November 18, 200817 yr Hi Everyone, I have been a member of this forum for a few days now and I seem to see person after person post a thread with a link to their website asking for feedback and then you never hear from them again. Do they think that this will count as a link to their website and because this forum has a reasonable PR they will inherit weight from it? Do they not know that the links on this forum are 'nofollow' links? Should it not be a rule that if a new user posts one post in one thread then does not reply to that thread within say 14 days, they should be emailed or something? And what's more, it just seems a bit rude. Ah, there's my rant for today!
November 18, 200817 yr Hi, I agree. I just signed up. I've submitted for review a site I did for a friend and I've generally tried to help out. I will continue to do so, because it's a great way to learn new stuff. More importantly, being a freelancer can be quite lonely day-to-day and this kind of forum makes you feel like you're a part of something... Sameer
November 18, 200817 yr Author I agree. I just signed up. I've submitted for review a site I did for a friend and I've generally tried to help out. I will continue to do so, because it's a great way to learn new stuff. More importantly, being a freelancer can be quite lonely day-to-day and this kind of forum makes you feel like you're a part of something... And that's what that forum category is for, I presume. Not for people to place a link to their site and then move on... It's a bit like grafiti-ing under a bridge and then moving on to the next bridge. Besides, they're wasting their time because their links carry the rel="nofollow" attribute so Google, Yahoo & MSN will ignore them.
November 18, 200817 yr Author Ha ha! I knew someone would come in with that old chestnut. Google Webmaster Tools will show you what sites link to your pages, yes, but Google didn't follow that link and didn't credit you for it. For example, buy a domain name. Say www.mynofollowtest.com and create a link from this forum with a nofollow attribute. Providing Google doesn't find out about it anywhere else, it won't get indexed. At least I hope not.
November 18, 200817 yr Yes "driveby" link dropping is a pain, but it happens on all forums eventually. Unfortunately it's a sympton of so called dubious SEO companies who pay people to post URL's to as many forums as possible. Asking for a proper review of a site is a good thing, but blatent link dropping is not. You can usually spot the link droppers because they uusually make a half hearted attempt at stuffing their post full of keywords and phrases.
November 18, 200817 yr Author I found this: Clicky This is Google's own admission that rel="nofollow" prevents the crawler from following the link.
November 18, 200817 yr It is a pain especially when you post a review of the site, but there isn't really anything that we can do about it. I do remove the obvious spam from the review section but some are in a grey area so it is hard to tell if they want a review or are just spamming. We could do as other forums do and have a min post count, but that would bring more spam to the forum, as can be seen by the occasional people dropping by and welcoming people who joined a year before they did just so they can post in the classified section (which is also nofollow). So we just have to let them come and then go away, after all they are the stupid ones thinking that they will get something from it
November 18, 200817 yr Yes "driveby" link dropping is a pain, but it happens on all forums eventually. Unfortunately it's a sympton of so called dubious SEO companies who pay people to post URL's to as many forums as possible. Asking for a proper review of a site is a good thing, but blatent link dropping is not. You can usually spot the link droppers because they uusually make a half hearted attempt at stuffing their post full of keywords and phrases. It is a pain especially when you post a review of the site, but there isn't really anything that we can do about it. I do remove the obvious spam from the review section but some are in a grey area so it is hard to tell if they want a review or are just spamming. We could do as other forums do and have a min post count, but that would bring more spam to the forum, as can be seen by the occasional people dropping by and welcoming people who joined a year before they did just so they can post in the classified section (which is also nofollow). So we just have to let them come and then go away, after all they are the stupid ones thinking that they will get something from it I've got an idea that just might work... Why not require someone to have 10 posts in order to post for a review? Just a thought.
November 18, 200817 yr I've got an idea that just might work... Why not require someone to have 10 posts in order to post for a review? Just a thought. As I said in my last post that would lead to more spam, as the classified ads section has a min post of 15, and all people do is post in stupid places just saying thank you or welcoming people who joined a year ago....which is more annoying in my opinion. But as always, if the majority think it needs to be a requirement then fair enough it can be done...be be warned that there will be more spam in other places rather than just 1 post review hunters.
November 18, 200817 yr I think it's inevitable - but I'm not bothered by it. After all, the folks who get the most out of a community like this are those who make a valued contribution, and that definitely shows on the reviews page. All the best threads involve the best contributors IMO, so let them get on with it I say PS - You may have noticed I've not been making a terribly regular appearance. I've just started working full time and I'm bloody knackered! I'll have my eye on you all though
November 18, 200817 yr While links on this forum don't generate backlinks in the traditional sense, I still think there is some usefulness in posting links to web sites here, if only to get people's opinion on the design. I have to admit I only found this web site because I was looking for a forum to post backlinks on for SEO purposes - turns out the forum was far better than I imagined and I've really got into the whole community! So I've not really used the forum for the reason I joined, but I guess that's a good thing!! At the end of the day, if you're on a forum to get stuff out of it you're bound to be disappointed. Whereas if you're part of a community to contribute to it, you're gonna get loads more out of it than you thought! That's certainly been my experience anyway.
November 19, 200817 yr I hate 'SEO'! It's what causes it all! It's just plastering the web with links. Forums, blogs, directories... just get filled with crud and all those 'thin' sites out there (especially the directories) that are little more than link farms. Funny thing is people focus so much on having a link somewhere for PR - they forget that better than 'SEO' is getting a real human potential customer to click on the link. So we have web designers spamming a web designer forum so that their link is in the right niche for SEO. Your competition aren't your customers! Better to get involved on small business forums etc. Add the 'no-follow' aspect and 'SEO spamming' is pointless. Another example of the 'SEO' con diverting people's attention from real business to chasing cheap tricks.
November 19, 200817 yr The point might not be to get links for PR. It could be simply to drive traffic to a site, get the hits up and then say to a customer "look how well we've done with your site, you've got loads of visitors now!" Yeah, they're not buying anything, but if you've just got your shiny new website (with reflected text and everything), you probably wouldn't be too into conversion rates and stuff at that point.
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