Blog links

I am new to SEO, but have been recently working on backlinks to my 1 year old website.

2 questions. Are any type of backlinks useful to search engine ranking..no follow/ or follow? Or am I wasting my time posting on nofollow sites?

Also, I am having problems posting on blogs using a successful link in my posting name.

I was using the code: <a href="http://web address">Cambridge Photographer</a> which worked on one site, but not on another.

Are there different link types with different blog sites?

Thanks for any help.

No follow links will not help your ranking, but on popular blogs they may attract visitors to your site.

Do Follow links, if well done, will help improving your ranking in search results. If you want to appear for the request "Cambridge Photographer", the kind of link that you are doing is OK.

But don't appear like a spammer who only post comment in order to get a link. If you post usefull comments, you will get visitors (from both "no follow" and "do follow" links.

To answer to your question about the validity of your code: yes, it is valid. But some webmasters have turned off the use of HTML code in the comments, to deter spammers from posting, so your link will not appear.

So commenting on a .gov blog with a link:
<a href='http://web address' rel='external nofollow'>bodeforexample</a> will not do anything for climbing the search engines?

It certainly is difficult for a commercial website to get backlinks without submitting to expensive list directories!

My business has a hobbyist interest also (photography), so I was hoping to attract some free backlinks by hanging around these types of forums and blogs.

You got the point: links with "nofollow" will not directly help your ranking, because spiders do not follow them.

But indirectly, if these links can drive visitors to your site and if these visitors think that your site is worth a link on their own site, they are still usefull links.

And after all, your goal is to get visitors, isn't it?

Unforunately I do not operate a site that is likely to be linked to...it's a commercial photography site which only has local interest.

So the links can only gleamed from directory sites and whatever free promotion I can manage. A few of my competitors are right up on page one of google, so I'm trying to climb the rankings with suitable backlinks...but it appears that few backlinks are actually going to do any good.

Read this guide to link building and say the above again ;-)

http://forums.seochat.com/link-popularity-43/link-building-101t-124545.html

Exactly what you are thinking... Posting in No Follow sites are useless. Be careful enough in spreading your links.

"If it is hard to list your site directly, try to add links to other pages that link to your site."

Useful idea, Gary also suggested getting links from the Chamber of Commerce/ Local library and suppliers.

Found a few high PR photography blogs with do follow...that was hard though.

Hello,

Even if you do manage to find a few dofollow blogs, you cannot be sure that the webmaster will not delete your comments or filter your links.

Blog comments with nofollow will just not help, and that some people might still end up on your site through those links, the chances are less than 1%.

Do you still think its worth your time getting links that way?

Ashanka

although wikipedia is nofollow if you write something relevant then other websites will pick up on your link.so not always a waste of time.

@Ashanka

I have avoided nofollow, but used link diagnosis on competitors to find blogs with high PR. I have submitted quite a few decent comments and the links are working fine.

I assume this can only be good. I have climbed two pages on Yahoo recently, but climbing slower on Google.

In the time it takes you to find one decent do follow link, that actualy brings value you could have found 2-3 good quality relivant links. You dont just have to look to see if the site has no follow but also how many links are on the post. The types of high pr blogs that you are looking for will probably have many comments and will therefor pass you very little PR