Has anyone noticed these horrible link building strategies?

[wmrobwl]

A few months ago while researching creative ways to supplement my link building strategy I stumbled onto a forum.

My observations at the forum:
The site is littered with newbies who think they're internet marketing gurus because they use automated tools to create thousands of crappy links and have been doing it for a few months. Their link building methods are forum profile links, blog comments, articles, directories, social bookmarking, and RSS submissions. A great deal of the participants of the forum are practically sociopaths. None of them know a single thing about onsite SEO and even worse they really don't care about it at all. They will spend hundreds of dollars and countless hours building links but they won't even optimize with the proper title tags.

They also spend obscene amounts of money by buying tools and "outsourcing" to create tons of crappy links. It's almost impossible to have an intelligent dialogue with anyone in there because everyone thinks they're an expert despite the fact that many of them aren't even F/T self-employed.

The biggest craze at the moment seems to be forum profile links. How long do we have to wait until they get penalized and lose their SERPs?

Besides the blatant spam like automated blog comments and profile links, are any of the other link building methods like article marketing and directory submissions going to work for much longer?


Edited by Rah: I've removed the name of the other forum.

[NickTyler81]

Who's to say how long anything will work for? But while it's working why not make use of it?

[jaycar]

I think you get people like that in any forum no matter what it is. But yes, like Nick Tyler 81 said, make use of what ever works and just go with the flow when things change.

[Tubby]

The internet quite probably has room for everyone, some days it really does seems that 'everybody' really is out there Struggling, scrambling and pushing and shoving for the extra visitor.

I try not to worry about the hustle and bustle, I try to maintain a steady plod towards my goals, I think watching all the sideshows can be distracting.

They may never get "penalised" and lose their serps.

Their will always be an income derived from peoples imagination, hopes and dreams. whether it be connected with traffic to a website, or the flashest Pumpkin in the world.

[rebecca-may]

The latest we have seen are thousands of blog links with no content, just a heading... well I suppose if you get "an army" submitting this rubbish for pennies, there is no way of stopping it while they are flying under the radar. But we have absolutely evidence of the little value these links have, it's just that they don't it and are running like hampsters in a wheel... ha-ha!

[keyon]

there is no way of stopping it while they are flying under the radar.

I suspect this is the real truth of the matter. From what I see, the lower-traffic niches still get away using a lot of old SEO tricks that Google seems to discredit at larger websites.

[DonOmite]

Evidence it doesn't work? Wow. Unfortunately for that statement you are wrong. It is an urban legend (sorta) that says links can be "crappy". I have seen with my own 8 eyes (I wear trifocals) that a site can get to the top with just "crappy" links. You see, the SEs don't really care about the quality of the link, just that it is there. Google tries to put some weight behind links but not successfully and has admitted they are steering away from page rank.

My problem with it is it takes too much work for the result. This is like running through mall parking lots leaving flyers on cars. I think it aggravates more people than it attracts and takes too much time. Oh, sure, you can go pay somebody from India a penny a post to do it for you.

Bottom line is that links matter. For now.