Last Updated on 02/04/2025
A backlink is a reference to a web page where the owner and/or visitors provide a link to your content on their website. That’s it!
A website or web page can be a web resource. The number, relevance, and quality of backlinks help search engines like Google evaluate the importance of a web resource. Google analyzes web pages based on PageRank to prioritize the order of web pages in SERPs.
Forum Backlinks
Forum backlinks are a particular type of backlink generated on profiles you create on various Forum sites. You can find forum backlinks on forums, such as Reddit, Quora, Stack Exchange, etc. It was a prevalent practice to build links on communities and forums.
A forum backlink can be updated on your user profile, or it could be your signature, or else it can be a comment or reply on a Forum post. Usually, spammers create a user profile to join a web forum and then add a link to their profile. This is one of the easiest but worst and most outdated methods of link building.
Are Forum Backlinks Good for SEO? Is There a Correlation?
In simple terms, yes and no.
Let’s Start with the “Yes” Part!
Backlinks from discussion boards may not constantly improve your search engine rankings. If you push it too far, your SEO efforts can suffer. How so?
Link spam is when you force your links in front of everyone in the community. Unfortunately, Google disapproves of such and may impose fines.
So how do backlinks from forums benefit SEO?
People will look you up if you assist community members with solutions supported by experience and practicality.
The best aspect is that forum users will freely cite you on their websites and link back to your sites if you make original contributions to forum conversations. That is enduring, and Google adores it.
Let’s now discuss the “No” part!
Most forum backlinks are nofollow, meaning link juice is not passed on from them, and Google’s search crawlers disregard them.
This is so that website owners may avoid attracting spammers and black hat link builders by not giving dofollow backlinks. Despite this, specific online forums include dofollow links, which search engine crawlers will follow and increase your website’s authority.
Here is How To Check if a Forum Link is nofollow or dofollow!
- Go to the website
- Right-click on the anchor text.
- Select “Inspect” from the drop-down option.
- Check the “rel” tag.
- Look for “dofollow” or “nofollow” tags.
If you see the sign mentioned above, the forum provides nofollow links. If you don’t, it offers dofollow links.
Keep in mind that it’s not likely that these dofollow links will have much of an SEO impact. This is because Google’s algorithm will very likely be able to recognize and disregard them.
Non-SEO Benefits of Forum Backlinks
Although forum backlinks may not improve your SEO rankings, they benefit your “overall” digital marketing tactics.
These benefits are based on a forum link to your website, exposing your content to a specific audience. The same is true for all kinds of pillow connections; they also provide several non-SEO advantages.
Here are some of the benefits!
a. Increased brand awareness
Forum backlinks may not draw as much traffic as ranking “No. 1” in search results. However, they are essential for promoting your business because they raise awareness.
By including a link, you can present your brand to the community in an online forum. This exposure will help more individuals find your website.
When people click the link, you’ll see increased targeted traffic to your website. As individuals become comfortable with your brand name, they can visit your website directly.
b. More Customers
Forum postings may increase client growth. You may see purchases if you refer readers to your website when you write blogs about your e-commerce store, course, SaaS product, or service.
You can promote your goods by looking for forum sites where users are interested. Then, you might participate in pertinent community conversations.
c. More Newsletter Subscriptions
Using forums to promote email signups can be successful. The key is to answer forum queries while quietly promoting your newsletter.
This article on Indie Hackers describes the author’s use of Quora as part of a strategy to gain 120,000 email subscribers.
Sam Parr, the creator of a business weekly with over 2 million subscribers, has acknowledged that Reddit connections fueled the initial development of his subscriber base.
d. Increase Brand Authority
Participating in online forums or communities may increase your brand’s authority. If you continuously contribute value to conversations, people will begin to regard you as an authority in your industry.
This may increase brand awareness, which could then result in more consumers, website views, and backlinks.
In 2024, can Forum Backlinks Make You Rank Better on Google or any other search engine?
The answer is No! Let’s find out why:
- Getting backlinks from forums is an illicit practice that violates Google’s Quality guidelines. Google has set strict Webmaster guidelines that can permanently remove a site from the Google index due to the spam no-follow links that a web page gets from forums. The basic idea is to make your web page content useful and unique for users instead of focusing on how search engines can evaluate your page rank.
- According to John Mueller, the Senior Trends Master Web Analyst at Google, ‘Dropping links in forums for SEO purposes won’t help you rank better in Google. He also states that the quantity of backlinks is of no significance to Google’s search algorithm, but the quality of the links matters. A good-quality link from a genuine source is much better than millions of poor-quality links.
- Google’s algorithm easily recognizes forum profile links, and they have zero ranking benefit. Forum profile links are user-generated content links, and Google’s algorithm can automatically scan your web page for spammy forum links and ignore them, hence causing a bad reputation for your site.
- With the increasing popularity of blogs, comment spam increased too, and spammers would comment on these blogs and leave a link to their site in the comment section of the blogs. In this way, the spammy sites ranked well and the good-quality sites went out of SERPs. Google introduced a way to encounter blog comment spam in 2005 called the ‘no-follow ‘ tag. Bing and Yahoo later adopted the same ‘no-follow tag’.Usually, the forum profile links are ‘no-follow’ links, so avoiding them is best because they have zero impact on SEO.
- Forum links are black hat. Black hat SEO is an approach that goes against search engine rules and regulations. Black hat SEO manipulates Google’s algorithm to reach the highest rank in the SERPs. It includes keyword stuffing, cloaking, and using private link networks. Black hat techniques will damage your webpage to such a great extent that you may never recover. Google’s algorithm is very intricate and has broadened over time. To avoid the penalty by Google, it’s better to use a white hat link-building SEO approach. White hat’s SEO approach emphasizes good quality content and is a user-friendly method of SEO. In the long run, a white hat SEO approach is best to get a higher rank on Google.
- Most forum links are spammed by substandard websites like casinos and gambling sites. If you associate your website with these websites, this can result in a bad link neighborhood. It will also have a very negative impact on your website, and Google considers it guilty by association. So, to avoid a bad link neighborhood, always use a relevant and acceptable SEO approach for link building.
- Google introduced the Penguin algorithm in April 2012 to reduce and punish spammy backlinks. The release of Penguin had a significant impact on the SEO industry, especially link building. Before the Penguin algorithm, spammy backlinks were common, and low-quality sites ranked higher than good-quality sites. Users could manipulate forum backlinks for their SEO reputation. After the Penguin algorithm, search engines easily catch spammy links. So it is better to avoid the forum profile links and stick to Google’s webmaster guidelines. Use a white hat SEO method to get the most traffic from Google to your website. Thousands of irrelevant forum links are no longer effective in link building.
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Conclusion
Link building from forums is an old and bad SEO practice. As an SEO, you should avoid this practice. Getting backlinks from various forum sites or buying links for SEO gains is an unethical black-hat SEO practice.
It can land you a Google penalty, which can cause you to lose all the traffic from your website. Also, get your rank to zero. Forum backlinks are spammy, giving your website a bad link neighbourhood, eventually leading to a bad reputation. Always use a white hat approach for link building; it helps much in the long run instead of spammy forum backlinks!
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1 thought on “Forum Backlinks: What Are They And Do They Hurt SEO ”
Спасибо за информативную статью. Я занимаюсь продвижением своего сайта и хотел заказать ссылки с форумов, но вы заставили меня задуматься. Я в этом деле совсем ничего не понимаю, да и не сижу на подобных ресурсах. Больше как-то в социальных сетях пытался рассказывать о своем блоге. Но хочется расширить масштабы.