Do Signature Links in Forums “Count”?

[GuyFromChicago]

I’ve seen this question tossed around on a few other forums, and have seen a lot of varying opinions on the subject.

I had honestly never really given the subject much thought until about 2 weeks ago when I noticed some posts I had done awhile back in another forum were showing in Google as back links to my site. I think forums are a great way to learn, and getting a couple links out of the deal wouldn’t be bad either.

I guess if someone asked me, I would say yes, they help. I’ve seen it in my own results. I understand whether or not the links are counted has primarily to do with how the forum is set up…at least I think.

Anyone care to shed some light on this subject for me?

[sarahk]

My understanding is that only 1 per forum will work, and only if the site/thread(?) has sufficient PR. Not all forums get indexed.

I have a large number of signature links on forums that are irrelevant to my sites (ie webmastering forums != property investment sites) and potentially blurs the message. I still put them there on the basis that something is better than nothing

[digitalpoint]

They all count actually...

http://www.google.com/search?q=link:...UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Multiple links from the Abakus forum.

- Shawn

[GuyFromChicago]

Thanks Shawn.

It appears that yes, links in forums do count. I’ll refer anyone who tells me other wise to this post

One thing I read in another forum is that a lot of forums eventually delete posts, so links drop off over time. How long will digital point store posts? I would imagine it’s not bad to keep them for the content, but wonder at what point you’ll be purging old posts for space considerations? That may not even be an issue, as I imagine it would take tens of thousands of posts to even cover a few hundred meg.

[digitalpoint]

Probably won't purge anything... the keyword tracker data takes infinitely more disk space than the forum.

- Shawn

[Foxy]

here is another example

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ABAKUS SEM Forum Viewing profile
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[ephricon]

Yeah I've looked into this a bit this AM and it appears that they do count, however most forum threads are a PR 0 or very low and don't jump up to that magical PR 4 or preferred higher PR. If they do, it seems to take quite a while.

[Foxy]

The PR of the link is not that important as it has been downgraded in importance recently [in the algorithm] and numbers have become more important...so.....

[schlottke]

I was wondering this also, and tested it out in the forums I post in...


I wouldn't link to my new wrestling sites in my sig (in webmaster forums) if it didn't help ;p

[relaxzoolander]

Originally Posted by schlottke

I was wondering this also, and tested it out in the forums I post in...
I wouldn't link to my new wrestling sites in my sig (in webmaster forums) if it didn't help ;p

keep in mind 'relevance'.
a sig link in a seo forum for wrestling may do more harm than good.
a wrestling sig link in a sports forum is a better idea.

[compar]

Some time after Florida and before things returned a little more to normal, I Brian who was a moderator on the IMR forum said many times that he thought links from forums had been devalued by Google.

I can't find the specific thread, but his evidence was based on his own site that had a great many forum backlink and had been demoted by Google. I was never sure that his conclusion was correct. I suppose Google could filter for link from forums, but I doubt they do.

Has anybody got any thoughts or evidence they can offer on this situation?

[digitalpoint]

I would doubt that Google devalues them. The fact that they are within a forum is going to give them little value on their own because they are always going to be many clicks deep, sharing PageRank with many other links (both internal and external).

- Shwn

[hans]

from a professional ( and good - specially in earlier years = www.selfpromotion.com ) individualized website submission tool site that i subscribe to since a few years,

i received a few months ago an email - he was asking all his customers to replace his standardized back-links that he offered on his site for customers by individual links wihth individual texts. he said that having too many links with same anchor text has made him drop down in rank ..

so may be there is a point about having too many links with same text all over the www ?

[schlottke]

i've been posting on the osC boards with my irrelavent terms for months, only to see my rankings improve.. I believe it is do to the fact that there is enough keyword density for the word "wrestling" on the posts I write to, because I generally mention it once, have it in my handle (generally I do not use my last name as my handle, i usually go by jrwrestling), and twice or more in links.

-- Good point, never-the-less.

[compar]

Hans,

A lot of people have suggested exactly that since Florida, but again I'd like to see some concrete evidence. The suggestion is that if there are too many links with exactly the same anchor text that Google will conclude that they are artifical in someway and devalue them.

I suppose they could do this but think of the mechanic of such a filter. They certainly couldn't do it on the fly. They would have to build a database of every inbound link to every site and then run a calculation on the anchor text of every link to see if it either exceeded some absolute number or some predetermined percentage of the total of all backlinks. I just have a real doubt that they have done this.

Besides this, since it is pretty clear that they are using anchor text to determine relevance, when would too many links indicate lack of relevance? There must be a 1000s and 1000s links to CNN -- Google reports 102,000 backlinks -- with the anchor text CNN. Do you think Google has dropped CNN.com in their rankings because there are too many inbound links with the same anchor text. Of course not.

A lot of people were clutching at straws to try and explain what happened in the Florida update. So now we have a whole bunch of completely unsubstantiates claims like this one. I personally don't believe it.

[schlottke]

On to the point made by compar:

I have found that it actually does improve you listing in most cases (though not much, i fear.)

I have several different topics for websites (ranging from SEO to design to wrestling news, gear, and other pages related to the sport) - Google doesn't devalue links coming from forums, I don't think... Why? Well, think about it- Posts that are straight BS on good forums get deleted, so google wouldn't need to avoid giving credibility to a crap site from a popular forum. If it is being linked to, it will have relavance because someone thinks it is useful. You get as much out of it as you should. Your links will appear equally to their usefulness in forums. You will get little PR because one persons opinion doesn't matter in a forum, much.

(I just tried making sense of what I wrote and realized it was all over the place, hope its understandable.. lol)

[schlottke]

Compar- Agreed. Think about almost every website that requests a Link Exchange, or gives visitors the opportunity to link... they all give the visitor the exact same linking info, banner, text, whatever it may be.

[compar]

Originally Posted by schlottke

On to the point made by compar:
(I just tried making sense of what I wrote and realized it was all over the place, hope its understandable.. lol)

It is funny you should say that because I was just finishing reading what you said and I was saying to myself "what the hell is he talking about" and then I read your last line.

Do you agree with me about anchor text? Or do you agree with something I said about forum links? Or what the hell did you mean?

[schlottke]

Ok, Ill try to summarize everything.. LOL.

I agree with everything you've said, basically, and I was just making some other small points.

For instance: When google's teams are working on the algo, they think will think deeply into how a certain decision will alter the effect. Removing the value of a forum post would have a negative effect on the results of a link/PR based algo. Links in forums that are junk would be deleted before google spidered, good links with content value, will stay around to be spidered.

I think it makes more sense this time.


My Mom never said, 'think before you post'. It was always 'think before you speak.'

[GuyFromChicago]

I would really be surprised if G did “discriminate” against forum links. I think at its most basic level a forum is what the internet is all about – the rapid of exchange of information and ideas.

Just speculation.