Is Forum Link Building a Waste of Time in 2018?
-
Hi there, this is a general question about link building strategies in 2018. It actually relates to reports derived from the link building audit tool on SEMrush, so forgive that. We use Moz as well, it's just that we happen to be working in SEMrush for link analysis.
Basically, the audit tool looks at our links and our competitors' links. It has come back with a number of 'opportunities' for link building and I'm questioning the value of many of them, in 2018. Many of the 'opportunities' the tool is suggesting we explore include answering forum questions on places like Reddit, Quora, etc. The tool has been good at identifying topical threads which might hold promise (a very specific branch of legal services) but most of the threads are 3 - 8 years old. To answer them, I would need to muster someone with expertise to post a relevant answer.
So, obviously, my question is does anyone think there is any value in this sort of link building in this day and age? I really think our greatest value will be in guiding their content strategy and looking for content creation opportunities on high authority sites.
Thoughts?
-
You might be able to get some highly relevant referral traffic from forums, so forum links aren't completely useless.
But as Logan and Martijn said, if you are doing this type of link building purely for SEO reasons, then your time is definitely better spent elsewhere.
Cheers,
David
-
Can only confirm this, are there even forums out there still where you can get links without a nofollow? Then I'll start spam... OK nevermind ;). It's dead.
-
Thanks, Logan.
I always wonder why tools like SEMrush tout themselves as DIY 'all in one' solutions and then mislead by providing these sorts of 'false opportunities.'
Thanks for confirming my instincts!
-
David,
This type of link building has been dead for a long time. I'd definitely recommend spending your time elsewhere. Your time will be better spent creating great content.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
link building
https://www.youtube.com/redirect?q=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro%2F
Link Building | | Tv2.ro
https://m.youtube.com/redirect?q=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro%2F
https://t.me/iv?url=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro
https://cr.naver.com/redirect-notification?u=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro
https://panchodeaonori.sakura.ne.jp/feed/aonori/feed2js.php?src=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/no_outbounds.php?o=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro
https://optimize.viglink.com/page/pmv?url=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro
https://hobby.idnes.cz/peruanske-palive-papricky-rocoto-dlz-/redir.aspx?url=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro
https://redirects.tradedoubler.com/utm/td_redirect.php?td_keep_old_utm_value=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro
https://www.kaskus.co.id/redirect?url=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro
https://salesevents.madison.com/go.php?article_id=108164&dealer_id=60&ga_id&promo_id=25&source=promotion&url=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro
https://bbs.pku.edu.cn/v2/jump-to.php?url=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro%2F
https://feeds.hanselman.com/~/t/0/0/scotthanselman/~/https:/antena24.ro
https://guru.sanook.com/?URL=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro%2F
https://keyscan.cn.edu/AuroraWeb/Account/SwitchView?returnUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro
https://bukkit.org/proxy.php?link=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro
https://nou-rau.uem.br/nou-rau/zeus/auth.php?back=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro%2F&go=x&code=x&unit=x
https://redirect.camfrog.com/redirect/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro
https://auth.she.com/logout/?callback=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro&client_id=8
https://bugcrowd.com/external_redirect?site=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro
https://wikimapia.org/external_link?url=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro
https://www.earth-policy.org/?URL=https://antena24.ro
https://m.ok.ru/dk?st.cmd=outLinkWarning&st.rfn=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro%2F
https://m.ok.ru/dk?st.cmd=outLinkWarning&st.rfn=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro
https://wfc2.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=hdorrh%2BHcDlQ%2BzUEnZU5qlfKZ1Cl53X6&url=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro%2F
https://www.fuzokubk.com/cgi-bin/LinkO.cgi?u=antena24.ro
https://ipv4.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro
https://ditu.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro%2F
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&url=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro
https://m.verywed.com/redirect.php?url=https://antena24.ro/
https://www.projekt-office.ch/?URL=https://antena24.ro
https://mobile.myprice74.ru/redirect.php?url=antena24.ro
https://www.libenar.it/?URL=https://antena24.ro/
https://feeds.osce.org/~/t/0/0/osceofficetajikistan/~/https:/antena24.ro
https://feeds.gty.org/~/t/0/0/gtyblog/~/https:/antena24.ro
https://feeds.marinsoftware.com/~/t/0/0/marininsights/~/https:/antena24.ro
https://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=60610D15439B4103A0BF4E1051EDCF8B&url=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro%2F&c=12807976268214810202&mkt=en-us
https://maps.google.bj/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro%2F
https://www.google.bj/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro%2F
https://www.htcdev.com/?URL=antena24.ro
https://maps.google.mu/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro%2F
https://mitsui-shopping-park.com/lalaport/ebina/redirect.html?url=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro%2F
https://images.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&url=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro%2F
https://maps.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&url=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro%2F
https://google.co.uk/url?sa=t&url=https%3A%2F%2Fantena24.ro%2F
https://results.dogpile.com/search/web?q=antena24.ro
https://www.ask.com/web?q=antena24.ro
https://search.aol.com/aol/search?s_chn=prt_bon&q=antena24.ro
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=antena24.ro&ia=web
https://www.bing.com/search?q=antena24.ro
https://search.yahoo.com/search?p=antena24.ro
https://search.yahoo.co.jp/search?p=antena24.ro1 -
Optimum level of link building per month for a new domain
looking to launch a new site, how mnay links can we affectively create per month? is 80 links per month ok?
Link Building | | Direct_Ram0 -
Spam Link Building Discovered - What would you do?
Hi Mozers, After investigating our no 1 competitor we have discovered their 87k back links comparing to ours 1k. After dipper investigations we discovered that all the back links are gained by the websites created by themselves. So what they did is - they had purchased 10+ domains and created 10+ new websites that are identical as their original .com version. EVERY SINGLE LINK on these 'new' websites link to their .com version. The 'New' websites are not indexed. Literally each of us can do the same and gain thousands of back links, but isn't it violating google's policy? What are your thought on it? (What is the best practice to report the violation of google's policy to Google?) Best regards, Lana
Link Building | | Chemometec0 -
Better link building is hardest to achieve in 2014
In a simple words. My site has good quality content not copies 100% original. Have good social points more then 500 or twitter, fb, g+ (200) and now what to do with ranking. should i start linking, but where, please don't refer me any-page. As my thinking all old link building method are now died, like comment, rss, classifieds, footer links, directories. etc At this time i am thinking the powerful link building is hard to achieve in whole process of seo. Now any one tell me where do i start, linking to my site .....? (I also research on competitors but there links are all from contextual and linking domain sites DA is more then 70, and i can't even able to get one link by scraping more then 200 sites.) Thanks .
Link Building | | seom20140 -
Link building need help
I've been doing link building for the past 2 months for a website. I've put together some blog posts and submitted them to some sites. However, I don't want to repeat the content on other sites or use the same sites again for links. The problem with this company is that nothing is happening. The last press release they issued was in 2010 and in the 4 months I've been working for them nothing has happened. I have found a few good quality websites in our niche which I could approach for links, but I want to have good content to put on them. Does anyone have any ideas as how to create content that would be suitable, bearing in mind this a B2B company.
Link Building | | AAttias0 -
Link Building for a New Blog
We are setting up a new blog and I was wondering what is the best way to build good quality links for a new website? I have been researching this quite a bit on the forums and a lot of people talk about writing good content which I agree with however no one will find that content if we are not ranking in Google for our keywords. From what I have read the following is what I should be doing Directory's Creating Link-bait (Info-graphics) PR Releases or Getting News Sites to link to us I have heard a lot of mention of using Articles sites like ezinearticles but I have also read that Post Panda that they dont have as much link juice as they once had and also I don't think that for a Blog that we should be using it as well but maybe I am wrong? Would appreciate some peoples suggestions
Link Building | | The_Zero_Wolf0 -
Our link building strategy - affiliates and trophies
Hey guys, I just wanted to follow up on Rand's excellent whiteboard Friday: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/preventing-linkbased-penalties-whiteboard-friday It got me worried I think, but I'm not sure. We have a site where we are building up links in 2 ways: We have an affiliate set-up. A search widget in an i-frame, and below the i-frame a followed link pointing to the relevant page.
Link Building | | sichristie
The anchor text varies for each affiliate depending which region the affiliate comes from. We have awarded about 500 of our partners with trophies - i.e. - this partner has best reviews or most sales etc. Our partners are absolutely loving it.
The trophy is an image link which they can embed on their website, with alt text only mentioning our brand - that was an oversight ( I think). I wish the alt had been dynamically generated for each partner.
The trophies link to our partner pages.
So we are getting many links to our deeper pages, which is great.
The links I believe are relevant as they are coming from our partners websites and pointing to their relevant partner page on our website. So burning question is. Would you consider these links dodgy given Rands recent whiteboard friday post, and the recent farmer algorithm change? Many thanks, Croozie0 -
Create content or more link building?
For those of you who have been doing white hat SEO for many years, I'm curious what % of your time (and/or how many hours/week) you spend on 2 activities: -- creating new, original content for your site -- work on getting links to your existing content I find that working at getting links via article marketing, guest blogging, forum posting, etc, is an open ended time suck that never ends. But maybe a necessary investment for sites that have fewer external links than their competitors (?). Adding unique original content to my site is also time consuming, and I'm not sure about the short-term vs long-term benefit of it. I'm curious if you guys who rank in top 3 positions of the SERPs split your time evenly between link building and content building, or if you spend more time on one than the other? And does the answer change for a site that's been around for a while and already has several hundred external links and several hundred pages of original content? Where should I spend my time on a site that is 8 months old, has about 90 pages of original content (all with good on-page SEO), and several hundred external links (with mostly relevant anchor texts)? My goal is to rank higher for the key terms people search on to find a service like mine. Currently I'm on page 1 in SERPs but not in top 3.
Link Building | | scanlin0