Can we do forum posting in unrelated niche??

[Kanna]

Dear Experts,

I searched in lots of forums and websites but I did not get exact answer for my question..

I read somewhere that getting back links from irrelevant niche forum will hurt our SERP .. Is this really true??

Everyday, I am using forums to increase my knowledge as well as to getting back links to my website. So, I feel little afraid to do forums nowadays if my website will also hit by Google due to irrelevant back links..!

So, please give me a valid suggestion regarding this..

Thanks in Advance,
Kanna

[ULTiMATE]

I read somewhere that getting back links from irrelevant niche forum will hurt our SERP .. Is this really true??

No, it's not. If it were true then you could spam forums using your competitors URL and damage their rankings.

Everyday, I am using forums to increase my knowledge as well as to getting back links to my website. So, I feel little afraid to do forums nowadays if my website will also hit by Google due to irrelevant back links..!

While you should contribute to forums, using them for any SEO gain is silly. Your post will reside on a weak page alongside the links of several other people pushing their links. It's like slicing a huge cake into a slice, then that slice into another slice, and then another slice, until all you're left with are crumbs.

There is absolutely no benefit to posting your link on forums, whether they are relevant to your site or not. Forum spam is a huge problem and even if you somehow post on a strong page you'll be followed by literally HUNDREDS of other people that want to spam their links. Posting on forums for SEO gain is a complete waste of your precious time.

[espisint]

Yes, but it is better that you use related.

[TechnoBear]

Everyday, I am using forums to increase my knowledge as well as to getting back links to my website. So, I feel little afraid to do forums nowadays if my website will also hit by Google due to irrelevant back links..!

All external links on SitePoint are nofollow, so will not count as backlinks, as far as the search engines are concerned. Many other forums have taken the same approach, largely because of the number of people who sign up simply to spam and drop links to their sites.

[solar2005]

I still believe link building is a strong point of SEO especially for Google, hence, do your forum posting in relevant niche and on quality forum sites. Whether we like it or not, forums are very important in SEO because when you carry out a Google search on any keyword , you will discover that forums come up in the result on the first page.

[Ted S]

I still believe link building is a strong point of SEO especially for Google, hence, do your forum posting in relevant niche and on quality forum sites. Whether we like it or not, forums are very important in SEO because when you carry out a Google search on any keyword , you will discover that forums come up in the result on the first page.

That a site is found for a query does not mean having an unrelated link on that page has any sort of major weight. The benefit of forum links is still by and large forum users... If you're already in a place with qualified visitors your thought should be how to get their attention first, not how to get less of them to see you later.

[Kanna]

Many thanks for your reply..! Ok.. just leave our sitepoint forum bcoz of nofollow signatures..! ...

There are several high quality forums with do follow in Internet. I do not want to mention their names. If I get back link from those forums via signature, will it hurt my rankings??? Assume, my theme is Horoscope and forum theme is Web Development.. So, will it consider to be irrelevant in Google's eye?? Will those back links penalize my website due ti irrelevant links??

Please give me a valid suggestion regarding this.!

All external links on SitePoint are nofollow, so will not count as backlinks, as far as the search engines are concerned. Many other forums have taken the same approach, largely because of the number of people who sign up simply to spam and drop links to their sites.

[Kanna]

This is what the main reason for Google introduced Disavow tool .. Is not it?? We can eliminate those bad links, irrelevant backlinks which is not created by us. If our competitors doing this, we can file a disavow request to Google directly to remove those link?? Right? If I am wrong, please clarify me.. Thanks..!

No, it's not. If it were true then you could spam forums using your competitors URL and damage their rankings.

Thanks for your valuable suggestion! Great thought..!

While you should contribute to forums, using them for any SEO gain is silly. Your post will reside on a weak page alongside the links of several other people pushing their links. It's like slicing a huge cake into a slice, then that slice into another slice, and then another slice, until all you're left with are crumbs.

There is absolutely no benefit to posting your link on forums, whether they are relevant to your site or not. Forum spam is a huge problem and even if you somehow post on a strong page you'll be followed by literally HUNDREDS of other people that want to spam their links. Posting on forums for SEO gain is a complete waste of your precious time.

[ULTiMATE]

This is what the main reason for Google introduced Disavow tool .. Is not it?? We can eliminate those bad links, irrelevant backlinks which is not created by us. If our competitors doing this, we can file a disavow request to Google directly to remove those link?? Right? If I am wrong, please clarify me.. Thanks..!

Disavow is to stop your brand from being associated with malicious or user-generated links. My point is regarding any benefit to ranking.

[l2u]

Getting good link for any niche will never hurt. But its better if the niche is relevant to yours.

[SDGSteve]

Getting good link for any niche will never hurt. But its better if the niche is relevant to yours.

I think this sums up the original question the best, having links on an irrelevant site won't do you any harm (as long as you're a quality member of the forum and not just endlessly spamming it with "great post", I'd expect that to be calculated somehow) but it also won't do you any good, getting links on a relevant forum should do some good, though as noted it gets more complicated with nofollow.

Regarding the link build side of this thread, a point often made that makes logical sense to me is that if you go around building only dofollow links it doesn't look natural and you might lose some of the benefit in the Google algorithm, building nofollow links as well makes it look more natural.

I don't agree that forum link building is totally useless but you have to do a lot of it and keep it high quality to draw benefit, blog commenting is probably a little easier, far more blogs still have dofollow.

No, it's not. If it were true then you could spam forums using your competitors URL and damage their rankings.

Agree your conclusion is basically right but not for the right reason, I could take your web address and buy black hat links, spam it around lousy link farms, fluff up bad forums and blogs, article spin to free submission sites with your link in my signature, kayword stuff anchor text etc. and you'd start to suffer, Google isn't going to be able to prevent this kind of attack if someone wants to do it, how can it tell the difference between me attacking you and you hiring a black hat SEO? Link disavow protects you from old mistakes but also from such a situation happening.

[ULTiMATE]

Agree your conclusion is basically right but not for the right reason, I could take your web address and buy black hat links, spam it around lousy link farms, fluff up bad forums and blogs, article spin to free submission sites with your link in my signature, kayword stuff anchor text etc. and you'd start to suffer,

I'd like to see some kind of evidence for this, because logically it seems insane to allow this.

It's really easy to build a script that will spam forums and blogs, so "black hat" SEOers could quite easily amass thousands of links on crappy sites. In the scenario I suggested, if we believe your point then it would take little to no work whatsoever to take out any competitors.

Google isn't going to be able to prevent this kind of attack if someone wants to do it, how can it tell the difference between me attacking you and you hiring a black hat SEO? Link disavow protects you from old mistakes but also from such a situation happening.

It's as easy as not penalising poor back links.

It would be moronic to punish a site because someone has posted a link to their site on a bad site. Google has no basis to suggest that the site owner was the person to place the link there, so why would they punish said site? This would open up such a huge bug in the Google search algorithm.

It's already widely known that Google rarely "penalises" sites, but dilutes the benefits given by a link that it regards to be poor.

As I said above, the point of disavow is to distance your site from having a poor reputation. If I ran a legitimate business and most of my backlinks were appearing in Google as coming from a porn or warez site it would damage the credibility of my company. Ranking is irrelevant in this scenario, and is is the reason disavow exists.

[barickiza]

It will not hurt you, but it is much better to make links from high page rank related forums, as Google gives more importance to them.

[SDGSteve]

I'd like to see some kind of evidence for this, because logically it seems insane to allow this.

Like most things with the algorithm I can only relate indications. Over the recent updates forums have been stuffed with people screaming they just lost their positioning colossally, on investigation this is because they have a ton of spun article spam out there or similar which Google is now definitely against, so their position has plummeted.

Of course, this could be because they're getting "punished" or it could be because the "bonus points" they were getting for those spam links are no longer earning bonus points.

There's not quite as much forum traffic or blogs around about it but I've seen a few stating examples of how link disavow has helped dig many of these spam linked sites back out of the basement; they disavowed the bad links and their search position went back up.

Google aren't going to give you bonus points just because you disavowed a bad link, so it's logical that disvowing a bad link removes some negative "punishment", allowing these sites to bounce back up to a healthy position.

Perhaps it does seem strange people aren't constantly crashing each other's sites, but then it's a bit like nuclear deterrent isn't it, if someone did it to you you'd probably do it back because it is easy to do.

I'm not saying this is a good thing, it just seems the only thing that makes sense. I know some updates are purely "remove-the-bonus-points" based ie EMD, but I can't see any other explanation for the disavow bounce effect.

[swapnilramani]

I read somewhere that getting back links from irrelevant niche forum will hurt our SERP .. Is this really true??

Ofcourse yes, Posting in unrelated forums till you do not have links in those post will not matter more, but once it comes to posting links, the forum owners will either delete the link everytime you post it and to the far extent you will be banned from the forum because your post in their forum are unrelated to their niche and this means the content quality of their site will be hampered and if this persists like same, they will not tolerate this and may ban you for spamming on their forums, better you put this way, If you are not able to find any forum for your niche, you may describe your niche out here with the members and we can help you find some of them for you.
Do not post in unrelated forums, it is next to spamming and will not be tolerated most of times by any admins or mods of the forum.

[Kanna]

No.. Forum owners will never ban you until your post is considered as useless. If you post useful replies along with your irrelevant signatures , they won't ban you. You can take me as an example. My niche is Horoscope. But our sitepoint niche is completely related about Web Development and SEO. Am not getting ban from our sitepoint community for inserting irrelevant link in signature. Still, I am learning and share my knowledge here..!

And, my question is not about making irrelevant post in forums. What my question is, If I getting backlinks from irrelevant forums will hurt our SERP?? I hope you will clear this time..!

Ofcourse yes, Posting in unrelated forums till you do not have links in those post will not matter more, but once it comes to posting links, the forum owners will either delete the link everytime you post it and to the far extent you will be banned from the forum because your post in their forum are unrelated to their niche and this means the content quality of their site will be hampered and if this persists like same, they will not tolerate this and may ban you for spamming on their forums, better you put this way, If you are not able to find any forum for your niche, you may describe your niche out here with the members and we can help you find some of them for you.
Do not post in unrelated forums, it is next to spamming and will not be tolerated most of times by any admins or mods of the forum.

[cbp]

No.. Forum owners will never ban you until your post is considered as useless. If you post useful replies along with your irrelevant signatures ,

I ban them on my forums all the time. If you posting whatever, just to get a link, then assume you are banned. We only want posters who become useful community member.

[Kanna]

Even if we are posting useful replies, will you ban us?? So, you are not allowing anyone to drop a link even in signatures in your forum?

I ban them on my forums all the time. If you posting whatever, just to get a link, then assume you are banned. We only want posters who become useful community member.

[cbp]

Even if we are posting useful replies, will you ban us?? So, you are not allowing anyone to drop a link even in signatures in your forum?

Yes. The track record of people who drop links in signatures and posts in my forums are they not there to be a part of the community, but are there to get something out of it. We do not want them. The vast majoirty of participants of my forums do not have links in their signatures; they just want to be part of the community, be useful members and participate. Those who are their with other motive are extremely obvious and are gone pretty quick.

<snip>

[Kanna]

Great. Felt awesome after reading your post.. I am the contributing member of many forums for last 3.5 yrs. I did not heard about the forum mods will ban the members which they are using link in their signatures even if they posting useful replies. This is the first time I heard about this.! This kind of forums will be really appreciable. I do want to be a member of your forum to share and gain my knowledge...!

Yes. The track record of people who drop links in signatures and posts in my forums are they not there to be a part of the community, but are there to get something out of it. We do not want them. The vast majoirty of participants of my forums do not have links in their signatures; they just want to be part of the community, be useful members and participate. Those who are their with other motive are extremely obvious and are gone pretty quick.

My intention is not to spam any forum or website anyway. I won't do that. If I did it, I would not be in SitePoint (they never tolerate any spammers here) and speaking with you. and even my website would not be in #1 position for lots of targeted keywords..! And, my question is not regarding this.!

My question is about "Can we do forum posting in unrelated niche and back links from those forums will hurt our SERP? Feel free to share your opinion about this..!