I have a website in the pet niche (not a forum) and so I looked for forums to join in that niche. I joined a few forums and they allow signatures. Now, I posted useful information or information related to the thread and placed a link to my website in the signature. They said nowhere in the terms of use that I cannot have a link in the signature. I go today to see the new threads and I see that the moderators removed the link from my signature. What is up with these people? Shouldn't forums allow a link in the signature? I know that this forum allows them but it is not related to my niche. I think that these people are becoming control freaks and purposefully do not want people to visit your website because they feel that you should not get free advertising even if it is done according to their terms of use. They are just jealous that you have a nice website and they don't. If they want to play it like that, I will not visit their forums anymore and then they can control whomever they want.
I know it may seem unfair but the website is probably of a personal nature. As much as I disagree with the websites practices I feel that they have the right to do just about anything they want with their site. In my opinion you're probably not the only one who went through this. Their loss.
Sure, they can do anything with their forum but if they allow signatures and they say nowhere that a link is not allowed, why would they just go and delete it? The forum is not of personal nature as they have AdSense on it and thousands of members. I do not think they get the point. Many people that visit forums also have websites and for them to delete links in signatures just tells that visitor that they do not want them there and their website.
Forum disable the signature link can be either too many spammer or they are jealous. It is bad attitude that if the admin is jealous on the member since it will definately lose some good member. However, if the admin disable the signature link due to too many spammer, then i can understand. Anyway, accept it or leave it. You cant do anything since it is not your forum. Maybe you shall consider to set up your own forum
Most forums or websites are like this that are run by people who can't see pass the point of "No Links To External Websites". I have been a victim of this for quite some time now and i can't really go to websites or forums like that.
Their site, their rules. Though I doubt they just deleted your sig because they didn't like the look of you, you probably broke a forum rule, like having to have a certain number of posts before you can have a link
Pet forums does not alolow sugnatures... I know because I created a list of more than 500 forums before...
Too much spam in forums is causing many moderators a lot of grief at small forums. If these forums don't give you what you want, move onto the next forum...
In my forums I don't allow new member to have sig links, the main reason being to cut down on spam. Once they reach a certain level of activity and reputation, they can put links in their sigs. That, or support the site with a donation. And we have a clearly stated rule that if a member donates just so they can get certain privileges, only to start spamming, they're banned with no refund of their donation.
But I was not spamming. I was replying to the posts with a paragraph or so. I only added the link to the signature because I have a website and maybe people will click and visit it. Also, I think the link was nofollow so I'm not sure why anyone would do this besides being jealous? I did not place the link inside my posts, but in my signature. I saw other people have huge pictures in their signatures, some even promoting their businesses and nobody bothers them. Just because I have a link in my signature does not mean I'm a spammer and the admin could have seen that by reading my posts. It means I have a website.
Yeah, pet forums are notorious for this. I still keep visiting a few of them, some of which do not allow signatures at all, but I do it to get some information and share ideas with other members. As soon as you put a link to your site, they start causing a fuss. I do not bother joining more pet forums as I know how they treat members with websites. Maybe it's because they had a lot of spammers in the past, but I've seen forums in other niches and most are fine with signature links.
Possible that the website has a policy to let you use signatures only after a certain number of posts. Why don't you PM the mods there?
Well, I read their forum rules carefully and it says nowhere links are not allowed in signatures nor does it even mention signatures. It does say however they can remove any post for any reason if they want to do so. The moderators of these certain pet forums are just idiots with nothing better to do. I cannot put it any plainer terms. I will not waste my time contacting them or arguing with such twisted people. I hope that their forums fail as their brains have already obviously failed them.
Well, I don't think there is anything to be angry at..Maybe your link looked spammy; I cannot side with you unless I know what was in there .. PMing a mod takes less than a minute. If you are so sissy about networking with people in your niche, then sorry to tell, God save your website..
Its simple. I don't write in forums without sig links. Even if the topic is cool or I can help - I don't. Forums get free content from its visitors. They want free content to put their advertising, they want me to look at their ads and they don't allow my links? Wtf?
Exactly. Why would I contribute at some forum if they don't welcome my link in the signature? Too bad for them, they just lost a visitor that would have spent a lot of time on their forum, not spamming, but contributing.
My link was pointing to my website and there was no spam or affiliate linking involved. It was a simple link to my website, the same way you have 2 links to your websites here, well, I had only 1. There is nothing to PM. They simply removed the link because they felt like it. It is their forum, and I cannot tell them what to do. I'm just not sure what they're protecting or trying to achieve by removing links from signatures? What I can do is not visit that forum or those forums again. I just posted this thread because I was shocked to see how stupid some of these moderators can be and people here tell everyone to post their links in signatures so I'm not sure why you're defending those moderators? Are you one of them or have a forum that blocks links in signatures?
Although it seems unfair for the webmaster to do that, I doubt it's "their loss" and I am sure he is doing fine without one member with a signature line.