Do backlinks work from this forum?

[NigelSutherland]

Just wondered if posting a link on this forum to a blog post promoting Zazzle would work as a backlink, which we all know is beneficial to getting boosted in search rankings. I have no intention of employing any ”black hat” tactics - just curious as to if such back links can be useful.

[ColsCreations · Accepted solution]

I don't pretend to understand "back links" and how they effect SEO, but I do know that posts to the public non-Pro Zazzle forums are indexed rather quickly by Google. As example, I can search for [zazzle affiliate links on a blog page] and your recent post is the 2nd result. If I search for [affiliate links on a blog page] as an exact phrase but without Zazzle in it, your post is the #1 result for me. 

Even if one doesn't include 'zazzle' as part of their query it's surprising how many Z forum threads come up in results if the other keywords in the post title are a good match for the search criteria used.  This is primarily why I include so many links-to-me in my forum sig here, you just never know how someone is going to stumble onto you. If it's a search that leads them to a forum post, I want them to have all the links back to me in that post 😉

I don't know what this means as far as backlink "weight" for SEO though. 🤔

[jophb]

It would be an internal referring link, not technically a backlink. Forum links could in theory do something small, but likely not much of weight given to them. The links within the forum are also marked as no follow links, which essentially tells Google not to make the association between here and the destination link. Or at least tells it not to give the destination the 'juice' from the referrer (the forum).