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Matt Cutts posted on Twitter a message (http://twitter.com/mattcutts/statuses/865610396) to Evan Williams (Co-founder and CPO of Twitter): "@ev, dropped you an email about http://bit.ly/2vmSAz"

The said link redirects to Dave Nylor post on his site (http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/twitter-backlink-tip.html):

"If you checkout my twitter page davenaylor you can see 2 links 1 is nofollowed that’s standard but I dropped a “http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk” into my Bio :)
..please don’t get on my case about the need to follow more people, I know I know

DaveN"
Comments33 Comments  

Comments

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from seanmag 1402 Days ago #
Votes: 1

How is it spamming to place a link in your bio to a page of relevance to your background?  Another ridiculous move by Google to prevent people from promoting themselves.

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from jasongreen 1402 Days ago #
Votes: 1

He only sent an email - nothing was said about spamming or reporting dave naylor. That’s just hearsay and innacurate.My guess is Matt is just advising twitter that they may want to include nofollow in case this tactic is used maliciously.

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from DaveN 1402 Days ago #
Votes: 0

people like calacanis is spamming twitter with shit like best fight ever seen tinyurl -> mahalo but well done youe the first person to desphinn and accuse me of spamming in a long while..

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from Harith 1402 Days ago #
Votes: -1

Folks!"Another ridiculous move by Google to prevent people from promoting themselves."Twitter allows people to promote themselves by mentioning their URLs once under item "Web". There is no need to repeat mentioning the same URL under "Bio" too ;-)When Matt posted his comment on Twitter addressed to Evan Williams (Co-founder and CPO of Twitter), Matt referred to DaveN specific post:"If you checkout my twitter page davenaylor you can see 2 links 1 is nofollowed that’s standard but I dropped a “http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk” into my Bio :)"DaveN is encouraging people to repeat mentioning their URLs under Bio too with the sole purpose of gaming Google PageRank system!! That is SPAM! Therefore the title of this submission! ;-)

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from DaveN 1401 Days ago #
Votes: 0

you mean like http://twitter.com/scobleizer him .. actually because I outed the url link in twitter which has been out a couple of times already :) it’s more prevention also their is an exploit in the BIO area //

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from DaveN 1401 Days ago #
Votes: 1

http://nickwilsdon.com/do-you-want-some-followe-links-from-twitter/ of here but then the sphinn community is desphinning anyway so no need for me to battle my corner so to speak :)

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from Harith 1401 Days ago #
Votes: -1

DaveN,But I see Nick Wilsdon has already posted on Twitter:"@davenaylor hehe you big spammer you, why would you ruin Twitter like that?!? */running off to delete my post http://tinyurl.com/5npdfr "

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from NickWilsdon 1401 Days ago #
Votes: 1

@Harith Err, that twitter comment wasn’t meant to be taken seriously. I’ll try and remember to put a smilie after stuff like that in the future ;) As Dave says, this has been out a while. I wrote about it over a month ago. Personally I don’t see this as spamming twitter, it’s not in anyone’s face or ruining their use of the service. You could argue that it spams Google or the other search engines, as it may give some linkjuice to a few sites but you can’t even use anchor text for the link. If people used it responsibly they would just get a small link to their biography sites. It’s also worth noting that unless your Twitter page has some inbound links to it, the page hardly ranks anyway. At worse here we may have seen the start of some Twitter paid-links bartering from the better ranking twitters - I don’t think you would get much from starting multiple new accounts (folders not subdomains). Correct me if I’m wrong though.

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from NickWilsdon 1401 Days ago #
Votes: 3

@Harith>There is no need to repeat mentioning the same URL under "Bio" too ;-)I quite agree. That’s why I put 5 completely different ones in there...

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from Harith 1401 Days ago #
Votes: -3

Nick,"Personally I don’t see this as spamming twitter, it’s not in anyone’s face or ruining their use of the service."The problem with DaveN post is not his love to Twitter and its community. Its the intention to encourage people to aquire a dofollow backlinks through Twitter community and hence manipulate PageRank system.  And lets keep in  mind, any attempt to gaming Google PageRank system is considered spam.Google Webmaster Guidelines"Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links."

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from Harith 1401 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Folks,Here is what I think is going to happen within few days. All links mentioned in Twitter "Bio" would be nofollow :-)

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from DaveN 1401 Days ago #
Votes: -1

and that would be mission acomplished .. Matt Cutts reads my blog, Matt Cutts subscribes to my twitter account, Matt cutts has my Email Address .. you think that me blogging it was to get people to abuse it.. hmmm I would have thought publishing it in a private forum or 2 :)DaveN

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from NickWilsdon 1401 Days ago #
Votes: 1

@Harith Yep I’d expect that too. I’ve had some referrals from my links so I’ll still be keeping in there for the traffic.  I still wouldn’t call them spam, they are more similar to forum signature links. It’s not a "linking scheme". However I can quite easily see that paragraph you quote changing one day into "Don’t participate in anything designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank". :)

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from Halfdeck 1401 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Harith, David Naylor outed a loose-end so you should be thanking him if you think preventing spam is a good thing and you think this Twitter link thing is spammy.

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from Harith 1401 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Halfdeck,If it was just for to out a loose-end, DaveN could have written directly to Twitter or Google. For posting it in public and encouraging people to do the same: No..no thanks for DaveN.Take a look at some of the results:http://sphinn.com/story/60692

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from ankitrawat 1401 Days ago #
Votes: -2

I can’t see Dave getting anybenifit from that additional link into his profile ... If m not wrong only the first link counts, so if it is nofollow there is no use of having similar 2nd dofollow link .. atleat this is what discussed few days back .... at:http://www.seo-scientist.com/first-link-counted-rebunked.htmlLet me correct if m wrong about this !!

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from neyne 1401 Days ago #
Votes: 0

HarithYou really need to stop this Google/Matt idolizing stint you got yourself into. Do you point your offline friends to Google Webmaster Guidelines when they insult you or do something unacceptable. I catch your comments sometimes on Matt’s blog and I start feeling really uncomfortable from time to time... you are becoming the algorithm....

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from DaveN 1401 Days ago #
Votes: 1

I can’t believe that when i look at your profile that you normally gets good sphinns I feel bad you got negative sphinns now lol

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from MattCutts 1357 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Harith, a more accurate title would be "Matt Cutts reports a loophole mentioned by Dave Naylor." :)

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from Harith 1357 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Matt,I agree on your suggestion.On 5th September 2008, I have changed the title of this post, From: Matt Cutts Reports Dave Naylor For Spamming Twitter!To:Matt Cutts reports a loophole mentioned by Dave Naylor

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from DaveN 1357 Days ago #
Votes: 1

why bring this -3 thread up losers ;) 

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from Harith 1357 Days ago #
Votes: 1

I love you, DaveN :-)

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from MikeDammann 1354 Days ago #
Votes: 0

This is pure comedy. As Dave has hinted at, a lot of tweets are self promotion. It doesn’t matter if it’s Google spam or traffic spam, the only difference now is that someone from Google got in touch with one of their guys and all of a sudden they felt a need to change something.I have an idea: Why not have only nofollow links on every page out on the web, or even better, why not stop using links as an indicator for value period? Let’s go back to the old days where you have one of those alta vista type of search engine submission forms and people charge money to "get you in the search engines" and the whole ranking system is based on how much content you have regardless of quality and popularity?Seriously, guys, this move has benefitted absolutely nobody.

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from jasongreen 1047 Days ago #
Votes: 0

In-nacurate Title. he sent an email - nothing is mentioned about spamming

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from seanmag 1047 Days ago #
Votes: 0

I disagree with this title that placing a link to one’s website in their BIO is somehow considered SPAM. That’s ridiculous.

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from DaveN 1047 Days ago #
Votes: 0

dude I wasn’t spamming twitter, people like calacanis that drop tiny urls at mahalo is spamming twitter

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from cyandle 1047 Days ago #
Votes: 0

If that is considered spamming then most of us are spamming with our bios, not just Dave!

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from KateMorris 1047 Days ago #
Votes: 0

twitter comments are not basis for truth. people joke.

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from NikkiPilkington 1047 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Hardly spamming, sorry - and Matt didn’t mentions spamming in his message

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from rishilakhani 1047 Days ago #
Votes: 0

originally sphunn the topic to see interest levels. however agree - interesting but not ground breaking

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from TheMadHat 1047 Days ago #
Votes: 0

If that is considered spamming then most of us are spamming with our bios, not just Dave!

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from robwatts 1047 Days ago #
Votes: 0

never seen a minus three sphinn post before. so couldn’t resist :)

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from seobro 1047 Days ago #
Votes: 0

I disagree. We need to get twitter to go back to dofollow of the web link. Having to post a link in the bio field is naff.

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