How not to be a link spammer at Google-plus or any social networking site
68The first hint I had that something was wrong was when a new hubber (a hubber is someone who is a member of this HubPages writing site) left a post in the Forums that said something close to this:
"I just found G+. It only seems to let me load 150 links a day, though, so maybe I'm doing something wrong?"
Up to that point, the conversation had been about backlinking - which is the practice and art of advertising YOUR writing by leaving links to it in other places. If you find that sentence totally confusing, please read my "Understanding web page linking - links, backlinks, nofollow and all that" hub first and then return here.
One of the places people leave links is at social networking sites. The person who I refer to above had found Google-plus and had been merrily pasting in link after link after link to their own hubs.
Link bombing
The term "link bombing" is usually used to refer to a smearing campaign, but it fits this sort of activity also. Many would call it "link spamming", though I would tend to reserve that for cases where someone is doing this more out of a deliberate campaign than simple misunderstanding. A crafty link spammer would never make this rookie mistake.
What's wrong with leaving hundreds of links on Google-plus or any other social networking site? The problem is that you look like a spammer, whether that was your intent or not. You'll not only annoy the people you were supposed to be networking with, but you've also told Google (and Bing) that your only interest is promoting your own content.
What do we call someone who is only interested in promoting their own content?
That's right: we call them spammers.
Be a real person
Please, read that heading again and understand this thoroughly. I am not advising you to pretend to be a real person, I'm not saying to structure your link building activities to look like a real person, I'm telling you to actually be a real person.
That shouldn't be all that difficult, should it? I'm assuming you actually ARE a real person? That is, you have hobbies, likes, dislikes, loves, hates and the rest? You eat, you breathe, you read, you argue? You have opinions, thoughts, you make jokes?
Those are the things you need to do on a social networking site.
Real examples
To give you an idea, here's what I did at Google-plus recently.
Friday 11:08 I linked to a news article about Android and iPad tablets that I found interesting. I didn't entirely agree with it and either did some of the people who left comments at my share (that's what you call a little post you do at G+ - a "share");
Friday 10:36 I linked to a hub of my own.
Friday 10:19 A link to a news article about an email scam. I had just received that particular scam in my email so I wanted to warn other people.
Friday 8:34 Another link to one of my recent hubs.
Thursday 11:31 A link to another hubber's hub that I found interesting.
Thursday 10:32 A link to a news article about magnetic pulses helping heal stroke damage. My father-in-law had a very damaging stroke so I wondered if this might help him.
Thursday 10:08 A link to a news article about the new features of IE10. I don't use Microsoft software at all, but the article was interesting as it explored how Microsoft is trying to regain lost ground.
Thursday 10:01 A link to an article about Occupy Movements. This is an important issue to me and many of those I am involved with at G+.
Thursday 9:58 A link to a news story about jobless rates decreasing. I made a satiric comment about what an awful job our POTUS is doing.
Thursday 9:58 A link to a news story about Microsoft's current trial. I detest Microsoft and so do many of my G+ friends.
Wednesday 5:13 Another link to a new hub I wrote.
Wednesday 2:45 A link to a story about climate change. These issues are also important to me.
Wednesday 2:44 A re-share of G+ post by someone else which was a cartoon making a sarcastic comment about religion. I like to poke fun at the contradictions in religious belief and actual practise.
On other days I have posted jokes, made comments about TV shows and movies we've enjoyed, asked for advice.. do you get the idea?
In between doing these things, I also left pertinent comments at other folks shares. None of my comments had links in them unless they were to a news article and even that was rare. Mostly I just leave real comments that represent my opinion or add information.
What does all that activity look like to you? Do I look like a spammer or someone who is genuinely using G+ to communicate and share with other people?
Don't be a link bomber
Be a real person. Again, don't "fake" being real, just be real. Treat the site as someplace where you talk to people you like, people who share your interests. Treat it as somewhere where you expect to learn as well as teach.
Do that and you'll be fine. Neither Google nor anyone else will see you as a spammer. There may be people who don't like you - plenty of folks get upset by my liberal opinions, my atheism and my dislike of Microsoft, but just as many others share my feelings or at least don't hate them so much that they will not read what I have to share.
This is what it is about. Real people sharing with other real people. Simple, really.
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Good to know. I will reserve my bombing to shoes and pipes for future reference. LOL :)
JT
Thank you for sharing this valuable advice, voted up, marked useful,interesting and book marked.
Tony,
Understandable if this is a newbie mistake. But for folks who have been around awhile, its appalling.
I myself only use Facebook, and then rarely. I don't use Twitter, my Myspace account has been inactive for over 2 years and I don't have a Google+ account and don't see myself getting one in the future.
I personally don't use social networking for any of my 'Kangaroo_Jase' persona on the internet. I promote my work elsewhere and don't send links to low quality sites.
I think people, esp new people feel that if they can get 8 million links out to the net then maybe 500,000 people may look at their work. The problem is unless one really knows there stuff, even good, hungry for information, quality traffic is hard to convert.
You really should try G+. It is NOT like Facebook. A lot of very interesting people there.
I'd "un circle" that person in a heartbeat.
I thought everyone was aware now that the Panda killed the need for a million silly back links? Guess not.
I dunno who annoys me more - the people that smugly say a million and one times in forums that they don't back link because they're words on this site are golden drops of God...or the people that spam everywhere.
I've got to where I feel sort of odd about sharing my links in the Facebook group that I created for that purpose...the group members sort of turned the thing into something other than WTS never ending music appreciation articles and discussions.
She is a newbie and unfortunately listened to bad advice in the forums. I think she gets it now.
good tips need to follow this advice!
I really prefer Google+ over Facebook, but it does have its share of spammers. Fortunately, from what I've seen anyway, it seems that HP users practice more restraint on Google+ with their links in comparison to Twitter. I've seen Twitter accounts with nothing but HP links.
I figure if you don't care about a particular social networking site, then there is no point promoting there. Just my two cents. :)
I really prefer Google+ over Facebook, but it does have its share of spammers. Fortunately, from what I've seen anyway, it seems that HP users practice more restraint on Google+ with their links in comparison to Twitter. I've seen Twitter accounts with nothing but HP links.
I figure if you don't care about a particular social networking site, then there is no point promoting there. Just my two cents. :)
Great hub! lol couldn't resist!
I like Google+ more than I like Facebook, yes, I stole that response from Melbel.
I cannot understand someone placing 150 links all in one place the same day, it must be tiring! I only link my fresh content and occasionally some old ones I need to promote.
What I did was follow Melbels hub on RSS and place numerous RSS feeds all over the place using the latest, best and hot tags. I also learned not to spam twitter.
True! I am a newbie in this business and I think I have done a few mistakes by leaving links in social networking sites to promote my hubs. Thanks for knocking on our doors! Love it! now i know what i should be doing at this point :)
Ayup. I have been guilty of "not caring" about Facebook and Twitter. I used to be active in both places, but after G+ I lost interest and shamefully, now all I use them for is hub announcements.
I should just quit using them..
I'm going to reiterate something I posted at G+:
I put my links here to help friends and followers find them quickly and have a place where they can comment outside of the actual piece. These links aren't likely to bring me much outside traffic at all - I could skip them entirely and nothing would change significantly.
For example, in the past month, I got 9 views from Twitter and 87 from Facebook. Just 22 came through Google+. However, great Google alone sent 6,482 visitors to HubPages articles of mine.
Social networking isn't really important in that light, is it?
I am so with you on this one. I do support my friends on social media and they usually support me, but I also am often sharing things that interest or amuse me and doing that is what makes me " real" online. Actually, online and off-- being a real person is what is most important and what ultimately leads to success.... both in life and on Hubpages ( that was a joke btw) voted up and useful
I use Twitter to allow people outside of HP to follow me and to be notified of new Hubs I write. So I only post links to my Hubs there. I make it clear that that is what I use it for, so people don't have to follow me in Twitter if they don't want to get those notifications with the links. I'd like to know what you think? Is this still considered link spamming?
I don't think so. Some might, but as you say, you are basically using it as an RSS feed would be used and your followers know that.
It can be confusing to newbies. They read all different advice and a lot of people will tell them to create backlinks. I don't share many links on any of my social networking sites but when I like somebody's content I will share it and I do share some of my own.
In my profiles (besides Twitter), you will maybe see a couple links a week if that. Twitter is the only one that gets a bunch of links but that is because my blog posts automatically post to twitter and I share interesting things I find online there.
Yes, I certainly agree about the confusion. I got myself royally chewed out in the forums for not being detailed enough in my advice to a newbie. That prompted me to write this, but you know what they say about barn doors and horses.
Millionaire Tips Level 8 Commenter 5 months ago
I agree. These sites are available for us to network with other people, not to advertise our hubs. Sure we can share our hubs, but only as a part of the daily business of networking with others.