Is Forum Link Building a Waste of Time in 2018?

[Daaveey]

Hi there, this is a general question about link building strategies in 2018. It actually relates to reports derived from the link building audit tool on SEMrush, so forgive that. We use Moz as well, it's just that we happen to be working in SEMrush for link analysis.

Basically, the audit tool looks at our links and our competitors' links. It has come back with a number of 'opportunities' for link building and I'm questioning the value of many of them, in 2018. Many of the 'opportunities' the tool is suggesting we explore include answering forum questions on places like Reddit, Quora, etc. The tool has been good at identifying topical threads which might hold promise (a very specific branch of legal services) but most of the threads are 3 - 8 years old. To answer them, I would need to muster someone with expertise to post a relevant answer.

So, obviously, my question is does anyone think there is any value in this sort of link building in this day and age? I really think our greatest value will be in guiding their content strategy and looking for content creation opportunities on high authority sites.

Thoughts?

[LoganRay]

David,

This type of link building has been dead for a long time. I'd definitely recommend spending your time elsewhere. Your time will be better spent creating great content.

[Daaveey]

Thanks, Logan.

I always wonder why tools like SEMrush tout themselves as DIY 'all in one' solutions and then mislead by providing these sorts of 'false opportunities.'

Thanks for confirming my instincts!

[Martijn_Scheijbeler]

Can only confirm this, are there even forums out there still where you can get links without a nofollow? Then I'll start spam... OK nevermind ;). It's dead.

[davebuts]

You might be able to get some highly relevant referral traffic from forums, so forum links aren't completely useless.

But as Logan and Martijn said, if you are doing this type of link building purely for SEO reasons, then your time is definitely better spent elsewhere.

Cheers,

David