Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Should I Do a Social Bookmarking Campaign and a Tier 2 Linking?
-
I don't see anything bad in manually creating links on different (about 50) social bookmarking services. Is this method labeled as White Hat?
I was wondering if it would be fine to create Tier 2 linking (probably blog comments) for indexing of the social bookmarking links?
Please share your thoughts on the topic.
-
The thing is though - these methods will not increase your rankings. Google has pretty much devalued any links that we have some form of control over (directories, forums, blog comments, social bookmarking sites - even guest posting).
-
I definitely don't plan this to be my only strategy.
I have successful websites ranking well for some pretty competetive keywords. Besides social media signals, established blog mentions etc. I thought this could give the website an additional bump to rank for some other competetive keywords.
-
If all you plan to do is drop your links in social bookmarking sites, you're probably just wasting your time. It's not likely that these links will be worth anything to search engines - even if they are followed links. The time you spend building these links could be spend developing great content, or working on other link-building opportunities that would be more worthwhile.
As far as blog comments go - if your goal is to get backlinks, it's not a good idea. These links are nofollowed and too many of them will look spammy to search engines. If you are commenting to engage with the content author, that's a different story. I often comment on other sites to engage with the content author and start a conversation. I sometimes choose to include my website as a reference, but I often choose to leave it out.
-
Zoran,
Looks like you picked up a copy of the 1996's Backpackers Guide to Linkbuilding.
As Ricky said, that stuff's not worth much today. Basically, the more control you have over a link today, the less it is worth--with bookmarks being at the low end of the scale and editorial links from authoritative resources on the other end. Rather than spending your time at the low end, work on building out your social media profiles and figuring out who your audience is so you can publsh content for them and announce that content through your social channels. -
Hey Zoran,
From my understanding social bookmarking on small and rarely used sites will have VERY little positive affect on search rankings. I like to follow Eric Ward's golden rule: ask yourself..would you want this link if Google did not exist?
Definitely think your time could be better utilized elsewhere!
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
-
Too many dofollow links = penalty?
Hi. I currently have 150 backlinks, 90% of them are dofollow, while only 10% are nofollow. I recently hit position #10 for my main keyword, but now it is dropped to #16 and a lot of related keywords are gone. So I have a few questions: 1. Was my website penalized for having an unnatural backlink profile (too many dofollow links), or maybe this drop in positions is just a temporary, natural thing? 2. Isn’t it too late for making the backlink profile look more natural by building more nofollow backlinks and making it 50%/50%? Thank you!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | NathalieBr0 -
Are All Paid Links and Submissions Bad?
My company was recently approached by a website dedicated to delivering information and insights about our industry. They asked us if we wanted to pay for a "company profile" where they would summarize our company, add a followed link to our site, and promote a giveaway for us. This website is very authoritative and definitely provides helpful use to its audience. How can this website get away with paid submissions like this? Doesn't that go against everything Google preaches? If I were to pay for a profile with them, would I request for a "nofollow" link back to my site?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jampaper1 -
How does Google determine if a link is paid or not?
We are currently doing some outreach to bloggers to review our products and provide us with backlinks (preferably followed). The bloggers get to keep the products (usually about $30 worth). According to Google's link schemes, this is a no-no. But my question is, how would Google ever know if the blogger was paid or given freebies for their content? This is the "best" article I could find related to the subject: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2332787/Matt-Cutts-Shares-4-Ways-Google-Evaluates-Paid-Links The article tells us what qualifies as a paid link, but it doesn't tell us how Google identifies if links were paid or not. It also says that "loans" or okay, but "gifts" are not. How would Google know the difference? For all Google knows (maybe everything?), the blogger returned the products to us after reviewing them. Does anyone have any ideas on this? Maybe Google watches over terms like, "this is a sponsored post" or "materials provided by 'x'". Even so, I hope that wouldn't be enough to warrant a penalty.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jampaper0 -
Are link directories still effective? is there a risk?
We've contracted a traditional SEO firm, mostly for link building. As part of their plan they want to submit our site to a large list of link directories, and we're not sure if that's a good option. As far as we know, those directories have been ineffective for a long time now, and we're wondering if there is the chance of getting penalized by google. When I asked the agency their opinion about that, they gave me the following answer - Updated and optimized by us - We are partnered with these sites and control quality of these sites. Unique Class C IP address - Links from unique Referring Class C IP plays a very important role in SEO. Powered by high PR backlinks Domain Authority (DA) Score of over 20 These directories are well categorized. So they actually control those directories themselves, which we think is even worse. I'm wondering what does the Moz community think about link directory submission - is there still something to be gained there, is there any risk involved, etc. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | binpress0 -
Footer Link in International Parent Company Websites Causing Penalty?
Still waiting to look at the analytics for the timeframe, but we do know that the top keyword dropped on or about April 23, 2012 from the #1 ranking in Google - something they had held for years, and traffic dropped over 15% that month and further slips since. Just looked at Google Webmaster Tools and see over 2.3MM backlinks from "sister" compainies from their footers. One has over 700,000, the rest about 50,000 on average and all going to the home page, and all using the same anchor text, which is both a branded keyword, as well as a generic keyword, the same one they ranked #1 for. They are all "nofollows" but we are trying to confirm if the nofollow was before or after they got hit, but regardless, Google has found them. To also add, most of sites are from their international sites, so .de, .pl, .es, .nl and other Eurpean country extensions. Of course based on this, I would assume the footer links and timing, was result of the Penguin update and spam. The one issue, is that the other US "sister" companies listed in the same footer, did not see a drop, in fact some had increase traffic. And one of them has the same issue with the brand name, where it is both a brand name and a generic keyword. The only note that I will make about any of the other domains is that they do not drive the traffic this one used to. There is at least a 100,000+ visitor difference among the main site, and this additional sister sites also listed in the footer. I think I'm on the right track with the footer links, even though the other sites that have the same footer links do not seem to be suffering as much, but wanted to see if anyone else had a different opinion or theory. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | LeverSEO
Jen Davis0 -
Cross linking websites of the same company, is it a good idea
As a user I think it is beneficial because those websites are segmented to answer to each customer needs, so I wonder if I should continue to do it or avoid it as much as possible if it damages rankings...
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mcany0 -
A Straight Answer to Outsourcing Backlinking, Directory Submission and Social Bookmarking
Hey SEOmoz Community! I've spent a bit of time now reading about SEO in books as well as online here within the SEOmoz community. However, I've still struggled to find a straight answer to whether or not directory submissions to non-penalized websites is acceptable.I suspect the reason I haven't found a straight YES or NO answer is because it isn't so straightforward and I respect that. My dilemma is as follows: I want to raise the domain authority for a few websites that I optimize for. I've submitted and gotten listed a bunch of excellent backlinks, however it still is a painfully slow process. My clients understandably want to see results faster, and because they have virtually no past outsourced link-building campaigns, I am beginning to think that I can invest some money for outsourcing directory submissions. I see more and more people talking about the latest Penguin updates, and how many of these sites are now penalized. BUT, is there any harm to submitting to directories such as the ones on SEOmoz's spreadsheet that aren't penalized? My concern is that in the future these will be penalized anyways, and is there a chance then that my site will also be de-listed from Google? At what point does Google completely 'blacklist' your site from its engine? Furthermore, I don't understand how Google can penalize a website to the point of de-listing it, because what would prevent other competitors from sending mass spammy back-links to another? What it all comes down to: At this point, are verified mass directory submissions through outsourcing still much more beneficial than detrimental to the ranking of a website? Thanks SEOmoz community, Sheldon
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | swzhai0 -
Deny visitors by referrer in .htaccess to clean up spammy links?
I want to lead off by saying that I do not recommend trying this. My gut tells me that this is a bad idea, but I want to start a conversation about why. Since penguin a few weeks ago, one of the most common topics of conversation in almost every SEO/Webmaster forum is "how to remove spammy links". As Ryan Kent pointed out, it is almost impossible to remove all of these links, as these webmasters and previous link builders rarely respond. This is particularly concerning given that he also points out that Google is very adamant that ALL of these links are removed. After a handful of sleepless nights and some research, I found out that you can block traffic from specific referring sites using your.htaccess file. My thinking is that by blocking traffic from the domains with the spammy links, you could prevent Google from crawling from those sites to yours, thus indicating that you do not want to take credit for the link. I think there are two parts to the conversation... Would this work? Google would still see the link on the offending domain, but by blocking that domain are you preventing any strength or penalty associated with that domain from impacting your site? If for whatever reason this would nto work, would a tweak in the algorithm by Google to allow this practice be beneficial to both Google and the SEO community? This would certainly save those of us tasked with cleaning up previous work by shoddy link builders a lot of time and allow us to focus on what Google wants in creating high quality sites. Thoughts?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | highlyrelevant0