Add "fake" joblistings to get nofollow backlinks?

[seoisgreat]

I did an analysis on our main competing seo agency and I noticed that they usually add the websites that they work on to a bunch of job listing sites, but all those backlinks are nofollow. So Im wondering if theres any merit to what they are doing, even if the company doesnt look to hire? Cause I cant imagine that every company they work with are looking to hire.

 

[WesM]

Hey, @seoisgreat,

There are a couple of reasons that link builders will make profiles on job boards, and they are:

• They actually are hiring (but that's probably minimal)
• They want to secure some natural-looking no-follow links from HQ sites.
  • Keep in mind that having no-follow and follow links are indicators of natural link profiles and while followed-links are ideal, NF links can round out a backlink profile
• They want to solidify their branding, NAP, etc from HQ sites that actually can be ranked
• They're just copying everything they can from a competitor who is constantly outranking
• For a 15-30 minute effort, it also gives the client a new asset they control and gives them further online real estate, per se

Now there are drawbacks to it too, which I recommend people exercise some caution:

• Most of those sites also have company review options. If you're listed everywhere under the sun and you have a disgruntled employee or bitter B2B relationship, well, you've just given that person plenty of venues to rate the company poorly.
• Profiles on sites like Glassdoor are notoriously hard to get deindexed if this occurs, so once it's up, it's up.

As an SEO for 8 or so years, I've done both routes for different reasons (listing clients and not) and I've also experienced the negative effects as well. It's a gamble and I'd recommend proceeding with caution. Most likely the link builders on their team are more about delivering a "shiny profile" to their client over something that would actually improve their SEO and rankings. Proper link building takes time and effort, which is the exact opposite of making links on job boards. That said, at least the sites are clean and not toxic, so that's reassuring.

Let me know if you have any other questions or notes on this to discuss. Happy to chat more with ya. Thanks!

Wes

 

[seoisgreat]

Hey Wes! Thank you very much for that in detail respons, I appreciate it. I don't have any more questions on joblisting sites but if you have any ideas on how to get backlinks to "boring" niches that would be great