Many Forum Profile Links do not Count as Backlinks!

July 26th, 2010 | 42 comments

are forum profile links strong? Just a quick post that will hopefully save alot of people alot of time and money. There seems to be more and more services popping up out there that offer links from profile page, many from forum profiles. Some of these services are create and they do work! BUT some do NOT. The reason being, many forum profiles require you to be logged in to see the actual profile, which means those links will not count, no matter what the toolbar PageRank is.

SE’s do not access password protected pages. The only exception is with Google allowing adsense publishers to allow the adsense bots to crawl password protected pages/directories for better relevancy, but that has nothing to do with indexing.

Here’s an example. Go to my Internet Marketing Forum, scroll to the bottom. If you are a member and logged in, be sure to log out. Now click on any user’s profile and you will see that it’s only showing statistics (no user information or external links.) Profile pages can and do still accumulate toolbar PR, but that authority does not get passed to any external links on that page!

This is the case with many forums no matter what software it’s running. vBulletin, SMF and PHPbb are the most popular and every forum I found that runs any of those platforms has either a login in place, or only shows limited information with no external backlinks.

This could very well be the same with non-forum sites, so before you invest in a service that points backlinks to your site(s) from profiles, be sure to check out what type of profile is giving the backlinks and ask for examples so you can see for yourself if external backlinks are showing up without having to be logged in!

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42 comments

Jason Johns (1 comments.)
27th July, 2010 at 10:12 am

Well noted Josh – I’ve not used profile links but keep seeing people talk about them. It’s a good point that I think more people need to be aware of.

Cheers

Jason
Rich Hill (2 comments.)
27th July, 2010 at 10:13 am

I figured out six months ago that they did not work but did not know why. Your explanation makes perfect sense.
Table Magician - Roger Lapin (1 comments.)
27th July, 2010 at 10:14 am

Thank you for the information, I have been offered these services and decided to do a lot myslef, I seem to have spent a lot of time doing this but with no return. Seems like a lot of wasted effort. I am now focussing on solid links from decent websites which will actually help my business.
thanks
Roger
UK
Martin
27th July, 2010 at 10:19 am

Service providers who place your link on non public profiles arent doing there job properly and should never have recieved your money.

When creating your own profile backlinks we avoid this “Non Public Profiles” issue by scraping google/yahoo strictly for Profile pages, rather than the registration pages.

With a little practise and experience, and the right tools you shouldnt really find too many non-public profiles, Sick Submitter is the best profile creation tool at the moment
Mike@Martial Arts Marketing (1 comments.)
27th July, 2010 at 10:26 am

Yep. Those link-building packages and services that are named after the persons who put them together are virtually worthless. Tested them personally and they are not worth the effort whatsoever. As always, you’re better off getting links the right way instead of trying to “game” Google…
Ed Kangai (7 comments.)
27th July, 2010 at 10:27 am

Oh dear! It’s hard accepting one has been making errors!

I’ve been paying for a well-known backlinks service.

It’s hard accepting it’s been to no avail.

Hard to take butit saves me time I guess.

Ed
Peter Claridge (7 comments.)
27th July, 2010 at 10:33 am

There are still dozens of different forums that do show the profile pages though, all the old punBB and myBB forums show the forum profiles and many of the ExpressionEngine forums still show the member list.

Where people go wrong on the sites that do have the public profiles is that they use their regular username but most of this software lists the users either alphabetically or by number of posts. So for the best chance of getting the link picked up, choose a username started with ‘a’, like Aardvark otherwise Google will never find you on page 375 of the members list.
Chris | Review FAQ (7 comments.)
27th July, 2010 at 10:53 am

Same goes for forum links, signatures etc.

Not only that, there’s little or no relevant text around them to give them authority.

Profile links have always been foodstuff for the XRumer/SENuke script kiddies and it’s all throw it against a wall/see what sticks anyway. The search engines are starting to grow up and leave all that kind of thing behind them and I very much doubt if profile links provide ANY kind of a boost in Google any more.

I’m getting excellent results from just writing good stuff – it’s easier anyway and certainly more satisfying than endlessly mucking about with software.
Hristo (3 comments.)
27th July, 2010 at 11:06 am

Haven’t thought about that, Josh, good point. But on the other hand, you can still get a lot of quality traffic from forums, so it’s still worth doing (if done properly).

I’m getting lots of visitors from niche-specific forums, especially through my forum signature links. And I don’t agree with the above post that the link context is irrelevant – it depends on the forum and the actual posts.
Stefan | Learn German (1 comments.)
27th July, 2010 at 11:16 am

Josh, this is correct. That’s why I tell my outsourcers to check if the profile they create can be accessed without being logged in.

You can check this by trying it from a separate browser (not a seperate window of the same browser).
So create your profile in Firefox and have an Internet Explorer running and see if you can still find the profile!

But there is one more point that many people forget about forum profile links: If no links point to that profile URL then these links don’t count much.
So it is better to create some forum posts using that account. Usually the name of a forum post is hyperlinked to the profile – so the profile gets indexed, stay indexed and will get some link juice.

Stefan
Lonnie (3 comments.)
27th July, 2010 at 11:42 am

I have been paying for profile links as well.
It didn’t seem like they were doing all that much, and now I know why.

Thanks for the good info. Really appreciate your insights.
Angie Berg (45 comments.)
27th July, 2010 at 11:59 am

This is so true. Earlier this year I paid someone for a link building service. It was referred to me by someone I thought was a reliable source. Turned out that the links were trash and I figure did my site more harm than good. They were indeed generic forum profiles that in my opinion is really just spam. Ugly and not something I would recommend as “good practice” in getting links. At the time I was going through a family crisis with a death in the family and didn’t catch it quick enough. Unfortunately there wasn’t anything I could do about it after the fact, so I’ve had to chalk it up to experience. I’m hoping to find myself an honest and reliable link builder to take that job off my hands. It’s probably my least favorite IM task.
Linda (20 comments.)
27th July, 2010 at 12:12 pm

thanks for the heads up Josh. I have paid for profile links in the past but as you state, most of them need to be logged in to to see the profile link. Also most of them slowly drop off in time. I’d rather get quality backlinks to my site that stick over a long period of time.
Corin Zander (2 comments.)
27th July, 2010 at 12:26 pm

Thanks Josh,

I would just like to add that this kind of backlinking is pure spam. I moderate a forum and have to deal with spammers like this all the time.

It’s good that the profile links are set up this way. Maybe all of the forum platforms will go to this. Then when everyone finds out about it they will stop or at least try to contribute some value to the forum with good posts and get the link juice from their signatures.
Jeet (1 comments.)
27th July, 2010 at 12:26 pm

@Josh: Forums are a GREAT way to get targeted traffic. If your site is good and you are an active member of forums in your niche, be sure to get a lot of traffic. Using forums for backlinks is not such a great idea anyway because most forum posts will have 50+ links and will dilute any link juice.

As far as forum profiles are concerned, IF at all someone is making these profiles for backlinks they should confirm that the links are visible even when you are not logged in. Apart from that you have to also ensure that the pages are not disallowed by robots.txt. Sometimes they will only have a meta nofollow (different from rel=nofollow) thereby rendering the link useless for SEO purposes.

Unfortunately, most services offering this type of services will never mention all these factors. Thanks for bringing it up in the first place.
Fran Civile (1 comments.)
27th July, 2010 at 12:29 pm

Thanks Josh,
I’ve been hearing about a couple of buy link
services and often wonder about those
tactics …

I appreciate your advice!

Fran
nichole3855 (1 comments.)
27th July, 2010 at 12:36 pm

This is new to me…
I just paid the service for profile backlink!
But one of my site got the profile backlink from Propeller…..

I’m confused here…
Anyway… thanks for the info.
Steven Debardelaben
27th July, 2010 at 1:12 pm

I do not know about everyone else, but I have been scared away from buying links at all. I have heard and read in forums that this practice will eventually get found out and the site will disappear from the index. I will take my links slowly, and by hand until I learn enough to try something else.

I do Local SEO for local businesses, and I would like to find just a list or respectable directories to register for
local citations.

I have found out that just because a directory has high page rank, it still may be a detriment to my site to get a link there.

There is a site called “link Referral.com”, seems to be OK, but I am concerned that they are a minus not a plus, but I cannot figure out how to “un join”.

Great information, keep throwing out alms to the masses. I for one appreciate every nugget I can find.
Online Tutoring Jobs (3 comments.)
27th July, 2010 at 1:59 pm

Josh it is true your info are all gold nuggets. I appreciate your “style” of ethic marketing; I wouldn’t do it any other way. So, while we are on the topic of link building, I would like to throw out the question of “should we be linking to our website’s inner pages and not just always our main domain name?” Pros or cons anyone? Thanks in advance to any readers who could give me some input. Thanks
Peggy
Andy (8 comments.)
27th July, 2010 at 2:57 pm

I would say to still create a profile link to your about page of your blog though since it should still get navigational traffic from the forums etc.
Kurt (1 comments.)
27th July, 2010 at 4:12 pm

Excellent point there Josh. However, one practice among most experienced practioners of this is to go ahead and harvest links that are publicly viewable.

There are many thousands of forums out there that do have publically viewable profiles accross numerous forum platforms.

The big advantage of using this technique is that it can be automated and outsourced in bulk.

However, the trick is to get Google to index those links. It does require some effort to get those links indexed, but well worth it.
Shawn (1 comments.)
27th July, 2010 at 4:45 pm

Thanks For The Insight Josh.

I have been thinking about using one of these services. Once again you have put some money in my pocket.

By the way I just finished putting into action your “New Age Email Marketing”

It took me a little while to get everything going. With the learning curve and all… But I am on my way to building my first list.

Thanks again Josh, as always your advice is spot on.
Jeremy Kelsall
27th July, 2010 at 4:54 pm

Josh, what you’re saying may be true in some cases, but not in most…

Forums may require you and I to log in to see the information, but by default many of them are set up to let the spiders pass and index the content.

If you want proof of this, shoot me an email and I’ll show you some of my own sites link profiles, or even set up something new that you can use as a case study.
Garth (2 comments.)
28th July, 2010 at 4:47 am

That’s good to know. I’ve been hearing about forum profile links from a few people, and even have a software that has an auto create/post feature, but even if the link is good, it seems to me that building hundreds of profiles on forums you’ll never have the time to visit and contribute to will be a short sighted strategy anyway, so I’ve never gone in that direction anyway.
Rick (1 comments.)
28th July, 2010 at 7:28 am

Thanks and Ouch lol. I know I have wasted a lot of time. I guess the wise thing to do is after you register go to your profile page and copy the url to the clipboard and then log out and see if there is a public view of your profile without being logged in.
tasers for sale
28th July, 2010 at 6:26 pm

wow, that was an enlightening post. after reading all the comments i do agree that forum profile links do not add much value to the forum itself, that is if you do not participate with your own posts or questions/answers. also nice tip about logging out and see if your profile link is still viewable in another browser
chad (1 comments.)
29th July, 2010 at 6:59 am

this makes so much sense..i wondered why i was only seeing a few get picked up…as for the spamming comment…i completely agree..if you do this type of back- linking be sure to contribute good content and stay somewhat involved in the sites your using.
Steve (14 comments.)
29th July, 2010 at 4:18 pm

hi Josh,
I’ve always thought that profile links can’t be worth much, but if google can’t even get to them (because they are only available to members that are logged on) then it is a no-brainer that they are WORTHLESS.
good post! Steve
Andy (8 comments.)
29th July, 2010 at 4:30 pm

Yeah but creating a profile online is an essential marketing ploy to brand yourself.

Then you can link to your about page anytime you get the chance and not worry about your link being rejected.
Sally (8 comments.)
30th July, 2010 at 2:31 pm

Thanks for explaining that so clearly Josh, makes perfect sense now, Sally
Josh Garrett-Houston IT support
31st July, 2010 at 9:59 pm

I own an IT support Company, and we also build and market web sites. i have been trying to figure out why some links we have created were not showing up for our customers. I now have an explanation that makes sense.
Dennis Edell | Direct Sales Marketing (1 comments.)
1st August, 2010 at 5:12 pm

The second logical question becomes, how many link service sellers know this, and scam it through anyway?
Kelly @ Pirate Costumes Plus Size (1 comments.)
7th August, 2010 at 1:02 am

Everyone seems to be painting all link services with the same brush. The two that I have used in the past (both named after the people that create the lists) make sure that the forum profiles are public before they add them – I always double check, and they have always been public profiles. Several months after using them, I found 100′s of my profiles indexed in google.

What made me stop using them was that as time went by, that number dropped, because so many people have been doing this that many of the forums have gone no follow, and delete accounts that don’t make participate in the forum. I don’t want to annoy forum owners – that’s their real estate, if they don’t want me building a house on it, I will respect that.
Johnny (1 comments.)
30th November, 2010 at 6:30 pm

No wonder. I bought one three months ago and only saw a few back links. Guess I’m canceling.
Pete (1 comments.)
15th February, 2011 at 2:50 pm

Good point.

But I would like to know, is the forum profile link building considered as greyhat link building ? Clearly many of the forum owners doesn’t like people planting links the there.. ?
zobu balin?šana m?j?s (1 comments.)
13th March, 2011 at 1:53 pm

I agree, forum links are becoming worthless.

By the way, one day Google maybe will just add one line of code to their algorithm: “block forum links” and every of these links will be without any value.
KatherineJ (1 comments.)
20th March, 2011 at 9:01 am

Think we’re at a bit of a pivot point on forums – it seems any backllnk technique which becomes over popular may be shot down in google’s eyes one day -then there will be something else to replace it. It all depends upon your strategy – contribute heavily and grow traffic – add profile links anywhere just for links etc etc.
Download Films Legally (1 comments.)
10th April, 2011 at 8:13 am

Very glad I found this post.

I have spent countless hours building forum backlinks and always wondered why so few of them show up as actual backlinks.

Thanks for the info

Deon
izdelava strani (1 comments.)
23rd May, 2011 at 8:12 pm

Sounds reasonable. I am also wondering why some of them show up in the SERP and some do not. You can view profile without logging in, but Google just wont index them. Any idea why?
Karl (1 comments.)
27th July, 2011 at 2:52 pm

I’m in the same boat, now I tend to be active in lots of forums and post sly back links into reliant topics. Still not as good as getting a good article or two written for you.
Psiholog Mihaela Popa (1 comments.)
9th August, 2011 at 2:41 pm

We just wanted to start building forum profile links but your post, which I found during a search “backlinks profil forum”. I think you saved us a lot of time, so thank you!
Steve (1 comments.)
3rd January, 2012 at 2:55 pm

So it seems that services offering their super duper SEO techniques may, in fact, offer backlinks that do not count. What’s more – they might not know it themselves.
And I have qondered why so few forum profile links (if any) ever show up…