Is Forum/Comment Posting Good for SEO

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harbinger

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I'm wondering if anyone has an opinion on the value of adding your link in forums or blog comment threads. This has of course been a popular strategy for years with people offering to get you hundreds of links for a certain price. My instinct is that this sort of link building is very transparent to the search engines and will add minimal benefit (if not cause harm) to your rankings. In the right circumstances these links might send some relevant traffic I suppose- but I question how good they are for SEO.
 
I heard this issue a lot from webmaster. But I can still lots of SEO gurus themselves buying signatures link from users online. Signature or comment link is no different to those links in any pages as far as I know so these signature links are still valuable to them. Its no surprise people are talking about it and spammers do their way just to insert their links in their signature.

This or course will be more valuable if the links are dofollow. ;)
 
I could see how search engines may not like links in comments section, especially in the signature section and how that can be bad for SEO. I do think if it’s done right and you monitor the amount of comments, they aren't all saying the same thing and don’t come off as spam, the search engines may not view it as spam or a bad link and you’ll have positive results. I agree on the importance of them being do follow links as mentioned in the post above. Also, I look at traffic more than SEO, although they do go hand in hand normally. But I’m looking at if I post in a popular forum, or make a comment on a popular blog, etc, there’s traffic there. If my comment is good, then people will click, go to my website and possibly buy. Now you can’t beat free traffic that converts to a buying customer.
 
Forum Posting or participation provides double benefit for a User or a webmaster.
First, you can create authority backlinks as signature links in your forum posts.
Second, You can share information and also get knowledge from other users in forum discussions.
 
I think that forums are one of the best ways to increase your SEO. The main factor that search engines use are backlinks. Having a link in your signature provides a backlink to your site every time you make a post. You are basically linking to your site from every forum or blog you comment on. Both sides win. The forum gets more posts and you get backlinks which can also turn into traffic from people clicking your link.
 
I have never used forum posting for SEO. It's one of my favorite traffic generation methods. But I do belong to a couple of forums that Google loves. A thread on a topic can show up in the search engines within a few minutes. They are both old (established) forums with a lot of activity. I get a great deal of traffic from these sites.
 
I am kind of a believer that all links have some sort of benefit. Some are just better than other but forums are great for driving traffic and if you can build a link in the process than why not?
 
I tend to agree with Ryan. Even if the forum is nofollow, you might get some actual human beings following the link anyway.
 
Blog comments and forum signatures have some value for SEO but I don't believe the value is enough to keep doing it, without the added benefits you can get from these activities. The main value, to me, is networking with like-minded individuals in my niches. A secondary benefit is direct traffic, which you will get if you provide value with your posts and comments. SEO value is just a fringe benefit, in my opinion.
 
Forum comments and signatures used to be gold for search engine rankings, but Google has changed that somewhat. This is not to say that they're not still valuable, but they should come from high PR forums and you probably shouldn't overdo it if possible. In other words, monitor it best you can.
 
It's one of my favorite traffic generation methods. But I do belong to a couple of forums that Google loves.
 
Tara said:
I have never used forum posting for SEO. It's one of my favorite traffic generation methods. But I do belong to a couple of forums that Google loves. A thread on a topic can show up in the search engines within a few minutes. They are both old (established) forums with a lot of activity. I get a great deal of traffic from these sites.
Click to expand...

What forums are those? :)

I also get a reasonable amount of traffic from a forum I am a member of, but I am having a hard time converting those visits into registrations and active, contributing members. I am however, still building my initial content on my forum so hopefully within the next few months I might have more of a reason for people to stick around.
 
Yes, these two techniques are VERY effective when promoting something whether it's your blog or website. In forums, you have to build up a reputation, chat daily with people so you get to know them better, and then advertise your website or blog.
 
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