, Oct 14, 2009 IP
  2. selectsplat

    selectsplat Well-Known Member

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    #2
    By 'worst' I assume you mean the least effective.

    Using any "automated program" to submit your url to directories, automatically post comments on blogs or forums, or generate backlinks automatically in any fashion should top the list.

    Directory submissions, is probably the second worst. Although there are some good directories out there, they are very few, and very far in between.
     
    selectsplat, Oct 14, 2009 IP
  3. alistair80

    alistair80 Well-Known Member

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    #3
    If a method gives bad results, it's probably not the method ;)
     
    alistair80, Oct 14, 2009 IP
  4. Ruddo

    Ruddo Member

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    #4
    Even if some methods are less effective you should still use them. Just make sure you use the most effective methods first though
     
    Ruddo, Oct 14, 2009 IP
  5. steveeyes

    steveeyes Well-Known Member

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    #5
    So true. Just because directory submission does not give us results as it once did, does not mean its method is any worse than the others. You can submit to 500 directories but if they just sit in pending and never are approved or all have no follow links, than we know why directory results are so poorly thought of by most webmasters.
     
    steveeyes, Oct 14, 2009 IP
  6. s4nt0s

    s4nt0s Peon

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    #6
    All of these that you listed actually work great for SEO. I achieved top 10 results on a keyword with 30,000,000 competition by creating profiles and submitting my links. (angela and paul's method) I'd say that was very effective for me. I noticed if you link them all together almost like a link wheel and ping a few of them, they will all get crawled faster.

    Don't forget there is always article submissions on high PR sites.
     
    s4nt0s, Oct 14, 2009 IP
  7. Marketers Center

    Marketers Center Well-Known Member

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    #7
    If you used all of those methods you could rank for the majority of long-tail keyword terms.
     
    Marketers Center, Oct 14, 2009 IP
  8. KPHudson

    KPHudson Peon

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    #8
    Free for all's in my opinion are the absolute worse...non related content that one one reads
     
    KPHudson, Oct 14, 2009 IP
  9. rashida

    rashida Active Member

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    #9
    There is no worst methods.As it is all for the promoting of the site.Directories takes time for approval and social bookmarking brings more traffic to your site and commenting on do-follow blogs and forums gains backlinks.And all these techniques are meant for link building techniques.
     
    rashida, Oct 14, 2009 IP
  10. Dan Schulz

    Dan Schulz Peon

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    #10
    You do realize that the number of results returned for a given query has absolutely NO bearing on how competitive a keyword is, right?
     
    Dan Schulz, Oct 14, 2009 IP
  11. Mr. Gill

    Mr. Gill Active Member

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    #11
    I was expecting a response from you only Dan:)
    Please tell me according to you, the 4 methods i mentioned, are they any good ?
    I know about your link building thread (haven't read it yet, you write too long)
    But can you comment on effectiveness of these methods

    Thank You
     
    Mr. Gill, Oct 15, 2009 IP
  12. Nigel Lew

    Nigel Lew Notable Member

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    #12
    Said methods are not SEO and you should bother the read the thread ;) It does not take that long. It will make you think though.

    Nigel
     
    Nigel Lew, Oct 15, 2009 IP
  13. MickeyFinn

    MickeyFinn Active Member

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    #13
    You've pretty much nailed it. Forum sigs, blog comments, directories is the worst type of link building. A forum sig can be a spectacular marketing ploy and a few strategically placed blog comments can bring in very nice traffic and sales but as link building techniques they are poor. And directories are generally automatically devalued just for being a directory and so are design showcase/galleries. We got listed on 100+ CSS deign galleries and saw absolutley no movement in SERPs.

    Good luck trying to educate people on DP. Every day I read amazing one line posts like "Yes, submitting to 1000 directories will get you great rankings" from people you have absolutely no idea what they are talking about and have never tested a single method. I test all methods with different keywords to see what works.

    I think article marketing is almost dead. Firstly all these articles are just directories and their links have little value. Secondly the days of posting an article and getting it republished on other sites is dead. With duplicate content penalties your link from your article published on another website has little value and the types of site that republish content are scraper type sites with very little search engine trust. Also I think we'll see Google tightened up its duplicate content filter to attack spun content.

    In the same vein Press Release marketing is pretty poor. We did one earlier this year that we thought was pretty good. It got republished hundreds of times - but to scraper sites that didn't even put a link back to us.

    The best SEO technique will always be to produce great content and then market that content so people link to it. But it takes the most effort.
     
    MickeyFinn, Oct 15, 2009 IP
  14. linkesxchange

    linkesxchange Peon

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    #14
    well i still try angela links and not too much results so far.
     
    linkesxchange, Oct 15, 2009 IP
  15. Mr. Gill

    Mr. Gill Active Member

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    #15
    Well NexDog you have buried all methods i used. Now i am absolutely clueless about getting quality backlinks ???

    There are more failed methods i tried such as
    1. angela links gaining, link from high pr sites from profile pages
    2. Link request - no webmaster in my field even replied
    3. Links from satellite sites, no backlink shown in Google webmaster account yet

    About producing content so good that people link to you site automatically ! I doubt how many can do that.

    OMG everything i knew was crap.

    Where should i start now, all over again ?
     
    Mr. Gill, Oct 15, 2009 IP
  16. MickeyFinn

    MickeyFinn Active Member

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    #16
    I actually saw positive results for Angelas/Pauls method. And Link Wheeling. But I doubt their effects are long lasting.

    Your link building strategy isn't great but not totally worthless. I said such things are automatically devalued due to their very nature but they'll still pass some juice (just not much).

    Same with footer links - almost completely discounted but my testing has shown pure volume of varied footer links (i.e. from different sites) will work. But volume forum sigs, volume spun articles, volume directory submission - just won't work.

    Cue 10 people who haven't tested but will disagree to sound important.
     
    MickeyFinn, Oct 15, 2009 IP
  17. selectsplat

    selectsplat Well-Known Member

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    #17
    I've tested extensively, and agree with much of what you say. Directory link are heavily discounted. There is a duplicate content penalty. My tests with Angela's and link wheels show they are nearly worthless.

    However, I don't see a significant penalty in footer links. I have tests on a few sites where the site only has 1 or two links, both in the footer on pr3 or pr4 sites, and both moved up drastically in SERPS. Pr went from 0 to 2 on 1 site, and 0 to 1 on the other.
     
    selectsplat, Oct 15, 2009 IP
  18. adacprogramming

    adacprogramming Well-Known Member

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    #18
    Footer links are an interesting subject. While it seems likely if you have 5, 10, 50 links to different sites in your footer Google likely completely devalues those links.

    However, that is a very valid place to have your main internal links, and Google should know this. Likewise this is a obvious and frequently used place to put credit links (site designed by). So, I don't think they will be completely devalued unless there are too many of them.
     
    adacprogramming, Oct 15, 2009 IP
  19. selectsplat

    selectsplat Well-Known Member

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    #19
    I think Google doens't care for the 'designed by' link, to be honest. It certainly doesn't help their search results.

    I will mention that all of the footer link I tested were among less than 5 total footer links with no other verbage.
     
    selectsplat, Oct 15, 2009 IP
  20. Alistair

    Alistair Active Member

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    #20
    Nice informtation.

    I stll get results submitting well written articles and paying for reviewed links in quality directories.

    But generally if you particpate in mass link building with some quick fix strategies you are going to end up with problems.
     
    Alistair, Oct 15, 2009 IP