Page 52 - The Dark Side of Back Link Building

THE DARK SIDE OF LINK BUILDING 52

But, if you add a link, be aware that Google considers it user-generated and

potentially manipulative. This isn’t a strategy you should use at scale for SEO.

Instead, find highly-relevant posts that you can provide genuine insights about, and

leave a comment or question. Participate in the community by all means. But even if
you think you have a perfect resource link to add to your comment, consider this:

Do you want to be lumped in with the crowd still using link-building strategies

from 2004?

As for your own website, you should definitely keep user-generated content around.
User-generated content provides SEO value when it’s properly managed. A healthy
ecosystem of comments provides additional context to the content and proves that

people are interested in it.

Protect Yourself From Malicious

User-Generated Content

Unfortunately, it’s possible that you’ve got malicious user-generated content on your

website without realizing it. Spammers have found all sorts of ways to sneak links
onto websites, mostly through outdated plugins and security.

Roger Montti goes into detail about ways you can combat these spam tactics
in this article.

The basics are quite simple to implement. Make sure that all your plugins are up to
date, and drop any that have stopped being updated. Ensure you’re using current

security features, and if you do run a blog, make sure you have spam protection
features enabled.