It started off when I read a question on Reddit /r/SEO and it got me thinking…
I’ve been reading that Tumblr links are “do follow” and can offer a lot of SEO value. I am a little confused though. If the original blog domain was blog.tumblr.com, but you purchase a custom domain making it blog.mywebsite.com, will any links reblogged through Tumblr affect my actual website or just the Tumblr?
First off, Tumblr is a blogging platform just like WordPress or Blogger. That is, it is not in the same category as Facebook or Twitter which are social networks.
If Facebook, Twitter or Google+ decides to no-follow all of their links, that is entirely up to them. On a blogging platform such as Tumblr, the hyperlink attribute is entirely up to the owner of the blog. Some Tumblr themes no-follow their links, others keep them as do-follow, and some of them mix and match. Other times Tumblr webmasters choose to no-follow certain links but leave the rest do-follow.
There is one exception to that rule. Tumblr does control some of the linking that happens within the framework. For instance anytime you reblog something at the bottom of the post it lists who reblogged it. Those links by default are all no-follow (more on that later.)
By reblogging a Tumblr post, you are essentially re-sharing that post on your own Tumblr site. The only difference between a regular post and one that is reblogged is the one that is reblogged cites a reference in the form of a link back to the original account, the date, and any hashtags that went along with it.
Reblogging can be a very powerful tool on Tumblr. We have one post on Tumblr from our Tumblr SEO series that has been reblogged, linked to, and liked hundreds of times. As a result of this it brings us tons of traffic and the Tumblr post itself is ranked on the first page for a number of search terms.
To answer the question: will any links reblogged through Tumblr affect my actual website or just the Tumblr.
In my opinion, yes. This used to be extremely easy to game. Back in the day, you could use blackhat methods to get reblogs for your Tumblr posts. Each time you got a reblog it would create a do-follow link from the profile and drive link juice back to the post. With little effort, you could get these bad boys ranking for solid keywords on their own.
Rebloggging can still have an impact on SEO as a side-effect. Tumblr has its own internal algorithm and getting lots of reblogs can get your Tumblr post ranked higher within Tumblr’s own search results.
In my opinion, these 3 scenarios would be treated extremely different. The question “do Tumblr links matter” is not black and white. As with any website or page on the web, all websites have their own page authority and domain authority. Take a look at these 2 Tumblr blogs, my personal one that I rarely use, and our company Tumblr that gets a lot of attention.
All Tumblr’s have the same domain authority, but need to earn their own page authority.
As you can see, all Tumblr blogs have an extremely high domain authority. But that doesn’t really matter when it comes to link juice. Page authority is the magic number here. Sites on *.wordpress.com are the same way. Extremely high domain authority, but you have to earn your page authority.
White Men Wearing Google Glass, a very popular Tumblr got so much attention within just a few weeks that its PA shot up to a 70 at one point, it is currently a 62.
In essence, there is no cheating anymore. You can game the system for a little while, but eventually you’ll get hammered into submission by the great gods of Google.
This is a very tricky topic. Webmasters can change their URL from whatever.Tumblr.com to example.com (or whatever.example.com) for a variety of reasons.
A custom Tumblr domain will retain and possess its own domain authority and page authority, unlike normal Tumblr’s that reside on the tumblr.com domain.
If a visits the Tumblr URL they will be automatically redirected to their custom domain.
Webmasters and business owners can choose to have a custom Tumblr domain for a number of different reasons. Sometimes a Tumblr starts out as a fun little blog, and turns into a major project.
I hope some of this answered your questions, let me know if you have any more!
Nice discussion, Patrick!
I have created some tumblr links pointing to my money page but i didn’t see effect till now and seo tools also not showing the links that I have created.
Thanks for clarifying this, I had wondered as no-one else seems to have written about SEO for Tumblr blogs in the last few years; which I assumed was because it was no longer worthwhile…
Do you know if comments made on Tumblr blogs are Do Follow?
you are most welcome, thank you for coming by. I think the biggest takeaway from Tumblr these days that if you are in the right niche, it can drive a ton of traffic. and it still could have some SEO value as well, we can’t forget that. Tumblr blogs also still rank fairly well.
ok took a look at one random comment, it appears to be nofollow
http://i.imgur.com/zlCPyWS.png
I’ve a question: Outbound links to authority sites should be no-follow or do-follow? Please reply asap.
I’d definitely keep them do-follow, it won’t hurt. Interesting you say that, I actually wrote a post a while ago about OBL’s in regards to SEO.
https://elite-strategies.com/myth-high-obls-bad-seo-pagerank/
Only exception is if I have a ton of links or someone asks for the link, I’ll no-follow it!
Thanks again for stopping by 🙂
What is a “good” PA for a normal Tumblr account? Is there a difference between Tumblr pages and WordPress for example?
Hey Fredrik – thanks for coming by. I’d say once you start getting into 30-40PA you start getting into some good numbers. 50+ is the big boys. Our Tumblr:
http://elitestrategies.tumblr.com is a PA 42 for instance, and we’ve been actively working on this for 3-4 years now.
Tumblr.com pages and WordPress.com are basically set up the same way. The domain authority is calculated off the main domain, and the page authority is calculated based on the sub-domain.
First of all thank you General Thumbs up for coming by. I did have to edit your post because there was a bunch of gibberish characters in the middle of your post for some reason. As per your comment, no one really knows the answer except Google. Just remember Tumblr custom domains are basically the same, except they have their own domain authority.
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