Mar
You may or may not remember that I posted one of my methods for getting backlinks (and I have 2 PR3 sites that prove this works!) using forums. The idea was to create a transparent 1×1 pixel gif, and use BBcode to wrap it in [URL][/URL] tags, giving you something that looks like this
[URL=http://www.ericmitz.com]
[img]http://www.ericmitz.com/blank.gif[/img]
[/URL]
Some might consider this spam, or blackhat, but I don’t think anyone really gets harmed. The people in forums certainly don’t notice it (sometimes I can’t even find the damn pixel). More recently I have even used this multiple times in a single post to get backlinks to multiple sites at once.
[URL=http://www.ericmitz.com]
[img]http://www.ericmitz.com/blank.gif[/img]
[/URL][URL=http://www.digmyhonda.com]
[img]http://www.ericmitz.com/blank.gif[/img]
[/URL][URL=http://www.project-cars-for-sale.com]
[img]http://www.ericmitz.com/blank.gif[/img]
[/URL][URL=http://www.online-dating-blogger.com]
[img]http://www.ericmitz.com/blank.gif[/img]
[/URL]
The biggest problem with this method, as you might have guessed if you do any kind of SEO work, is that you cannot specify anchor text because you can’t add an “alt” tage to the image. Even so, this has worked well for me.
I have recently come accross another way to use forums for backlinks, and this one is even less intrusive, and gives you the ability to set your own anchor text. Here is the basic overview:
1. Find any forum without “nofollow” (preferably with PR4+)
2. Register as a new user
3. Fill out your profile details, and be sure to add your “homepage url” (just a bonus)
4. Create a signature with a keyword rich link to your affiliate site
5. View your member profile page and grab the URL. Your Signature will probably be displayed on this page.
6. Head on over to PingOMatic and ping your profile URL.
7. DO NOT POST! You can if you want, but many forums don’t allow commercial links in your sig. So just work off your profile page, and no one will ever know.
If that sounds confusing, I’ll take you through the process:
1. Find any forum without “nofollow” (preferably with PR4+)
Hmmm…Lets see. I wen’t on over to www.big-boards.com to see what some of the biggest forums on the internet are. Looking through the list, I noticed www.vwvortex.com, and since its run by the same people as www.honda-tech.com ,I know that it doesn’t use “nofollow”, and after a quick PageRank Check, I see that its a PR5. This looks like a good candidate.
2. Register as a New User
Well, If you can’t do this on your own, you’re probably in the wrong business. You might want to call up McDonalds.
3. Fill out your profile details, and be sure to add your “homepage url” (just a bonus)
Click on the link to change your profile
Enter your Home page URL (most forums have this). And click Save.
Again, You don’t have to do this part, its just 1 more link.
4. Create a signature with a keyword rich link to your affiliate site
Find the page that lets you edit your forum signature:
Enter a few URLs. They can be deep links if you want!
5. View your member profile page and grab the URL. Your Signature will probably be displayed on this page
Find the page which allows you to view your user profile:
Admire your page with links, and grab the URL:
6. Head on over to PingOMatic and ping your profile URL.
This will tell the search engines that your profile page exists. It will eventually find the page over time because most forums have a “member list”, but this will speed up the process.
7. DO NOT POST! You can if you want, but many forums don’t allow commercial links in your sig. So just work off your profile page, and no one will ever know.
Well, I don’t have a screenshot for this, but uh…just don’t post if you think it will get you banned…k?
You can multiply this method by using different forums, and/or creating new usernames. But its fairly simple to do, and can get you some pretty high PR back links without worrying about being a spammer. Now, obviously different forum software is going to be a little different, but most of the common forum platforms like Vbulletin, Invision, and phpbb all have the same kind of features.
