I’ve been thinking a lot lately about certain link building methods that will eventually end up getting drowned out like directory links and paid links in blog posts. Since I’ve been writing this blog and link building full time my eyes have been opened wide to the amount of places to build links, and even the amount of new places opening up. Obviously the easiest methods will be the ones to get abused the most, and I’m starting to wonder what’s next in line for a good old fashioned Google smacking? I’m hoping to get enough votes from you folks to determine what you think it will be, and get an insight to what you’re seeing getting spammed the most lately. I’ll write my explanation out below for reasons why I have them on the list, and if you think I missed an important technique on here let me know!

Do Follow Blog Commenting: I know that do follow blog comment is a two way street and can either be beneficial or get you in the dog house. I’ve put this option on the list because these days I’m seeing a ratio of 90% spam comments/anchor’s and about 10% in real and quality comments. Since the commenting process can also be an automated one, we’ve all seen auto commenting scripts in the wild doing a nasty job. I can easily see sites getting into “bad neighborhoods” because of excess amounts of spam comments on their site, which would lead to a penalty for the spamming site.

Submitting .pad Software: Well this is still a great method for building solid links on very authoritative software sites, I’m starting to see the spammers making use of this technique for unethical reasons. It has gotten to the point that I’m seeing people selling Ebooks with this as the prime “secret” they teach amateur online marketers to gain top ranking spots. I imagine in the near future these software download sites will start getting looked at just like the directory industry has, and if you take a look there are a lot of low quality software download sites with this type of spam all over them.

Forum Signatures: This link building method had me wondering if I should even mention it, but like I stated before about methods that are easily automated will generally come under the ban hammer, this is one of them. Now I am not against getting links via signatures if you’re active on a niche related forum, and there not just to spam your siggy. But I’m not seeing companies who offer forum signature links and spamming by the thousands, and this is setting off a flag in my mind. It has me wondering if Google might eventually come up with some sort of quality checking.

Social Bookmarking: Social bookmarking is a great method for not only building links but getting targeted traffic as well. There is already a strong spam presence on almost every
bookmarking site out there, and with the sheer number of them popping up is going to dilute the amount of link juice you would have once got. I can easily see the same thing that happened to the directory industry to social bookmarking if it isn’t already happening.

Linkbaiting: Linkbaiting is by far the hottest link building method to come out recently and its great for getting links, but most importantly links from related sites. I like this method because it forces you to first create great content to earn those links, so there is little room for evil….keyword here being little. I’ve seen a good number of ‘out of context’ articles with linkbait titles and sometimes just downright misleading information. Because this information can be seen by a large volume of readers this can pose a serious risk to influencing people for good or bad.