Effectiveness of Forum Backlinks: specifically Paul's Backlinks

[csblev]

I know the general consensus is that these kinds of backlinks are of low value, however I'm curious as to anyones present day experience with them and if they are providing any value.

More specifically, I am curious if they can do harm.  I don't see how they could, as it would be a very easy tactic for an unscrupulous competitor to sabotage another by implementing them for their competitors. I can see possibly losing rank if they were discounted, however if this is the case, then it would only be rank that would not have been gained in the first place, minus those kinds of links.

I ask because I have competing websites who have started to outrank me (they have been climbing and improving through each Google algorithm change in the past year), despite the fact that my mosrank and authority are better than every single one of them. But they have a sheer growing volume of backlinks that I can't match (seemingly low value when I look at their link profiles).

Plus my domain is older (9 years as opposed to 3-4 years), and my site is clearly better (in terms of aesthetics, usability, content, etc), as well as my link profile being selectively cultivated from truly relevant sites.

None the less, they are starting to kill me at this point -and I don't have the luxury of time.  So....I was wondering about the wisdom of upping my volume of forum type links, as this is the only area of measurement where I can see my competitors are beating me.

I am a believer in true, difficult, quality inbound marketing - however it is not getting the job done. Any thoughts on this?

[donford]

HI csblev,

Forum links / blog links are very important. For 2 reasons.

A. They typically are text anchor links like... you should try "Open Site Explorer". This gives Search Engines text to relate to the page based on what other people think is important about your page.

Compared to a link directory which usually is just your company name or url linked to your home page.. little value for any specific keywords except your company name which you probably have locked up anyway.

B. Secondly on forums / blogs that relate to your industry is where you want to be for direct customer purposes.

I've given this advice before, but I'll do it again.

Personally, if you have the time I would invest it in your business appropriate forums  and blogs. Find where your potential customers interact with each other, go to their forum and "engage" the community. Offer them free advice, answer questions and in general share your knowledge. By proving yourself helpful and when it is appropriate you can drop a link to a product page or an article on your site. The biggest caveat I can say is don't run around hitting up forums and spamming them, every forum that you want to be on has some sort of moderator that will remove your post. And personally if I'm on a community site and I see a blatant spam post, not only will I not click it, I will make a mental note to never go there.

I don't know what industry you're in, but if your site is much better and a leading authority then these types of forums should be picking up on you on their own. And your users / customers should already be generating some of these links for you, if not.. you need to ask yourself why not?. Sometimes forums need a push so it certainly doesn't' hurt to follow my advice above, but you may need to focus some attention on what you can do to make people want to link to you, rather then going out and doing it yourself.