Links From Blog Comments - Update

November 26, 2007

I promised an update to my blog comments test where I had 600 comments posted to 600 different blogs for a brand new site. My goal was to see 1) how many of the comments would "stick" (meaning the blog owner would not remove the keyword-targeted link from the comments) and 2) whether or not I would get any search engine value from these blog comments and links.

My gut told me "of course you will", since Google loves links and this was a pretty easy way to get more inbound links. Get inbound links it did, too. Yahoo! is currently showing 195 links into the test site. That's roughly 1/3 the number of comments made, but the reality is that many of the links Y! is showing are duplicates. The real number of successful comments with links is about 100.

Unfortunately, because so few of the links "stuck", the site didn't make it into Google's top rankings for the keywords I was hoping for. The site has only received 77 unique visitors in the past 3 weeks, and of those only 4 were from Google (the rest were from the blogs I had comments posted on).

I think the lesson learned here is that you can get quality in-bound links from blogs, and you can do so very inexpensively, if you're willing to do the work. Since only 1/6th of my comments were actually allowed to keep their links, and since the comments were very well-written, appropriate comments related to the posts, it seems that many blog owners just don't like to see keyword links in place of the "name" field and will promptly delete the comments or remove the link from the name.

However, once you find the blogs that do let you keep those kinds of comments, you can greatly reduce your workload by posting only to those blogs.

So on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give this method of getting links a 6. Worth the work, but only if you're willing to do the upfront legwork required to discover where your comments are worth posting.

Click here to learn how to find blogs that do not use the NOFOLLOW link-killing attribute.

Please post your thoughts and comments below.

Comments

92 Responses to “Links From Blog Comments - Update”

  1. Free Background Checks on November 26th, 2007 1:50 pm

    Yeh most blogs don't like keywords as names…It looks too spammy. But your right if you find blogs like yours who will let you and do follow you can get lower quality links really easily and maybe some direct traffic and clicks…James Dean

    Btw everyone if you have not yet signed up for qualitycontent.net then do it now…Get great, fast quality, unique content on your site for cents….Very easy go sign up now http://www.qualitycontent.net

  2. Watch, Upload Videos and Photos on November 26th, 2007 1:53 pm

    Its true. However i couldn't find more than 1 blog without a no follow. I am surprised how you found 600. I used your method by buying it, though it was given free later to everyone

    Thanks

  3. Monty Loree on November 26th, 2007 1:53 pm

    It's a good concept.
    Of course the question is: how did you post to 600 blogs?
    Auto matically or manually?

  4. Jonathan Leger on November 26th, 2007 1:54 pm

    Monty:

    I hired a guy to do the 600 posts for me over a couple of weeks. I checked the comments, and they were all very well written (better than I could have done myself since I would have gotten tired of writing so many comments!)

  5. Copywriting Blog on November 26th, 2007 1:55 pm

    Commenting on other people's blogs does work as a SEO strategy (if the blog owner has changed his settings to follow links). It also works as a great way to establish relationships with other bloggers and spark interesting discussions.

    However, I do not see it as an instant traffic strategy because the amount of traffic you can generate from a post link is often minimal.

    Great post Jonathan, keep up the great work! =)

    - Miguel Alvarez
    Copywriting.com

  6. Magazine Subscription on November 26th, 2007 1:59 pm

    Thanks Jonathan for carrying out this test. I wondered about 5 days ago how your were getting on and your email today reminded me to check up on your progress.

    Any chance of letting us know which 100 blogs allowed you to keep your keyword links on?

    thanks

    Mally

  7. Matt Ellsworth on November 26th, 2007 2:03 pm

    All the blogs I run use dofollow - but I routinely delete comments if they use keywords in the name. I make a few exceptions - but very few. If you do this test again - try it with just your name - and I would bet your results would be much better.

  8. Canadian Secured Credit Cards on November 26th, 2007 2:03 pm

    Good to know.

    BTW.. i just paid the $1 for the info and your paypal timer timed out. can you look into it?

    Many thanks.

  9. Dan Wegner SEO on November 26th, 2007 2:05 pm

    Hi Jonathan,

    Once again you have provided truly valuable information. I never fail to read your posts because I know that you shoot straight and have integrity. I've bought several of your products and want everyone to know that they are never over-hyped and are of the highest quality

    Let me say it again: Jonathan Leger is the man to listen to in the field of Internet Marketing.

    Dan Wegner

  10. Jonathan Leger on November 26th, 2007 2:07 pm

    Matt:

    It might work better with just the name, but it would lose 98% of its SEO value (which was the point).

  11. Paul Schlegel on November 26th, 2007 2:08 pm

    It's so refreshing to see someone doing real case studies ala the guys at MarketingExperiments and showing reality, including successes, failures, and everything in between.

  12. Tony on November 26th, 2007 2:08 pm

    I'm really enjoying these type of tests you do Jonathan. It's great to read such useful information. What would be your top 5 methods of getting traffic in order of importance. I focus 90% on PPC and affiliate. What others should I add?

  13. Premium Cigar Lovers on November 26th, 2007 2:11 pm

    Thank you for another great case study! It's nice to see real world results on some of these techniques that the "gurus" are always extolling. It was also nice to see that I'm not wasting my time on blog commenting.

    Thanks again,

    Mike

  14. Jaap Verduijn on November 26th, 2007 2:15 pm

    I posted on roughly a dozen blogs, of which one or two didn't let my postings past the censorship, and I guess about five or six disabled my links. Let's say one third of the blogs that I addressed still have the links up. It was fun doing, and I made a couple of new friends!

    Jaap Verduijn, The Netherlands.

  15. RC on November 26th, 2007 2:20 pm

    The anchor text does look spammy instead of the name, but in my various blogs I usually leave them as long as they provide a good comment in return.
    Only 100 links from a posted 600 is a big drop in difference, but at least there are some keywords linked to your site on those posts.

    Good experiment overall, can't wait for your next one Jon!

  16. Freshwater Fishing Resource on November 26th, 2007 2:28 pm

    Hi Jonathan,

    Thanks for the interesting update. I have to tell you, I have a script that finds the blogs without the no-follow tags and I regularly make posts to those higher page ranked blogs. If you use your name rather than the keyword, You'll surely get more posts to stick. You may lose some of the SEO benefits by using your name, but if you post regularly, you'll build yourself as an "expert" and others will visit your site and bookmark it. I know you're aware of this :-) but any link to your site will help it in the long run!

    -Mark

  17. T.M. Harris on November 26th, 2007 2:29 pm

    Very good case study Jon. I was truly interested in this because I do a lot of blog commenting myself. Putting in my two cents on posts does help get credible traffic to your site…and now you've shown me a good example of the results I've been getting.

    Thanks a lot, Jon.

  18. Meg Learner on November 26th, 2007 2:46 pm

    Paypal squeeze page FINALLY turned to Thank you page. Think it must have taken at least half an hour but it finally changed. BTW I have your article writer program and I like that very much. Will try your method for responding to blogs.
    Thanks

  19. Top Funny Videos on November 26th, 2007 2:46 pm

    Great post Jonathan. I'm actually surprised that this didn't turn out better results for you. I agree that this is definitely not a get links quick scheme, but well worth the effort, if, like you say, you do the work to find the sites that use your keyword laden links.

  20. Google Assassin on November 26th, 2007 2:54 pm

    Jon,

    This is precious info once again you have proved your worth.
    It would be nice is you could post here more info on identifying the "nofollow" tag sites.

    Thanks again !
    Nicholas Mancini

  21. Ray Randall on November 26th, 2007 2:56 pm

    Jon,

    Your conclusions seem to support your presupposition. You thought linking from blogs to yours would work, but this is a lot of work (not that work should dissuade effort). You reach for the answer you wanted. Just the same (and to your credit), you provide a list of sites not using "NOFOLLOW link-killing attribute".

    Are you convinced this works? I don't perceive that conclusion from your post.

    Ray

  22. Jack Blankenship on November 26th, 2007 2:58 pm

    Jon,

    I have to admit that your blog is quite refreshing. Real tests with real results!

    I appreciate your honesty and sharing your work with us.

    Integrity comes to mind and you are quickly earning that label.

    Keep up the good work!

    Jack

  23. Austin on November 26th, 2007 3:00 pm

    Thanks for the update Jonathan - great work as usual :)

    I manage to get good results in the SERPS even when I leave my name on a page (instead of a keyword).

    The trick is to leave comments on dofollow blogs where my keyword is in the title or url - Google seems to give this a lot of attention too (relevancy).

  24. Parvo Treatment on November 26th, 2007 3:02 pm

    I would agree - I get a ton of emails every day from many so-called "gurus", most of which I ignore as I don't have time to read all of their promotions, many of which are for the same products anyway. However, I always read what Jon says, as I know that it's backed up by experimentation and fact.

    As for this post, I've been posting comments on people's blogs for a while now, and it is getting us some backlinks. I've not tried using keywords in place of my name (apart from this comment), partly because I always suspected the comments would be deleted, but maybe I'll give it a try, especially as the site I often try to promote offers a free book all about Canine Parvovirus (it's {snip: no personal urls please} if you were wondering).

  25. Lowest Student Loan Consolidation Rate on November 26th, 2007 3:06 pm

    Very interesting test, thanks for publishing it. I have a person who does some projects for me and I was thinking of having her do some high quality blog comment posting. If you are willing to share (if not it's understandable) what you pay someone to do this type of work that would be great? Are you using a regular employee or an outsourced person in another country?

  26. Pearl on November 26th, 2007 3:09 pm

    On the other hand… if you are able to get your site listed within the links section (blogroll) of a blog, those links site "very" well with google!

    We all know that google "counts" (or should we say - shows some links in the results) some links differently than others. Well, when I started checking into the links that google listed compared to the links that other search engines listed, I could see right away that blog links were very valuable to google! And… because the blog links (sidbars) get put on every page (post), those links can build up into the thousands VERY quickly! And… google counts many of the page links from your own blog towards your link count… so the more posts… the more links ;) Of course… we want to only post great content!

    {snip: thanks, but since your Google results are for your own sites, it's not allowed in the post. Personal urls must stay in the URL you posted for the comment.}

  27. Buy Digital Camera Auctions on November 26th, 2007 3:10 pm

    Great case study Jonathan. Thanks for putting it up. Seeing you paid someone to post the 600 comments and 100 of them stuck, would it be more straightforward to pay $5 a post at payperpost or similar sites and get 1 way links from blogs with PR levels that you request? And those would be actual posts rather than comments.

    Mark

  28. Roy Sencio on November 26th, 2007 3:11 pm

    Hey Jonathan,

    Thanks for keeping us updated on the test, I was actually waiting around for the results.

    The experiment illustrates a couple relevant points.

    There are generally two types of links, the ones we create ourselves and the ones we ask other people to create for us. The latter refers to links put up by other people on their sites, like when we ask someone to link to us, or when we to a link exchange or get an incoming link from someone.

    The ones we create ourselves can also be categorized into two, the first type are the ones we have control over (creating the link as we want it using appropriate anchor text, title, etc) such as info sites, blogs and other VRE that we own and create for link purposes, and to a certain extent and subject to their own policies… article directories and some forums. The second type are those links that we create on sites that are subject to approval by the site owner.

    The results show, commenting on blogs may not deliver SEO points we want because the comment stays or leaves at the pleasure of the blog owner… maybe site referral traffic yes, but this is not long term and is dependent on link position on the page, if it catches the eye of a visitor and if that site or page has a decent amount of traffic coming through it.

    In consideration of that, maybe that same time spent for leaving comments and the investment that went with it, may yield more significant results if it was used for other things like writing and submitting articles or even creating support sites or blogs, at least we know that we get the link exactly as we want it.

    Just my two cents.. thanks for the space. =D

    Roy

  29. Dandruff Treatment on November 26th, 2007 3:22 pm

    It's a fine line between being too aggressive on your link building efforts, and letting your site sit for months without generating new links.

    Jonathan - thanks for the test scenario's you've been doing over the last few months - first with the results from article directory submissions and now with testing comment strategies.

    {snip: thanks, but personal promotion isn't allowed in comments}

  30. Joe Golson on November 26th, 2007 3:24 pm

    Hi Jonathan
    Thanks for sharing this information with me.I am trying to get more links to my blog.So,I will be using this process to increase my links.

    Thanks a lot,
    Joe

  31. Webkinz Seller on November 26th, 2007 3:25 pm

    Jon,
    Thanks for the test. I would suggest you always do a negative control on your experiments as well. That means you do another site as close to exact as you can get but don't do the one thing you are testing.

    So in this case you would have a site with 11 similar (not exact of course) pages and a similar domain name and set it up on the same day but don't do any blog linking.

    If you really wanted to be thorough, you would also set up 3 sites and do averages.

    Keep up the good work,

    IE

  32. guided meditation on November 26th, 2007 3:44 pm

    Hi Jon,

    I've been doing this for quite a while. Would you please explain why very few of the links that blog owners allow don't always get picked up by Google? It seems that although I find sites that allow the posts and don't have the no follow attribute, Google still isn't showing backlinks from these posts. I'm sure that some of these have been revisited by Google's bot, but to no avail for backlinks.

    I've also noticed that a lot of marketers (not you of course, you've always been very honest with your case studies) exaggerate the claims about receiveing back links with very little proof to support their claims.

    I appreciate your time.

    Lewi Glenis

  33. Jonathan Leger on November 26th, 2007 3:46 pm

    Lewi:

    Google doesn't show all of the backlinks it actually knows about. It does this on purpose, to prevent people who are optimizing to rank (like us!) from having all of the knowledge we could have. So unfortunately some of the links will never show up in Google's results, even if they are aware of them and applying their link-juice.

  34. learn to speak spanish on November 26th, 2007 3:58 pm

    Nice case study Jonathan… Looking forward to many such novel case studies from your end.

  35. Links from Blogs on November 26th, 2007 4:11 pm

    I've been trying to post on blogs w/the titles similar to the keyword i want to target…and then use the blog title (or variaton) as the keyword

    For example, i figure leaving a comment like "Affiliate Marketing Tips" on a diet blog probably wouldn't stick…

    but a leaving a comment like "Affilaite Marketing Tips" on a blog post labeled "10 Affiliate Marketing Tips" would

    also, i would think that the results from google w/regards to the link juice wouldn't be overnight…… i usually see results months later

    i just keep thinking that what i'm doing now is planting the seeds for tommorrow…that by adding a few links here and a few links there over time that it will cause steady growth in traffic over the long term….

    maybe link commenting isn't a great over night traffic trick…but i think it's a great long term traffic one

  36. Find Do-Follow-Blogs automatically on November 26th, 2007 4:16 pm

    Hi Folks

    First of all - thank you Jon for this excellent case study - it gave me reason to think about it some more… so I created the do-follow-blogfinder. It is more or less beta right now, but perhaps you might want to test it and give me feedback.

    Thank you Jon

    Michael

  37. clint lawton on November 26th, 2007 4:18 pm

    Jonathan,
    I have been following your progress for over a year now and have to say that I have learned a lot. You have a flair for teaching. Keep up the good work. I have used a lot of the info you have tought through your E-zing to build my latest site {snip: no personal urls in the comment body, please} and I must say it is comming along. I have gone from nothing 2 months ago to having over 100 visitors a day and a good income from Google.
    Thank You!
    You rock!

    clint lawton

  38. Jon Leger’s blog links case study update | thebestisit.com on November 26th, 2007 4:31 pm

    […] new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!I have just been over to www.jonathanleger.com/links-from-blog-comments-update and posted a […]

  39. thebest on November 26th, 2007 4:35 pm

    I too have been following this study closely as I wish to try to get more links. I think the work you are now doing Jon is great so far not many problems.

    I have found that I get around 25-50% of my comments to stick on blogs even like 5 years later pretty amazing since I thought they would have lost value since archiving.

    For a bit more info go to {snip: no personal urls please}

    Thanks again Jon for all your help over the years.

    P.S. On a personal note I know you never asked for it but I gave you some great references in my sites. As this is what we do find the best.

  40. Glen on November 26th, 2007 4:37 pm

    I am in agreement with Matt Ellsworth.

    If you had not put keywords in the 'name' field, and the comments were quality comments, I'd suggest most, if not all the posts, would have stuck, and your results and traffic, proportionally would have been a lot higher.

    Also, I can't see how not having keywords in the 'name' field would lose 98% of it's SEO value. That hasn't been my experience at all.

    But a great case study non the less

    –Glen

  41. Jonathan Leger on November 26th, 2007 4:47 pm

    Glen:

    What you probably aren't thinking about is that the keywords in the links is where 98% of the SEO power of links comes from. If you don't have the keywords you want to rank for in the links, it doesn't matter how many links you have, they won't help you get good positioning in Google for your keywords.

  42. Magnus on November 26th, 2007 4:52 pm

    I always enjoy reading your post becuase it's very educative. All I have to say is you keep it up. Cheer

  43. Chief Constable on November 26th, 2007 5:31 pm

    From what I've read it was a success. Can I ask how much did you pay your poster for their work?

  44. Jonathan Leger on November 26th, 2007 5:31 pm

    I paid $150.

    Jon

  45. Booze Britain on November 26th, 2007 5:32 pm

    Thanks for your great review. Do you think the same applies to forums?

  46. Day Online Trading on November 26th, 2007 5:40 pm

    Jon, Thanks for this interesting update.

    My guess would be that using these blog posts would only be part of an SEO compaign to create backlinks, and would not be relied upon as the only method of site promotion. Also, whilst there may not be as much value in using your real name, you may actually get more traffic by putting your URL under your name at the end of your post, simply because you will have many more backlinks get through moderation.

    Keep up the great work.

    Barry

  47. Yo Learn Chinese on November 26th, 2007 5:40 pm

    Why would You spam 600 times the same keywords link? This is like begging for the feared google sandbox. These blogs often didn't accept Your post, however if they did You might land in the sandbox.

  48. Jonathan Leger on November 26th, 2007 5:43 pm

    Yo:

    Who said anything about spam, and who said I used the same keywords in my links? I'm a little bit more learned than that in SEO I think. ;) I varied the keywords in the links.

  49. Hydroponics Wholesale on November 26th, 2007 5:48 pm

    Jonathan,

    Were those blogs you had placed your comments on the same niche as your site you want to optimize?

    As you said anchor text are important if you want to rank well on your target keyword.

    Kudos to you!

  50. Jonathan Leger on November 26th, 2007 5:51 pm

    Hydroponies:

    Some were, most weren't. In my extensive testing with my 3waylinks.net linking service, I've found that quantity is extremely valuable to Google, even if the theme is different. So I've quit bothering to find theme-related sites. I just get lots of links and watch my rankings go up-up-up!

  51. Nick Grimshawe on November 26th, 2007 5:56 pm

    Hi Jonathan,

    Thanks for the report on your experiment. I have had some success with this but it is nice to see some one actually test out their theory and then give a very honest report back outlining successes and challenges.

    I can see that I need to do things on a much larger scale.

    Nick

  52. Hydroponics Wholesale on November 26th, 2007 6:03 pm

    We draw the same conclusion in all my tests where I get links from non-related sites but I rank well on my target keywords. This defies the myth that you only need to get links from related sites to count as quality link.

    Well done!

  53. Travel on November 26th, 2007 6:16 pm

    I recently started using this technique I learned from you, Jonathan. The way I see it, a one way link can only help my rankings. But you might not always gain that link. It all depends on the blog owner. So I just try to find a few minutes to post to one or two blogs a day. Some of these posts will stick. Over time, those links will add up.

  54. Jimson Lee on November 26th, 2007 6:21 pm

    Since I have an unusual first name, I setup a Google Alert on my name.

    After I post a few comments, on PR5 and PR6 sites, I noticed those comments appear in the Google Alerts within the next few days! Those sites may or may not have nofollow, but at least it shows Google is doing their indexing.

  55. Jonathan Leger on November 26th, 2007 6:32 pm

    Travel:

    That's an excellent methodology. Stick to that and over time you will see results.

  56. How to Avoid Spam on November 26th, 2007 6:58 pm

    You could always change your name to 'Make Money Online' ;)

  57. Debt Settlement Company Master on November 26th, 2007 8:01 pm

    Hi Jonathan:

    Please delete my previous comment, I messed up and hit the submit button too early.

    Yes very good test and I have been running this myself on a few of my sites recently.

    I think you are right about the overall volume of links with Google as it will probably help PR anyway.

    Good thoughts on keywords as opposed to name and sticking rate too.

    I like the Google Alerts idea Jimson mentioned. I have been using it elsewhere but will not try applying it here.

    Also as you said one of the ongoing values from this is finding the one sixth of blogs that you can work with.

    Thanks for the good information.

    Bill

  58. Make Money Online on November 26th, 2007 8:03 pm

    I had to put my name as that! :-)
    Glad to hear we do not need to only find blogs in our niche. I did enjoy your no-follow idea. But it does require a lot of time. Hoping to find an easier way to get those back links.
    Thanks for running the test and keeping us updated.

    Denise

  59. Carlo Selorio on November 26th, 2007 8:25 pm

    Hi Jon,

    One of the blogging experts I interviewed Courtney Tuttle posted a Do Follow list in his blog with between 100-200 blogs that accept comments.

    Here's the link:

    http://courtneytuttle.com/blogs-that-follow/

    Cheers,
    Carlo Selorio

  60. DealinTips on November 26th, 2007 8:36 pm

    Hi Jonathan,

    You have somany good ideas, not only this but one dallar ideas is exceptional very good.

    Hope that you can development more and more ideas to help our site up.

  61. Blog Marketing on November 26th, 2007 8:53 pm

    Hello Jonathan,

    Thanks for sharing your experience and it was a very good post indeed. I want to share my experience here as well.

    I did the similar techniques 2 month ago when I launch my new blog. However, I do it a little bit differently. What I do was compiling a blog post that review many bloggers experience on the paypal debit card withdrawal method in Malaysia in early Oct (which before this, we aren't allow to withdraw paypal fund).

    I spent about a couple of hours to prepare this and leave comments in other blog (build backlinks), but the hard works is paid off.

    The result was obviously sound good to me, I got more than 30 comments built up for my single blog post, 926 inlinks as record by Yahoo, Google ranked my new blog as PR2 during last month update. Alexa ranking shut up to 277,595 currently.

    Even until today, I am still able to receive consistent visitors and comments landed to my new blog.

    Steven Wong

    P/S: Forgot to mention that, my initial aim is to focus on Malaysia readers and sure enough mostly of them from Malaysia. :)

  62. perfumer on November 26th, 2007 9:46 pm

    How was it possible that a nofollow blog gave me a back link? I posted a comment on a nofollow blog and found out there is a link back to my site from that blog.

  63. Beavis on November 26th, 2007 10:43 pm

    $150 for 77 visitors…hmmmm…
    Maybe not worth it?
    -Just sayin

  64. Jonathan Leger on November 26th, 2007 10:45 pm

    No, $150 for 100 in-bound links. At $1.50 a link, that's a STEAL.

  65. Writing Tips on November 26th, 2007 11:16 pm

    OK, so out of the 600 you got 100 anchor text links.

    If doing it by hand and you were fast it would take between 15-20 hours.

    Equals about 5-6 links per hour that stuck.

    If you paid $2.00 per post it would be $12 per post that stuck or $60-$72 per hour to get good backlinks to a site.

    A bit pricey.

    On to the next one………….

    Hey Jon, put together a site and do the same test using "your name" instead of an anchor text in the posts. I know anchor text means more to the S.E.s than a name …..BUT…… how much exactly is it worth????

    Is anchor text worth MORE THAN 6 times as much???????

    Food for thought!

    I am thinking that 600 backlinks with your name is worth more to the S.E.s than 100 anchor text links.

    Willing to bet a pound of Hawaiian Kona coffee beans that the 600 will win.
    (if doing the posting by hand you'll need a pound of Kona coffee!)

    What do you say Jon, Up for the challenge?

    Brian Ankner
    (yea so I used an anchor text for this post, gimme a break!)

  66. Rhonda Holland on November 27th, 2007 2:22 am

    Jonathan,

    Have you considered testing whether using a name instead of keywords would have worked on the blogs where the link didn't take? The SEO aspect might be decreased but any link is a good link.

    Interesting case study, thanks for sharing.

    Rhonda

  67. Rummy on November 27th, 2007 2:58 am

    An interesting experiment. I can see why only about a third of the links survived but the ratio isn't too bad when you consider the cost of say, buying links.

    It's also a fairly quick way of obtaining links that, after some research, can be done on a daily basis adding one or two links per day to build them steadily.

  68. affiliate marketing guide on November 27th, 2007 3:12 am

    Jon,

    Thanks for the case study. Case study like this is what need where both sides of the coin - good and bad - are told. Not just like other "gurus" where all claim that they have the best money making system or ebook available.

    Kudos to you and I look forward to learning more from you.

    Welly

  69. Jonathan Leger on November 27th, 2007 8:29 am

    Brian:

    The 600 will lose, hands down, every time. Google ranks a page based primarily on the keywords in the anchor text, not on the fact that it has a lot of links. 100 links with the right keywords in the anchor will FAR out-rank 600 with your personal name.

  70. eBooks Catalog on November 27th, 2007 10:36 am

    Hi Jon,
    This is yet another interesting case study. Thanks for sharing. I've posted some 20 to 30 blog comments but most of them still awaiting moderation..

  71. Bendz on November 27th, 2007 12:49 pm

    Hi,
    Interesting one. Thanks for sharing. My posts are awaiting for moderation. But I've got some mails from the blog owners.

    Thanks and Keep your research.

  72. Luxury Engagement Ring on November 27th, 2007 7:17 pm

    Thanks a lot for creating this buzz, Jon, it does help inform a lot of us who are naive to the world of tactical SEO, which makes the difference between the top 10 and us that are far below. By the way, what does anyone think of my new {snip: no personal urls please} site? Critics are welcome, it will only help me improve it. Thanks in advance.

  73. Hyena Online on November 27th, 2007 7:59 pm

    Thanks Jonathan.

    Finally someone shows the real stats of posting comments with links to blogs.

  74. Malignition.com on November 27th, 2007 11:19 pm

    Comments are a great way to get free backlinks and boost those search engine rankings. While it does require some work, it beats writing lengthy articles or forking over cash to be added to worthwhile directories.

  75. wealthy marketer on November 28th, 2007 12:53 am

    Hi Jon,

    just checking back to see your response on my last post about Google not counting all the BLs. Thanks for the response. That's what I was thinking. Perhaps there's a variable in the algorythm that leans heavy towards keyword density so most liks are overlooked/not indexed.

    Just wanted to put a word out to everyone to checkout some of Jonathan's Techno music. I've really been diggin' it Jon.

    Lewi

  76. Keith Lee on November 28th, 2007 7:54 am

    Hi Jon,
    Thanks for your wonderful sharing once again.
    It is a great test on leaving comments on other people's blog to gain back links.

    I can see that a lot of concern on the "NoFollow". I would like to enlighten all the readers with my personal experience. Yahoo and MSN IGNORE 'NoFollow' totally, and on the other hand, I do see in Google links from 'NoFollow' blogs where I placed my comments. So don't be too concern about 'NoFollow'.

    It is correct to say that most blog owners do not like keyword as the poster name, so use the keyword within the comment and if possible, hyper link it, and also to add a keyword focused title to your post, of course, it can only workable for blog with a similar theme.

    Jon, once again, thanks for your sharing and looking forward to your next experiment.

  77. Website Links Directory on November 28th, 2007 8:50 am

    Good work Jon. I have done a fair bit of (legitimate) blog commenting and have come to similar conclusions. What I find even more frustrating is after writing what I consider to be a genuine and on topic comment, it gets lost into moderation, never to see the light of day.

    Certainly worth doing for the few good blogs that will accept comments, but very frustrating for all that.

  78. Houston Real Estate on November 28th, 2007 11:26 am

    Jon,

    I always enjoy reading your posts - you have excellent research, and I really appreciate the information.

    Can you share the name of the person that you hired to post the 600 comments for you - I'd be interested in learning more about this and potentially some of his other services.

    Keep up the great work!

  79. Daniel Tetreault on November 29th, 2007 3:39 pm

    Jonathan:
    I loved this post. It was very informative and I learned a lot from it. I especially liked the part about the "nofollow" stuff, which I thought was very provocative and interesting.

    Sincerely,

    Daniel Tetreault

    Thanks, Jonathan.

  80. Ad sense on November 29th, 2007 5:07 pm

    …The 600 will lose, hands down, every time. Google ranks a page based primarily on the keywords in the anchor text, not on the fact that it has a lot of links. 100 links with the right keywords in the anchor will FAR out-rank 600 with your personal name…

    Just occurs to me that if you have a domain that IS your name (like jonathanleger.com perhaps? ) then the 600 links could be very valuable for directing traffic to your blog say.

    And how many blog owners would delete a good comment that has a genuine name as the anchor text? I bet it wouldn't be 450 out of the 600. I wonder what the benefit of that might be over time.

    Certainly wouldn't get you any links for your golfing/pet/acne site or whatever, but in terms of branding *yourself* it could be very valuable - and you can direct your visitors from your blog to all kinds of sites then.

  81. Jonathan Leger on November 29th, 2007 5:13 pm

    If your name is your brand then yes, having your name in the links is a very good thing.

    Jon

  82. Carl Street on November 30th, 2007 12:32 am

    Hi Jonathan,

    I have been active in direct marketing since 1964. Of course in those days we had to view our computer screens by candlelight because electricity had yet to be invented… :)

    Seriously, one of my early trainers used to beat into our heads the following:

    ONE TEST IS WORTH 1,000 "EXPERT OPINIONS"

    I have always found that to be so true, that after 40+ years in direct marketing I consider his wisdom to be greatly understated.

    Glad to see there are still thinkers out there like you — keep up the good work!

    Best always,

    Carl Street

  83. uk boating holidays on November 30th, 2007 10:20 am

    Hi Johnathan

    Do you think signatures in forums and posts in forums help aswell as blogs?

    Cheers

    Mally

  84. Jonathan Leger on November 30th, 2007 3:55 pm

    Mally:

    That's not something I've tested, so I'm not sure. My gut reaction is "yes", but I've also heard that Google devalues sig links. But then, a lot of what I've "heard" about Google I've learned through testing is sheer nonsense.

    So the short answer is: I don't know.

  85. Majorca Pictures on December 1st, 2007 10:26 am

    I tested out the blog comments for my industry and found some without the nofollow. Of those about half didn't like the keywords in the name but I did get a few links and am planning to go back and post more comments on those sites. I found that searching for sites with "4 comments" for example helped find sites with more traffic and therefore more PR probably.

  86. Learn to Speak Spanish on December 7th, 2007 12:32 am

    Hi Jonathan,

    I'm curious how you hired the service for this project. Did you use a freelancer(s) or a business that specializes in this sort of thing?

  87. Subscription on December 10th, 2007 8:16 am

    A link on any website seems to be a good start. Seeing results which Johnathon has shared will help us all succeed with our own fields I'm sure, thanks again

    Mally

  88. DIRECTV vs DISH Network on December 18th, 2007 5:48 pm

    Wow, I think its working! I'm now #1 on MSN for "directv vs dish network" and #7 on Google! Of course this isn't my only method of SEO, but it is my most recent so I have to assume that it is having positive effects!

  89. drcetinerdotorg on December 21st, 2007 8:32 am

    Yeah, I think its working John.
    Thanks for all

  90. Lowongan Kerja on January 3rd, 2008 7:52 am

    Hi Jon,

    Thanks alot for your case study on this subject. I will buy from http://blogs.onedollarideas.com/ soon

    Thanks again

  91. disc on January 16th, 2008 8:20 am

    is it really hard to get back link??…i'm sorry to ask since i'm new in blogging and SEO…

  92. Internetskillscenter on January 17th, 2008 5:41 pm

    Hi Jon,

    Please forgive me for leaving my site as my name (it's really Kevin Brown). Your information is helpful, you know!

    I do appreciate your emails so much - they are generally very practical and helpful.

    Today, I went through deleting many messages, but I read yours without thinking about it…

    Please keep up the good work. Like you (but on a much smaller scale), I am working to help people market their businesses effectively on the internet.

    thanks, Kevin

Rodney's 404 Handler Plugin plugged in.