Are Yahoo Answers source links OK?

[Papoloko]

I was wondering if giving answer to questions at the Yahoo Answers place, putting your site’s link in the source box using good relevant links and no spamming, would give your site a good one way links or would it be considered spamming by Yahoo policy?

I like helping with the questions related to my field of expertise, mi site’s niches in this case, but I figured if I'm going to be putting my time in, by answering the questions, then, I feel I deserve something back. The earned back link to my sites would be a good reward for me.

It's the same principle behind writing post at the forums. By writing post, you are helping to build the forum’s content so, they allow your post and signature's links. It’s way different than when you just say “ Hi .. Bye” and put a bunch of links in the post. That would be spamming but, if you write a good post or answer… I would see it as collecting your due wages.

What are your opinions guys?

[chrisJumbo]

I think either way you have to be careful. As long as you aren't promoting your company in the answer it might be okay. Although, Yahoo may have rules against it.

However, if you are hiding your "identity" and answering questions, like where is the best Jet Ski? and your sign in is BigBoy in MT but you say I know this really cool site and give a link to yours, that would not be a good idea.

[Papoloko]

I just found out the links inside the answers have the nofollow tag on them.

Got 2 visitor referred from a best answer where I had a couple of links in the source. I guess it was ok since was related to my site.

[chrisJumbo]

You don't need every link to be followed. If you can do it in a way that doesn't turn people off and doesn't break the TOC of the site, go for it.

Traffic is traffic. It gained you two visits, two that you wouldn't have had.

My son gave me some good advice long ago when I only sold like $10 one day. He said, "Dad, something is better than nothing"

Have a great one.

[holyhttp]

As long as the sole purpose of answering questions is not to advertise your web site, it's ok to have your link in your signature.
If Yahoo has nofollow attribute in your link that's fine too because ultimately when people recognize your expertise they will be more then willing to click that link to find more info in your web site: that's what matters_ traffic, quality traffic.
Keep up helping others and you will reap the rewards for your expertise.

[Papoloko]

Originally Posted by holyhttp

it's ok to have your link in your signature.

It's bad that they don't have signature space. You are right, creating a trusted expert reputation will square the traffic things in the long run.

I just got another one of my answers selected as best answer today by the asker. With a source link, I sent the asker to a jet ski site that wasn't mine so, there were no links to my site this time but, I'm happy I was able to help her. She left this note for me. It make me feel good.

Copy & Paste:

Asker's Rating: star star star star star
Dang... you opened up a whole other world... a PWC world I never knew exsisted! Thanks!

[lasgas]

- yahoo answers help:
*if you get more best answers in your categories, yahoo will put your profile at the top and every one can visit your profile.
* best answer will help your profile to get at the first page results for related keywords to your best answer because yahoo use "shared by Yahoos" at the first page where people search for related topic.

[Ann]

I myself answers a lot of question in Yahoo Q & A. I don't mention my website in the source but sometimes definitely in the answer.

By doing so, I am only making my website popular among the people so that more people can visit my website. I am getting regular traffic from Yahoo answers.

But regarding SEO, I don't know how it can help as the links in the answers are having nofollow tag.

[jrdorkin]

Use your site in either the answer or in the source. Either way, people will have a look if your answer is well thought out and not spammy.

[Papoloko]

I appreciate your responses, guys!

I just discovered something bad, it kind of make me change my perspective about writing answers there. There is this forum, related to many sports, that is coping the answers straight up from Yahoo. I don’t like feeding content to my search result competition but I don’t know what to do about it beside stopping my answers at Yahoo..

They setup an user account, at their forum, with my user name at Y Answers ( Jet Ski ) and put a broken link to my Ultra150s site at the far bottom of the thread. There are some others threads that I recognized. Here is the one with a copy of my best answer:

H**p://forum.powersportstv.com/pwc-general/294-typically-whats-average-lifetime-waverunner-jetski.html


Here is my answer at Yahoo:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...nfo-9EqvLjgxaa

I wonder how long they been doing it. They may be writing funny users & questions, to make the forum look busy, then asking at Yahoo for answers. I know jet skis forums and that forum doesn’t look real to me. Until I resolve this I won’t be using the Y Answers.

[matt.online]

Yahoo, through their developers website, allows websites to use the Yahoo Answers content on their own website through an API. It is legit. I have seen other websites do this.

I think that with you wanting to answer questions using a promotion link back to your site for SEO is a conflict. There are thousands of other people that write answers that do it soley to answer a person's question and not to gain any SEO advantage. If you want to gain link popularity I suggest you look for legit sites that want to link back to you because your content is good.

[Papoloko]

Yahoo, through their developers website, allows websites to use the Yahoo Answers content on their own website through an API. It is legit. I have seen other websites do this.

If that was the case… If it was all legit and straight forward, then, why would they set a broken, out of the way, link to my domain name that's pointing to my 3 sites in same link and at the same time? I can see the malice and the intent to cause SE harm to my sites behind it since, there wasn’t any link in my original answer at Yahoo to start with.

I think that with you wanting to answer questions using a promotion link back to your site for SEO is a conflict.

You got it wrong. I didn’t wanted to use promo links but instead, used links to the Yahoo directory, to other watercrafts sites, and to my own site as the source of information. In some answers, I didn't write any source links because they weren’t needed. Why would they encourage the answerers to write the links to their sources if it wasn’t OK to do so?

There are thousands of other people that write answers that do it soley to answer a person's question and not to gain any SEO advantage.

It’s just like posting, giving free content to a site, at the forums without using a signature. Does this mean that the ones that use signature’s links are wrong? I use links in my sign because I want the web people to share my experiences, to get to know me and to see my face when the visit my sites. If we all do that, perhaps, the web experience would be better. Come on, no everybody have a need to hide in anonymity!

If you want to gain link popularity I suggest you look for legit sites that want to link back to you because your content is good.

Link popularity? Do you see me posting, asking for links, at the link exchange forum? I don’t even trade links. Yes, my sites content are good and they all are almost completely (95%) based in my own original content.

Anyway… I thanks you for your opinions and wish you the wisdom to know the difference!

Lucky Papoloko

[learnerseo]

If Yahoo considers that replier has been promoting his/her website through the source, they might block the user from using Yahoo Answers any more. So try not being promoting and in my opinion it is better to use the answers than the source for writing anything about the website.

[coolguy27]

Since Yahoo is a nofollow link it will not help... But the link you put on your answer is still considered as backlinks...