Link-building: Tips on using Dofollow forums
As I discussed in my simple link-building tips post a while ago, dofollow forums are an easy way of getting links to your site. All you need to do is find a forum, sign up as a member, set up the links in your signature and start posting. Each time you make a post, the post will contain your signature links and the links will pass PR on to your sites.
If you do a search on Google for “list of Dofollow forums” you’ll soon find the URLs of dozens or hundreds of forums you can use to gain links. I’m not going to list hundreds of dofollow forums here, but good examples are DigitalPoint and SitePoint.
There’s no doubt that using forums to build links actually works in terms of raising PageRank and improving performance in SERPs. In the past I’ve got sites to PR 3 using forum links alone. However, as in other aspects of life, there’s no such thing as a free lunch and you need to bear in mind the following tips when using forums to build links.
The forum homepage should have a high PR
There’s nothing special about forums. Like every other website, the PR passed between pages is shared out. The higher PR of the homepage, the more link-juice is likely to be passed to your sites from the links in your forum posts and signatures. Sites like DigitalPoint and SitePoint have PRs of 6 or 7. Many other forums have far less PR to share out to all the forum posters. Having said that, if you find a small forums with a PR of 2 but few posts you might pick up more link-juice since PR 2/ 1000 posts is more than PR 6 / 100000 posts. This might not be an accurate picture of how the PR situation will work, but hopefully you see the argument.
The forum should have an active community
Lots of members making lots of posts. This has many benefits. If the forum content is regularly updated, Googlebot will visit the forums and index your posts and links more quickly. There will also be more threads on more topics, giving you more opportunity to make posts.
Try to use forums on a similar theme as your sites
For example, DigitalPoint and SitePoint are good for webmasters/ SEO sites since they are webmaster forums. There are loads of other forums around on games, gadgets etc. so pick ones that are suitable for your sites.
Try to use forums on topics you are interested in
Over time this may become the most important tip. Each signature link counts for little on its own. You need to make lots of posts to have a real effect on your sites. If the forum content bores you, posting will become a real drag.
Don’t rely solely on forum-posting for link-building
If you are determined you can build up a few hundred posts in a few weeks or months passing a reasonable amount of PR to your sites. The problem is that your older posts will fall deeper and deeper into the forum pages as new threads are created. Over time the link-juice passed to your forum posts and signature links will fall away. If you use Google Webmasters to keep track of your backlinks, you may find hundreds and hundreds of forum backlinks disappearing. If the links don’t show in Google Webmasters then they don”t count for anything in Google’s eyes.
For more link building tips, see simple link-building tips and link-building using PAD sites.