Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, answers a question about link spam in his latest video where a user writes in to ask:
Google’s Webmaster Guidelines discourage forum signature links but what about links from comments? Is link building by commenting against Google Webmaster Guidelines? What if it’s a topically relevant site and the comment is meaningful?
Matt begins his answer by saying that he leaves topically relevant comments on topically relevant sites all the time.
For example, Matt frequently leaves comments to debunk SEO conspiracy theories with a link to relevant information that shows why the author of the post isn’t correct. Sometimes he even links to his own blog rather than the Google Webmaster blog.
Lots of people do similar things all the time, which Matt says is completely fine. However, Matt goes on to warn us about certain spam signals that we should be concerned about.
Matt says when leaving comments, stick to using your real name rather than a keyword to be used as anchor text for a link back to your site.
Focusing too much on leaving blog comments for backlinks is also a bad idea, Matt explains. If your link portfolio is full of links from blog comments without any real people giving you natural links, that could be considered a link scheme.
If you’re just leaving relevant comments using your real name, Matt says that’s not something you should worry about at all.
So go ahead and leave me a comment letting me know what you think about Matt’s latest video! Just make sure to use your real name.
See the full video down below:
