Forum Signature Links in Google's Eye

Hi Friends
Can any explain about Forum Signature Links has the same importance in Google's Eye as the Resource Page links of other valuable sites?

 

Exactly google catch the signatures and it really matters i feel

 

I believe that forum signature do hold some weight and can make a difference to your rankings specially if the forum is related to your niche

 

I have read, and tend to believe that forum sigs are largely discounted. A couple of years ago I remember reading that a certain threshold (100+ posts) would start to show some weight. This would be consistent with what I have seen in webmaster tools, but we all know that G does not report all links.

Y seems to list forum links more completely, but I have no idea if they are using them for rankings.

 

They're practically worthless from an SEO POV. The sooner SEOs realize that, the better off forum owners, moderators and members will be. Period.

I have close to 17,000 posts on SitePoint. Trust me when I say my rankings for anything weren't impacted ONE IOTA when they removed the ability for guests to see forum signatures.

 

And, I have a couple thousands posts on a niche forum that have tipped G rankings from a single keyword plural to the keyword singular - i.e. from "widgets" to "widget".

Have investigated many possible reasons and this is the only one that stands out. The shift took place when the sig line was altered - and that particular forum's software changes all sig lines at once - historical, archived current, etc.

The forum posts didn't make the rankings, but certainly appear to have some influence.

To clarify, previous ranking for widgets was ~3 and for widget ~15. As of today widgets is 12 and widget is 5.

"Practically" worthless may be accurate, but it sure looks to me like there remains some influence.

 

What are the keywords? What factors did you look into? Did you check the links pointing to the pages that link back to your site? If so, were any added or taken away from them? Did they increase in value?

Would you be willing to remove those sig links to see if the rankings stay the same?

 

Dan, as you full well know, a good site is experiencing changes across many levels all the time. I have, for instance, seen a site moved from a level 4 DMOZ cat (PR6) to the netherlands of the directory (PR0) lose 4-5 positions in the SERP's.

The site in question happens to be a primary site - and a money maker. I am not going to give up the keywords, nor do I make sweeping changes on or to it. So, no, I am not going to remove the sig line (links) to see what happens. If it impacts it negatively, I'm screwed. If I then replace the sig line, I'm probably screwed more, since G does not look kindly on the addition of thousands of links in a short period of time.

Your position appears to be that G completely ignores sig links. I happen to not accept that premise. I think it is more likely that sig links carry little inherent weight. They tend to appear on pages with many, many OBLS, which dilutes them. Further, G may have a screening mechanism in place that further discounts sig links in an effort to control the influence of forum spam.

I offered my experience as evidence that anchor text in a sig link still carries some weight. The forum posts in question are niche specific and account for probably less than 10% of the total links to the site in question. The vast majority of links to the site in question are natural, one way links that were never sought or asked for. They ebb and flow with the natural life of the web. The site has been as high as a PR 6 and as low as a PR 4 but has consistently maintained top 10 rankings across literally thousands of search phrases.

Through all that, it seems more than coincidental that changing a sig link from plural to singular appears to flip rankings from plural to singular. Cause and effect? Occam's razor would suggest so...

 

I didn't say Google ignores them. I've always said they (on average) tend to carry so little weight that they're not worth optimizing for.

 

Thanx Friends for your informative and guidance full posts. I m searching more experience.

 

The same could be said of most of the 100+ factors influencing rankings. eeking out every last bit of site performance means paying attention to all the details, don't you think?

I would never advise a client to join a bunch of forums and start making meaninless posts in pursuit of rankings. I would, however, advise a client that was already involved in an on-line community to include a link with relevant anchor text to their website.

Please note, relevant anchor text does not mean the kind of keyword stuffed crap we see at the end of almost every DP post. Oftentimes, the best anchor text is the business' (or site's) tag line - something like:

Milk, it does a body good...

That just might generate clickthrough traffic as well as influence rankings.

 

Interesting discussion. I for one am on Digital Point for two primary reasons, neither of which has anything to do with signature links:

1) I'm here to learn. And...

2) I'm here to offer whatever insights I have gained over the years.

Traffic-wise, I notice a very, very small amount from DP links (currently about 20/month). As Dan has indicated, if you're spending much time on here targeting SEO results from sig links, you can probably spend that time better elsewhere.

 

In my experience they do make an impact - not as much as they used to but they certainly have some link juice.

At the end of the day goog is going to use ALL the info it gets - both good and bad in some fashion. They have different weightings but I am pretty sure they have some impact...

 

Bad example. Before Ocam's you must apply "correlation does not equal causation."

 

Have you read the entire thread?

 

Hi willybfriendly
Thanx for your informative posts. I think you have good experience of SEO.
thanks for your tips

 

I have noticed that links in forum signatures tend to work well for getting a new site indexed relatively quickly. I don't know exactly how much "link juice" is passed to the page in the process, but giving the search engines some guidance with good anchor text probably doesn't hurt.

 

well, forum is the best place for building links. But unfortunately not passing much link juice bcz forum posting is not stating in the page which is closer to to main page. Almost good forums having too much customers and daily 1000s of posting.. so the signature page always moves to the internal pages.

 

forum link personally help me especially dp link

 

I look at it like a kid getting a christmas present. The link is popular for a little while but over time it gets lost and is not important anymore. Unless of course it is a really good thread that keeps being brought back.So my conclusion is that a forum sig is good for getting a site listed and unless it is on an important thread does not hold much value. However a very important thread will (1) be linked to from other places and (2) be refferenced time and time again therefore giving the thread value and passing link juice. Just my observations.

So for all of you who start useless threads You are gaining nothing.....