When starting a niche website, one of the most common problems beginners have is getting links. If you don’t have the budget to pay for them, the ability to write unique high quality content for guest posts / article marketing, your choices are limited… and when starting out you probably have a very limited budget for outsourcing as well.
Blog comments are a killer way to get links and definitely help in ranking smaller, niche websites.
When I decided to try and rank for this niche, I looked at some existing websites to see where they were getting their links from. Most blogs for “make money online” keywords have thousands of links… now as someone that has never tried to rank a blog in this niche before, that could get hard to compete with.
Examining the individual links however (you can do this using a tool like Yahoo Site Explorer or BacklinkWatch) and you’ll find a lot of the links coming from the same site. For example, for a website that has 3,000 links, 300 – 500 of them could be from one blog.
Now as SEO isn’t an exact science, most of the knowledge shared on it, including the stuff on this blog are from experiences and theories. I believe (through building links for my own niche sites and ranking them) that 300-500 links from the same site aren’t as good as the same amount from somewhere else, but they’re still counted. And they’re good enough to get your websites ranked from what I’ve seen.
In the make money online niche, a LOT of the links I found to sites that were ranking highly were from blog comments, with some link swaps, guest posts, article directories thrown in. Very few were paid links.
Why are blog comments so good?
For blogs that have plugins like Top Commentators, if you show up in the sidebar Google counts you as being linked to from every page of a site.
For blogs that have dofollow, each comment you leave is a link to your website. And for blogs with plugins like KeywordLuv, you can even link to your website with your anchor text.
Gold.
The best thing is that writing a decent blog comment that adds to the blog doesn’t take more than five minutes. And…
With the top commentator thing, creating enough comments for you to show up in that list is all you need for a tonne of links.
So on blogs with a lot of pages but few commenters, one comment on one post could give you 500 links or more.
Pretty cool, right?
Note that when you leave a comment, you should add value to the website. Don’t just spam your link. Read the post, tell the author what you thought of it… and both of you get a positive result (s/he gets interaction, you get that link).
That’s not even going into the additional benefits like forming a relationship with the blogger, traffic to your website from the comment, CommentLuv… and so on.
How to find blogs you can build links on:
You want blogs that are dofollow. Note that some blogs have a limit (see below) so they may appear nofollow but are actually dofollow.
To check whether or not blogs are dofollow, you’ll need a Firefox plugin:
I use the former but I believe it doesn’t work on newer version of Firefox. If it doesn’t, get the second one.
To find blogs with a setup you want, Google is your friend…
To find blogs with KeywordLuv…
“Enter YourName@YourKeywords in the Name field to take advantage.”
Paste the above into a Google search. You can even add + yourniche on the end of your search.
I get 828,000 results for just the string and 218,000 for the string + marketing.
To find blogs with Top Commentator lists
“Top Commentators”
It’s as simple as that. Again, you can add + niche onto the end to find specific niche blogs. 
I’ve seen niche sites rank for weak keywords with 10-15 blog comments. A lot of people are cottoning onto how useful they are – if you take a look at any blog post on most internet marketing blogs, you’ll find at least 40-50% of all comments using keywords if allowed.
I have no problem with people keyword-commenting on here (which is why there are certain plugins installed) as long as they aren’t spammy / link to bad sites etc. On that note…
How to set up your blog for maximum link value
When you start a blog, you want two things – you want to reward your commenters for taking the time to leave their thoughts on a post with a link if possible, but you also don’t want billions of outgoing links from your site.
Here’s how to setup your blog for maximum comment value (for both you and your readers):
NFFree is a plugin which allows you to set up a certain number of comments before a link becomes dofollow. On this blog, it’s set to seven.
This prevents people from coming by once, dropping a link for SEO juice and then never returning. They can still do it, but they won’t get a dofollow link.
2. Get Top Commentators
Top Commentators shows a list in the sidebar of the top comment leavers on your site, sorted by number. This gives more juice to those that interact with your website and leave a few comments
3. Get KeywordLuv
KeywordLuv allows your comment leavers to link to their website using their anchor text without seeming too spammy. So they can use their actual name as well as get the link juice. This combined with NFFree is a great way to reward people that interact with your blog.
3. Get CommentLuv
CommentLuv is generally nofollow (at least it is on this blog) but what it does is show your comment leaver’s last post – this won’t provide link juice but will encourage clickthroughs by your other blog readers (assuming they write interesting titles, of course)
This makes sure both you and your readers get the most valuable benefits out of your commenting section. So make sure you get the most out of blog commenting – both on other websites and your own!
March 19th, 2010 at 9:31 am
Dude, great post! I had never even thought of searching google for niche sites with these plugins. I guess I knew all this information, but you put it all together in a way that made perfect sense. I will definitely be using this tactic, thanks Jason!
Patrick Toerner´s last blog ..Finding Ebook Ideas That Sell
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Patrick Toerner (4 comments) Reply:
March 19th, 2010 at 9:48 am
Hey one more thing, you really need a retweet button! I want to retweet this post!
Patrick Toerner´s last blog ..How to Generate Hundreds of Business Ideas
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Patrick Toerner from Young Entrepreneur (2 comments) Reply:
March 30th, 2010 at 12:42 am
There it is! Thanks for adding it, retweeted!
Patrick Toerner @Young Entrepreneur´s last blog ..How to Find a Profitable Keyword for Your Minisite
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March 19th, 2010 at 9:50 am
Wow.. Early comment.
:D
Let me read the post now…
Arpit´s last blog ..Track your Google Adsense Payment in India
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March 19th, 2010 at 9:54 am
Patrick… added it for you in this post, it took two seconds so when I decide on what theme I want will definitely utilise this more
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March 19th, 2010 at 9:54 am
One more thing to add.
If you feel that its lots of work to post comments on blogs ( i.e. searching dofollow blogs, reading posts and then adding commet), you can hire someone to do the job for you. There are some cheap deals available on forums like DP.
P.S. Dofollow blog commenting service is nomore allowed at DP, but still you can find old threads and service providers.
Arpit´s last blog ..Track your Google Adsense Payment in India
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March 19th, 2010 at 9:56 am
OMG, just while I was writing my previous comment, your blog template was changed. I got pretty confused after clicking the submit button.
Arpit´s last blog ..Track your Google Adsense Payment in India
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Jason (702 comments) Reply:
March 19th, 2010 at 10:14 am
I’m still looking for a reasonable theme coder as none of the ones I’ve talked to so far appear to be much use… changed to this as it’s relatively simple for now
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Nicole Price (80 comments) Reply:
March 21st, 2010 at 1:50 pm
And very attractive too I must say!
Nicole Price´s last blog ..Great Gift Ideas for the Elderly
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March 19th, 2010 at 10:18 am
Thanks for the tips. My blog is relatively new and I need a lots of link for the direct traffic and also link back.
Love how you use the search engine to search for those link resources.
I might also think of use the commentluv on my blog to attract more people to drop by.
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Jason (702 comments) Reply:
March 19th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
Peter,
CommentLuv definitely helps, especially for a new site… however if it’s in a niche where people don’t tend to have websites it won’t make much of a difference.
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March 19th, 2010 at 11:30 am
Great post, plain, simple, with idea and right to the point (getting some links). Now anyone can get some links … right ?
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Jason (702 comments) Reply:
March 19th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
Anyone should be able to, let’s hope they put in the work and actually get them though
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March 19th, 2010 at 11:33 am
For me, doing the commenting is always the easy part. Finding the right place to comment is the hardest. Very noob-friendly guide on blog commenting. Good job!
Yan
Yan@Credit Score Scale´s last blog ..What is a Good Credit Score?
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Jason (702 comments) Reply:
March 19th, 2010 at 6:02 pm
Glad you liked the post mate. Agreed, newbies can find it difficult… hopefully this should make things easier
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March 19th, 2010 at 1:49 pm
I have to agree that blog commenting is a great idea. I’m not so sure I think Top Commenter is as valuable as it would require continually large amounts of time to stay at the top each month.
I have good success at getting my websites ranked using blog comments although I have found it quite common to find a great dofollow blog that goes back to nofollow after enough people find it and the spammers move in.
Overall a great post! Thanks.
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Jason (702 comments) Reply:
March 19th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
Justin,
You can look at this blog as an example – March is 2/3rds over and to get on the list you’d need 4-5 comments. The blog has about 400 pages or so. And you can outsource if you can’t be bothered to do it yourself.
Good to hear you’ve had success with blog commenting. Agreed, you can’t control blogs going to nofollow, hopefully if more get a plugin like NFF or moderate better people that leave decent comments can be rewarded
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March 19th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
Ok Jason, after reading this post, I actually tried it. But soon found out that most of the blog using keywordluv have comments moderation unabled. I am not sure how many of them will actually modetae and approve my comments. Lets see how results go.
Arpit´s last blog ..Track your Google Adsense Payment in India
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Jason (702 comments) Reply:
March 19th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
I dunno, when I comment on blogs (even without keywordluv etc) I find a lot of the comments get auto moderated by WP nowadays. That said, if you add value in the comments they’ll get approved when the owner eventually gets to moderating them
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March 19th, 2010 at 3:29 pm
That’s a great read! I’m actually testing the same thing at the moment with some blogs. I have heard some rumors that Google might reconize the links as unorganical and therefore downgrade your rank, not sure it’s true tho..
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Jason (702 comments) Reply:
March 19th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
Birk,
There are a lot of rumours as unfortunately none of us know what’s solid or not. From experience though, I can say they have a positive effect. That said, it’s always best to test (like you’re doing)
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March 19th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
Great post Jason, and it syncs very nicely with the article that I just put up on my blog!
I am enjoying the new theme… mind sliding me a link back on your blogroll? I’ve reciprocated
Jimvesting´s last blog ..Have Bread? Make Toast! Jimvesting’s Social Commenting Method Explained
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Jason (702 comments) Reply:
March 19th, 2010 at 6:08 pm
Jim – I’ll send you an email tomorrow when I get up about this. Fine with a link swap though, will let you know in the email
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March 19th, 2010 at 3:43 pm
Comments can definitely be a great way to get links as long as you aren’t out spamming just to get them. Leave legitimate comments that are on topic with what the post is about and they can be very helpful. I’ve seen highly ranked sites in super competitive niches get there from mostly comment links.
Trent Brownrigg@Earn Online´s last blog ..Top 10 Ways to Make Money Online
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March 19th, 2010 at 6:10 pm
Definitely – you’ve gotta add value, the value you add is just as important as the link you leave as there are a lot of potential non statistical benefits (some mentioned above, like building a relationship with a blog owner).
Thankfully most manual left comments aren’t spam, or at least I haven’t come across many of them… yet
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March 19th, 2010 at 8:13 pm
Now bear in mind that this is coming from the mind of a marketer and not someone who strictly blogs….
The problem with using comments to drive organic rankings is that it requires a ton of them to even hope to make a dent.
And the more comments on the site, the less effective the link will be.
The biggest problem with using comments for SEO is that when you leave your name as the anchor text, you are essentially telling google that the page you are linking to is relevant to your name.
I wrote a piece on my newsletter a few weeks back about this very problem….
Let’s say that your website is about midget thongs..that is what you are sellling.
And you use the comment strategy to try to rank for midget thongs. You leave a thousand comments with a link pointing to your midget thongs website. The anchor text of the link is your name….(in my case, it would be Leo).
Chances are you won’t rank for midget thongs….but you will rank the page or site in question for your name because the anchor text implies that your name (in my case, Leo) is relevant to my midget thongs site.
I dunno if I explained that well enough but I am hoping you get the point.
The benefits of comment marketing is that it gives you another avenue to demonstrate your expertise to a niche or market who shares your same values and desires.
This is powerful as you can introduce yourself as an expert, possibly “share” the traffic with the blog site itself and maybe even get some natural organic links from people who wound up at your site, thought you were crazy cool and decided to share your site with their friends.
Leo Dimilo´s last blog ..Permission Marketing…the Common Sense Version
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Jason (702 comments) Reply:
March 22nd, 2010 at 11:05 am
Leo,
Thanks for taking your time to leave your thoughts on this post, that was a long comment.
I agree with a lot of what you said, blog commenting is a good strategy but not the only strategy.
That said, a lot of sites DO allow you to use your keyword (either straight up or with tools like KeywordLuv)… I’ve got no problem here either if people want to comment as CNA Training Class as long as they’re trying to add value.
And agreed, although you can get a lot of juice just link wise through comments, the potential for other benefits like the ones you’ve mentioned could be a lot more valuable.
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March 20th, 2010 at 8:04 am
is there a chance for an individual to beat the blogging company? in what way? from link building? How?
Cheat Codes´s last blog ..Ninja Saga Stats and Attribute Build Guide
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Jason (702 comments) Reply:
March 22nd, 2010 at 11:06 am
You could always outsource if you don’t have the time mate. Plus smart link building tends to win over mass link building…. usually
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March 20th, 2010 at 10:45 am
I too have been using comments to create links for my niche sites. It’s working quite good
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March 20th, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Nice tips about comments, I hope that every blogger out there read this and implement it to their blogs!
Hesham @ FamousBloggers´s last blog ..Technorati Authority measures FB standing & influence in the Blogosphere
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March 21st, 2010 at 1:52 pm
I can certainly use these tips. Thank you.
Nicole Price´s last blog ..Great Gift Ideas for the Elderly
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March 21st, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Thanks Jason for the tips. I have been reading you blog after recommendation from Griz and I can see why. I want to get your view on blog commenting vs contextual. In your view, how many blog comment links to equal one contextual link. I know Griz prefers the latter but I don’t have the resources he has to get those contextual links so I need to use things like blog commenting.
Aaron´s last blog ..Natural woven shades
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Yan from Credit Score Scale (3 comments) Reply:
March 21st, 2010 at 3:55 pm
Grizz has a niche directory where you can join and offer to exchange contextual links with one another. A pretty successful one if you ask me.
At the end of the day, it’s the relevancy that counts. One relevant link is worth more than 100 unrelated links.
Hope that helps!
Yan@Credit Score Scale´s last blog ..What is a Good Credit Score?
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Healthy Dessert Recipes (8 comments) Reply:
March 24th, 2010 at 10:31 am
Did not know about his directory, it looks pretty good. Will check and see if I can get links for some niche sites if it is still active.
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March 22nd, 2010 at 4:24 am
everything on the list makes sens except for keyword luv. I dont see the value as most readers just put their names as keywords in the comment form.
Melvin´s last blog ..It’s Not About Making Controversy, It’s just Being Me
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March 26th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
Great tips, Found your site thanks to Shoemoney post.
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March 30th, 2010 at 1:03 am
I never knew that about the Top Commentators. Interesting. I doubt that I’d ever make any list, since most of those have hundreds of comments, but it’s good to know.
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March 30th, 2010 at 6:48 pm
Kudos Jason,
I’m thinking of start using commentluv on our forum to attract more people to comment.
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March 31st, 2010 at 1:29 pm
These are great options to Wordpress, but do you have anything for Joomla?
Valtorc´s last blog ..Valves, Acutators & Automation Packages
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March 31st, 2010 at 7:07 pm
I really think people underestimate the power of blog commenting. It’s pretty sad when it comes to online traffic most people who actually even put the effort in forget the basics of link building.
CNA Training´s last blog ..Free CNA Training
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April 2nd, 2010 at 12:57 pm
A great tips on incerasing the value of links on the blog. Spammers will use this like like a good manual to effective spamming
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April 3rd, 2010 at 6:49 am
Blog commenting i think is one of the best and free way of getting back links and help us to attain the one way links which are counted very much by Google search engines. Thanks and happy commenting to all the bloggers…
Prav´s last blog ..Tips to Double the Blog Traffic
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April 3rd, 2010 at 7:11 am
thanks for the great tips on find other blogs that allow comments. You have a great site here.
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April 3rd, 2010 at 2:00 pm
This post is a killer. It explain things I’ve been searching for like commentluv, keywordluv and NFfree.
Thanks a bunch.
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April 7th, 2010 at 12:40 am
Hi Jason,
Can I install these plugin for site running on free platform like wordpress.com?
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April 12th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
Awesome information in this post! I’ve been looking for ways to figure out if a blog is nofollow or not (I even asked how to find out on ViperChill a couple hours ago) and now I see you’ve posted 2 links for a firefox plugin that does just that. Thanks! This will be really helpful in the future.
Also, regardless of the amounts of backlinks you get another benefit of having your comments link back to your website is the amount of traffic you get (you made a quick mention of this in your post). My site has been up for 1 month tomorrow (the only ‘advertising’ I’ve done for it is linking to it on blog comments). So far, I’ve had visitors from 22 countries, 100 unique visitors, and over 1200 pageviews! As this is my first online business I’m very excited by these numbers considering I’ve gotten them all via blog comments.
I’ll definitely have to install the firefox plugin as soon as I get home. Thanks for the info!
Richard Riley´s last blog ..Hard Knock Life
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April 13th, 2010 at 2:02 am
This post is really enlightening. I didn’t know that CommentLuv was nofollow but i find it interesting since it gives exposure to commentators recent post. It doesn’t pick my recent post though, do you know what could be causing that?
I think setting your NOFollowFree plugin to seven is not fair, i mean do i have to comment seven times to show i’m a devoted reader of your blog? i feel 3 or 4 times would have been okay.
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April 14th, 2010 at 6:40 am
this is a very good post about blog commenting. I am really very thankful to you for this amazing post. Keep sharing such stuffs again and again.
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April 14th, 2010 at 7:01 am
Thanks for the list of plugins! I’m also trying to builing my blog with links. Although, I never cared if they were no or do follow. I’ve always tried to contribute valuable input.
d3so´s last blog ..Site Meter – Track Your Visitors and Get Site Statistics
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April 16th, 2010 at 5:36 am
Its really very great list. thanks for sharing with us….
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April 17th, 2010 at 3:23 pm
Hey Jason, thanks for this; I knew about comment luv and have that installed on modificationzoom.com but didn’t know about top commentator. Seems like a great reward for people that add to the discussions. I wish every blogger had the same mentality regarding commenting and giving links! Oh my gosh that search trick is friggen genious! Why didn’t I think of that?!
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April 22nd, 2010 at 6:19 pm
Amazing articles, thanks for sharing your tips.
I also use dofollow directories to find all dofollow websites and also use the Firefox plugin “no follow”.
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April 24th, 2010 at 5:41 pm
Getting listed in blogs with Top Commentators Plugin is the best and effective way of getting backlinks superfast for me. Tried and Tested.
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May 30th, 2010 at 2:08 pm
Blog commenting is great for both visitors who want backlinks and blog owners who want build content from comments. A good example is KeywordLuv plugin used by blogs to attract comments. However, many blogs have the nofollow tag turn on because of spamming. A win win situation would be posting relevant comments on blogs so more blog owners allow backlinks as dofollow.
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June 11th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
I am yet to get keywordluv though I have had my stint – several times – with commentluv. It definitely is a boon to the commenters. However, there aren’t a lot of people who go through the entire comment thread and hence direct referral traffic cannot be expected much.
Ajith Edassery@Make Money Online´s last blog ..MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate Plugin Review & $30 Discount Coupon
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June 14th, 2010 at 6:49 pm
Thanks for the list of plugins! I’m also trying to builing my blog with links. Although, I never cared if they were no or do follow. I’ve always tried to contribute valuable input.
d3so´s last blog ..Site Meter – Track Your Visitors and Get Site Statistics
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June 22nd, 2010 at 6:58 am
You are right.Commenting is the best way to get some valuable backlinks and commenting on dofollow blogs are like gold but commenting on nofollow blogs are still valubale.
Mira´s last blog ..USA: Various Scholarships For The International Students By Texas Tech University
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July 14th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
Awesome post man! You seem to really know your stuff! I have never even heard of top commentators or keyword luv. Also interesting to know that your links should be spread out across different sources and not just all of your backlinks coming from one place. I’m going to bookmark this post for future reference!
Thanks!
Lisa Loves 50cc Mopeds For Sale´s last blog ..50CC Mopeds For Sale
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July 27th, 2010 at 12:30 am
Ricky Rozay´s last blog ..Cashcrate Scam Stealing People Credit Card Numbers
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