Do You Want Some Followed Links From Twitter?

Nick Wilsdon · June 18th, 2008

Here’s a quick link opportunity I’ll share with you. Quite a few people have pondered about getting links from the uber-popular Twitter. I had much the same thoughts as NickyCakes when I first saw that the only followed links in the service pointed to the posting applications.

Strangely enough there is a much easier link opportunity on the system. Although Twitter has carefully applied nofollow to your Web entry in the your profile, you can slip a handful of URLs into the Bio fields (see here). The key is putting “www” in front of each one and a comma between entries, i.e. www.domain1.com, www.domain2.com

For some reason that converts the URL into a link. My guess is that Twitter forgot to remove some RoR formatting on this input field. This is almost the same behavior you see in tweets when you enter a web address.

Although profile pages have no TBPR (marked unranked) by default, some have built up a visible score and all are indexed by the search engines. I’ve not tested the link juice but considering that 90% of the page content is nofollowed it looks tasty. So get your signature links in there while it lasts.

10 responses so far ↓

1 andymurd // Jun 19, 2008 at 11:18 am

Great find Nick! Updated my profile already - wonder how long before the Twitter team close this loophole.
2 Dave // Jun 19, 2008 at 11:45 am

I thought this was the kind of ’secret’ that got taught in $5,000 IM seminars!

Cheers :)
3 Nick Wilsdon // Jun 19, 2008 at 12:04 pm

@andymurd

Yep probably not long. Actually this is one post I don’t mind not going hot on Sphinn. Thanks to Richard for submitting it but this was more a free tip for my blog and twitter followers. I have a lot more stuff like this so maybe I need to work out a way of hiding content or removing the social buttons on them.

@Dave

Hmm $5,000 you say. Well feel free to refer to my ~~bribe guide~~ wish list…
4 john andrews // Jun 25, 2008 at 8:35 pm

Hey Nick, there’s a great method of making using of “zero day” opportunities like this, and informing your SEO friends/followers, while not telling the whole world.

It goes like this: use it.

You see? Your SEO followers will see it when they do their research, so you informed them. The general public will not, so it remains a good, working opportunity.

Simple. I know. Sometimes simple is best!
5 Nick Wilsdon // Jun 25, 2008 at 9:18 pm

/makes mental note to review John’s sites more often

Yep you’re right though. Things have gone much more under the radar in general recently. The other option is to use private groups of course ;)
6 Michael Winrow // Jul 4, 2008 at 12:12 pm

Good to see you are an open individual and not without robust knowledge. Rather then eek ing a living from others forgetful code. Michael
7 Nick Wilsdon // Jul 5, 2008 at 9:38 am

@Michael

Hi Mike. Yep forgetful code can yeild opportunities but these kind of tips are just throwaway “tricks”.

It’s got some use as a case study on the method (using authority sites for profile links) but no replacement for understanding the real aspects of online marketing. Engaging and increasing the user experience and analysing conversions are where the real gems are.
8 4 Easy Do-Follow Link Building Opportunities // Jul 15, 2008 at 3:59 pm

[...] – My good friend Nick Wilsdon pointed out a great way of getting some do follow links from your twitter profile over at his blog Again if you set up a profile just to drop the links they’ll have no value but [...]
9 Lindsay Hogan // Jul 31, 2008 at 3:20 pm

I never thought of building backlinks with twitter as all comments links are nofollow. Ya profile link is do follow. One more thing about twitter is that 70% links are redirect so does not get any benefit except traffic. Thanks for sharing I am stumbling it here http://lindsayhogan.stumbleupon.com/ so that I can share it with my stumbleupon group.
10 Nick Wilsdon // Jul 31, 2008 at 8:06 pm

Hi Lindsay, thanks for the comment. Actually there are quite a few ways to build links with Twitter.

Although Twitter themselves nofollow the links on their website, they leave them followed in the XML feed. For example, I am using the feed here on my blog to show my latest comments. Many services are springing up which use Twitter data, such as quotable.com. These sites may or may not apply nofollow. So don’t just focus on Twitter itself, the links can be republished in other locations. ;)

Also you may be interested to know that TinyURL are actually using a 301 “permanent” redirect. In its natural followed state, this will pass both traffic and PageRank.