Backlink profiles at an end???

[frank44]

hello,
I am following an interesting thread on webmasterworld.com. They are talking about an imminent Google algo change which will devaluate some backlinks. In the thread there is a specific reference to "backlinks profiles": Here is some excerpt:


Question: I was wondering - does anyone know of anything in the pipeline from google regarding ....

Links from Profiles.

By profiles I mean typical forum member profile links, web2 profile links and any other kind of member site profile links.

Does anyone know if they are planning to swipe them down anytime soon?

They can do it - we know that - because they already did it with various link types.

Its so common now to mass spam profiles that its getting hard to resist doing it in order to stay alive in the serps.

Reply: moultano (http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=moultano) is a Google employee (working at Google; in the search quality dept I believe) and 3 days ago he posted the following:

There's a change slowly rolling out that improves the [nfl jerseys] query substantially. I'll check on the others. Thanks for the examples.

Some really dramatic changes to how we use links are on the way. (Sorry I can't say anything more specific. This is a really sensitive area.)

So it's only a short message (re: the second paragraph) although it does imply that Google might be changing things around soon.

And if they are directly changing the way they handle backlinks, it might well be going after 'weak' backlinks such as forum profile spam/links.

So who knows; I reckon a decently big change is coming fairly soon though.


What do you think about this? Are we all in jeopardy to be penalized or not? What's the future of all blogs which used backlinks profiles?

link tothe thread:
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4261164.htm

 

[DebbieSprules]

Oh shit the bed...!!!!! This is serious. Should be in the BH section... they would all go mad. Most of my links are as you say...

 

[frank44]

anyone want to express their thoughts on this topic? I would appreciate if someone could drop some lines...thanks

 

[webmast]

The most stupid thing to do if you're running a search engine is to give any value to a profile link.
Yet, Google is THAT stupid. I would fire the entire web spam department right away! Matt Cutts goes first

 

[housemusic]

hello frank.
thanks for posting useful info.
Honestly I don't believe profile backlinks are working anymore.
Google can easily track them being a profile backlink due the footprints. If i were the google bot I would think "Oh common, thousand of backlinks from profile backlinks point to this website...why would I rank it? this is spam!".

By my experience they don't work anymore and people who believe that they work may be due the fact they are doing other types of backlinks at the same time. Maybe having a couple from high PR domains may help a bit.

You won't get penalized by doing this and the only advantage I see is the huge number of backlinks you would have, scaring all the lazy competitors.

cheers!

 

[┼blackrat┼]

 

[frank44]

@blackrat: canyou develp your thought a little bit?
@all: thanks for the insight
@housemagic: thanks for the reassuring words. So, what in your opnion are the most used backlinks "in fashion" nowadays?

 

[Razorbl]

 

[marco1_79]

Profile backlinks have surely lost some value in the last months.
They are still useful but surely not as much as in past.
It's quite obvius that this trend will continue. It's similar to what has happend to blog commeting that now is unuseful.

 

[pirondi]

Yes please dont build more links it is useless.

Google also say that they have filters for blog comment spam.

 

[feyt333]

thanks for information

 

[ph33rgear]

I have totally noticed a VERY drastic change in rankings on many of my sites in the last week for some CRUCIAL keywords.

THAT being said, my traffic from google in general has increased. I guess other people have lost more link juice then I did.

I have also noticed a 1pr drop on allot of websites.

The funny thing is, when I searched my backlinks most of the ones I (thought) had been getting good keyword linking from are legit articles, links, recommendations from same topic sites.

 

[housemusic]

@blackrat: canyou develp your thought a little bit?
@all: thanks for the insight
@housemagic: thanks for the reassuring words. So, what in your opnion are the most used backlinks "in fashion" nowadays?

I dont know...there is a lot of people selling and buying profile backlinks...even if they work by the use of some twist, they are still spam links and i prefer focusing my work on longterm instead of having my serps dropped in a future google algorithms update. I have seem some competitors websites which 99% of profile ranking in 2009 but nowadays when i checked they are gone.

What i recommend everyone is to test and check what is best for you.

 

[lifco]

Tobe honest you would think they would get on the blog spam first
I did read a post only the other day on a diffrent BH site saying just that blog spam is coming to a end

Anyways as said above you get posts like this every now and then

 

[ph33rgear]

Tobe honest you would think they would get on the blog spam first
I did read a post only the other day on a diffrent BH site saying just that blog spam is coming to a end

Anyways as said above you get posts like this every now and then

I've read about the splogs, blog spam, comments etc.. recently on many websites from some people with good insight and knowledge in these area's, I've also personally seen it working (in a negative way for some of my sites) within the last week give or take a few days.

 

[cloakndagger]

I see reciprical links on relevant sites becoming important.Local business directory links that sort of stuff.The fact is most spammy links are selling shit,they need spamy links because no normal site would touch them.I have blogs and get spam everyday I could just shut the comments off but I read them laugh my balls off and trash them.This why you can actually see your links drop fast some sites SHOW the link until it is deleted.

I actually think it has affected googles search results adversely no doubt.Bing isn't much better but for different reasons.On yahoo a keyword site rule end of.
Changes are coming,I have no idea what they are but they are coming.If got more than 5 spam comments a day I'd simply switch off comments and get none.So some fault lies with webmasters who are clueless and do not fully understand the way things work.It could be that we will see some very unusually serps results soon as google implements any changes.

 

[applepink07]

^ I agree with you