This is from the Linked Intelligence archives, originally published 3/20/2009. I’m republishing it because I saw a couple of profiles today that were darn near this bad. Some people never learn!
Some search engine optimization company got the brilliant idea that they could use LinkedIn for pure SEO purposes, and they set up a profile that looked like this:
That’s pretty “black hat”. But it’s also completely, utterly DUMB.
See, this profile might just actually get ranked well for “search engine optimization Jacksonville”, but even if it did, so what? Do you see a link to their site anywhere on the page?
Oh, wait, that’s on their “full profile”. Let’s click on the View Full Profile button:
“Expanded profile views are available only to Business account holders.”
That’s a teeny, tiny fraction of LinkedIn’s members. And “0 connections” means they’re not even going to show up in the search results for anyone except business account holders. Google will never see their full profile page that has the link back to their actual site.
In other words, whoever created this gets no value out of it whatsoever, because there’s no way for anyone other than a handful of LinkedIn business users to ever even see it, and they get no Google juice with a link back to their site.
How not to do SEO on LinkedIn.
Scott Allen is a social media pioneer, helping people turn virtual relationships into real business since 2002. He is coauthor of The Virtual Handshake and The Emergence of The Relationship Economy and contributor to over a dozen books on social media, business and personal development.
[...] the blog is more work, but if you’re serious about being #1 for “extremist idealist” or “search engine optimization Jacksonville”, then LinkedIn is just one teeny-tiny piece of the puzzle. Start with a blog – that’s going [...]
I love companies that try to SEO with linkedin. They are funny optimizing nofollow links
Actually, the three links you get to put in your profile aren’t nofollow. But it doesn’t really matter, because the full profiles aren’t indexed by search engines — only the short profile, which doesn’t include the links.
Strange, last time I checked, they were nofollow. Learn something new every day!
I recently got this domain and was stunned it had bad publicity. Please forgive any previous owners of this website’s name for any “unethical” practices. We are a Jacksonville SEO company, but white hat only. True search engine optimization takes hard work and time, no short cuts really.
Well written and and got some very good points regarding SEO
Oh that’s too funny – and topical since it was only in the last few days I found a profile just like this – of an “SEO Guru”!
Say no more. ;-)
When will people learn that in the long term “black hat” does not benefit them. It never ceases to amaze me what some people will try.
SEO is what builds business. Check us out for white hat SEO, an SEO company that does real SEO.
White hat, Pete? And “Seo” is really your last name? Self-promotional comments on blogs?
C’mon…it’s at least a little gray.