Do links from such sites as TripAdvisor give any weight or support for SEO

[cceebar]

And what about other sites like quora or other niche forums/blogs where one might leave answers, with a link to their profile, which has a link back to the owner's website?

_Cindy

[mcncl]

It depends on how the first link is treated; links from profiles are often set as 'nofollow' and so pass no value to the target page.

Quickly checking on Quora, for example, they use a 'nofollow' tag on their links from answer contributor names.

[Linda-Vassily]

As a general rule, a link that anyone can get by just placing one there is unlikely to give SEO benefit. And as mcncll said, most of those types of links are nofollow, anyway.

The benefit of the type of the type of link you are talking about is exposure and possible referral traffic. (Assuming the answer that is posted is a good one, of course.)

[dohertyjf]

Take it on a site by site basis. Most of these sites have nofollowed all self-created links because of spammers and people trying to use the platform for link building. Shoot, I just did that on my own site

I completely agree with Linda about exposure and referral traffic. If it's a targeted audience, you can definitely drive a lot of traffic from these sorts of sites. I've seen some sites where if you get mentioned, it can literally drive thousands of visits per month to your site.

[cceebar]

OK thank you - that helps clarify my questions. So while the link may not carry weight if you were to gain traffic to the website, along with smart link building, that could be of help. If I'm understanding your response.

Thanks again - much appreciated!

_Cindy

[cceebar]

right of course nofollow
thank you.

[cceebar]

Thank you Linda. My first reaction was why not incentivize authorities within particular industries to comment and answer questions on such a sites with link juice, but it makes sense now that people would try to take advantage

And I guess it would asking too much for publishers of such forums/review sites to give link juice for approved authors...? Maybe then I'm think more of a reputable news publication...

_Cindy

[Linda-Vassily]

There are sites like that. For example, this one.

Moz will remove the "nofollow" from your profile and first custom URL once you accrue 200 mozPoints, presumably because you have shown yourself to be a trusted contributor.

The question remains however as to how much this is worth in Google's eyes. Since I work for a financial publishing company those links probably are not as useful as they might be to someone who works for an SEO company, since they are not directly relevant.

Guest posting and commenting used to be big link-building strategies, but not so much anymore.

[cceebar]

OK - thank you, good to know.

[Guest]

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