I've been running my blog a couple months now, and have been doing an experiment. I've been trying not to do SEO, and see how well content would stand on its own two legs. Without the links in my signature, Google wasn't even indexing me, crawling once a month or so.

Anyhow, I was looking at the links I've managed to gather, and I notice this forum gets "scraped" a lot. Our threads turn up on a bunch of other sites. Probably spam sites designed to make money with no effort, but regardless, I'm not trying to encourage forum spam, but the fact is one backline here turns into five or six on other webmaster sites.

Remember when Google defused da bomb? Searching for "miserable failure" used to take you directly to George Bush's official biography. After a few years of being labeled liberal media conspiracy, Google put an end to the prank, and several others. "Weapons of Mass Destruction" doesn't take you to a fake 404 page saying they cannot be found, and "French Military Victories" doesn't take you to an empty SERPs page saying there are no results, and suggesting "Did you mean French Military Defeats?"

I don't necessarily believe them, but Google says they did this algorithmically, not with a lookup table. On another front, people who know what they're talking about ( not "experts" but people with real knowledge ) are saying that the exact same anchor text appearing on too many sites is starting to trigger spam alerts. On top of just plain not working if you reach whatever threshold means a link bomb.

So people who take part in the community here might want to change the anchor text in their sig links from time to time. I've been doing this for a little while as I write new posts that are interesting, but when I found out about all the scrapers, I thought I'd share the thought with everyone else. Either I'm totally wrong here and have much to learn, or I can give some good advice back for all of what I soaked up.

Great post and I agree, I am having to be alot more gentle with the anchor text on the sites that I promote, you can push it so far and it will work but one too many anchor text links using the same search phrase and the site will drop and you are back where you started.

One step forward, two steps back? It really doesn't hurt to rank for more than just one phrase, either.

I did read somwhere that google defused "the bomb" by not counting negative phrases - don't know if its true or not - good post though - thanks

To do that, Google would need to understand which words are negative and which are positive. Not the people who work there, but the computer systems themselves. It's entirely possible they have a list to do that for them. I would hate the job of building that list, though!

Thats very true about link building. I believe the threshold of where a link is overoptimized has been lowered and its very easy to over optimize if you don't watch out. Just be careful, I had one of my sites at No.3 for a very good keyword but now its stuck at position 300 for a month already.

Originally Posted by Learning Newbie

Anyhow, I was looking at the links I've managed to gather, and I notice this forum gets "scraped" a lot.

On another front, people who know what they're talking about ( not "experts" but people with real knowledge ) are saying that the exact same anchor text appearing on too many sites is starting to trigger spam alerts.

So people who take part in the community here might want to change the anchor text in their sig links from time to time.

Excellent post...

Far from having "much to learn," I think you're really on to something here. I'll definitely be giving it some thought, but in the meantime, many thanks for the heads up!

Thanks! I'm glad to hear intelligent people reinforcing the line of thinking I've been on lately.

But it's true, I notice posts here get mirrored on a few other sites, and voila, your links multiply like you don't even realize, archived with the same target and the same anchor text. I don't think any of these are quality links, but still, you get double credit for them. So it makes sense to at least consider changing them every now and then.

This is news to me....thanks for this post...
I've got to do a lot of work..

Originally Posted by Learning Newbie

Thanks! I'm glad to hear intelligent people reinforcing the line of thinking I've been on lately.

Much appreciated, but you know what they say: 90% of being smart is knowing what you're dumb at...

So it makes sense to at least consider changing them every now and then.

Agreed, it sounds like a wise plan...

Incidentally, (if I can change the topic for a sec), I've been hearing rumors to the effect that the Google algorithm may be downgrading the importance of <h1> tags. Word has it, it might be a good idea to consider replacing them with something between <h2> to <h6>, presumably due to escalating keyword abuse.

As you seem to be one of the people in the know around these parts, I thought I'd bounce this one off of you. Have you heard anything along these lines, or does it sound like just another case of hot air?

Originally Posted by BreaktheSilence

Incidentally, (if I can change the topic for a sec), I've been hearing rumors to the effect that the Google algorithm may be downgrading the importance of <h1> tags.

This smells of digitalpoint.

Firstly, I would question the validity of such a claim. How would whoever made this claim know. Secondly, I would question the logic behind such a move ('downgrading' <H1>s). Bear in mind though that algorithms change all the time, but I'm guessing that this rumour is about a significant loss of weight in <h1>s. Thirdly, I would avoid corrupting the structure of a document simply to gain favour in the search engines. Replacing <h1>s with <h2>s where <h1>s make structural sense is a really bad idea. Fourthly (?) project into the future to predict the next stoopid rumour that will emerge: replace all <h2>s with <h3>s because <h2>s are being spammed. Silly, very silly.

Forget this rumour and write your content the way it should be written.

Originally Posted by gringo

Firstly, I would question the validity of such a claim. How would whoever made this claim know.

Well I think we'd probably agree that unless they work for Google, (and/or have inside information), there's very little chance that they could truly "know."

Secondly, I would question the logic behind such a move ('downgrading' <H1>s). Bear in mind though that algorithms change all the time, but I'm guessing that this rumour is about a significant loss of weight in <h1>s.

Not quite following you here... Presumably the logic would be anti-spam in nature, (i.e. an ongoing adjustment to obtain a more accurate reading of actual content).

Thirdly, I would avoid corrupting the structure of a document simply to gain favour in the search engines.

Whilst I agree completely, it seems rather evident that a great many people do not. The key here may be that the definition of "corrupting" appears to vary from person to person. By way of example, it could be somewhat akin to one man's junk being another man's treasure.

Replacing <h1>s with <h2>s where <h1>s make structural sense is a really bad idea.

Once again I agree, particularly if one has even the remotest interest in designing a page that is visually appealing. This would appear to fall under the category of the delicate balance between optimizing and maintaining user friendliness.

Fourthly (?) project into the future to predict the next stoopid rumour that will emerge: replace all <h2>s with <h3>s because <h2>s are being spammed. Silly, very silly.

It certainly has the potential for a silly side...

Yet on the flip side one could almost envision this as a natural development in the ever evolving, (or devolving), algorithm wars.

Forget this rumour and write your content the way it should be written.

Thanks for the feedback!

I think getting too much quantity of links from a single source can be a problem in itself. For example if almost all the links you get come from forums, that wouldn't be as valuable as getting links from forums, blogs and sites in your niche. It is importanta to get some good quality links to go along with the volume of links you get on forums.

Actually, there's some merit to this. I'm close with a member of google's spam team and he'd said to me that if you have too many links with the same anchor text it fits the general footprint of someone buying paid links. Whereas links that are "natural" would tend to more likely than not, have different anchor text.

John was spot on in his observations.

Very good post all though it has been common knowledge for some time now to switch up your anchor text often not only in forums but when exchanging links...

Originally Posted by gringo

This smells of digitalpoint.

You mean that forum where people with ethics aren't welcome?

Originally Posted by WebSavvy

Actually, there's some merit to this. I'm close with a member of google's spam team and he'd said to me that if you have too many links with the same anchor text it fits the general footprint of someone buying paid links. Whereas links that are "natural" would tend to more likely than not, have different anchor text.

John was spot on in his observations.

What about if you don't use anchor text in your sig and just use the domain name as the link like in my sig? Do you think google would flag this as spam?

No, Google wouldn't flag that as spam. LOL. Nor if the anchor text is the actual title of your domain, like the one in my sig. People naturally link to my site using the anchor text "WebSavvy Directory" or "WebSavvy."

I'll give you an example but I'll change the actual words just a bit. This is from a site in our index that we found that had spam on it, but not of their own doing -- it was because of a free menu they were using from another site. This other site providing the free menu, is spamming and they have very high PR and over 200,000 iBLs because of the spam.

They encrypted part of the JS in the menu they give away for free. The <noscript> is in the encrypted part of the JS. When you go to a site that's using that free menu and have js disabled you see a HUGE and I mean HUGE (h1 size) link saying something along these lines: Internets #1 Menu Drop Downs CSS accessible menu ... blah, blah, blah

That links back to the free menu site. It's spam, and it's major spam on a wide scale. Most of the sites using that free menu aren't even aware that it's happening and because the links are set with visibility:hidden it makes it worse.

That's an extreme example, but now it should be easier to relate to. In other words, if you have the same type of keyword stuffed anchor text from LOTS of places, it's a "spammers footprint" ... whereas someone linking to your site using the domain url or the name of your site, would be very natural and is not a spammers footprint.

This is a great thread, I'll be adding to your rep in a moment.

I wonder if you could share some of the URL's that you are seeing your links from here being scraped into?