Signatures effect on SEO...

There's been a few tests done regarding the indexing of a site via signature links. I done one test using low competition keywords, and it took 3 months to get my page indexed from signature links.

I ran it from approx Feb to April this year and posted about it. Also some other members done a test where they all added the new domain to their sigs and had something like 10,000 signatures and after weeks they gave up.

So you are right, they are all but worthless for SERP's and Indexing but quite good for human clicks.

 

Ah, but what is the percentage of those forum backlinks to your site though?

 

On the test site? It was 100% fed with signature links only, about 1,500 of them at the time and some were in PR4 posts.

 

I meant Angela's site.

 

Thats great!

 

....
You mean forums like http://www.namepros.com
http://www.warriorforum.com
http://www.ozzu.com/ etc...
See signature links have little lesser value for sure...But a link surrounded by a quality content certainly makes a lot more sense and have ^&*55^^*^#@@$$ Whatever you say..

 

I disagree that forums signatures is a waste of time. As what I've said site or forums that uses no-follow are still indexed by search engine. I'm really sure with that. I believe that it can still help even just a little and little is better than nothing. So if the links are crawlable, it means the anchor text in forums still help specially if the forums is related to the niche of the site. Forums also is one source of traffic. If you want targeted visitors it's better if you join forums related to your site.

 

If you would only expect forums sig then it won't really help you a lot. You should combine forums sig from other techniques.

 

I didn't say they were a complete waste of time. And yes, the sites themselves that use rel="nofollow" are still indexed, what I said is that the links on those sites that have rel="nofollow" will not be followed, meaning the pages that those links point to will not be indexed.

I also said that the best use of forum signature links was to get them in front of the eyeballs of those who might be interested in them.

 

Ye, I agree that linking from forum can produce good backlink. But never do spam/junk in forum to create much link.

 

Hi all. All of the members have offered some good views. As per my concern forum links are not having that much weight. And now even experts are expecting that forum getting many links from forum sites might be considered as a spam tech by search engines.

 

I thinks we are missing the facts that if we buy a signature space all the links are from same domain.
Its much better to have 10 back links from different domains relevance to your keyword than having 1000 links from same domain.

The best advantage of signature links is to get indexed new websites or pages fast. If someone have 5K+ posts in DP forums then links in his/her signature will be indexed by crawlers with 1-2 days. At least it works from me.

Better to buy links from blogger having multiple blogs.

 

I believe Forum Signature Links help drive traffic and help your SEO efforts a little. If you are speaking specifically of Digital Point, this is what happens. Your post will get indexed quickly, however it doesn't stay visible long. After a while some of your older posts get dropped by the search engine and go into those hidden results Google has. As for SEO, your links are only one method and like the other person was saying, 10,000 links on one domain won't hold a lot of weight, but links from 1000 different locations will definitely help your ranking. Use Adobe Reader for an example. The reason Adobe's rank is so high is because they have 1000's of websites linking one way back to them for their Adobe Reader download.

You definitely want links from relevant sites even if they are purchased as an ad... not link exchange. I believe the one way links hold more weight than reciprocal links. One way links indicate a genuine interest in a website. Find relevant websites and pay for a text link ad, which would be considered a one way link. Try to do this with different pages on your site, and it will help your "getting crawled and indexed" efforts.

Also if you have 1000 posts on 10 different forums, especially vBulletin forums, then that is 10,000 locations you can place an ad in your signature with a few mouse clicks. I am almost certain that if you change your signature in vBulletin it will change the signature on all of your previous posts as well. This could do wonders for traffic and sales, especially if you are one of the first people to promote a specific product on these forums.

I don't recommend buying 300,000 links back to your site, and it doesn't matter if it is from 1 domain or 300,000. Google can detect an unnatural jump in backlinks and it would be considered search engine spam. Just spend time on relevant forums, blogs, etc. making quality posts and comments with links back to your site, and it will do more for you in the long run than just trying to buy your page rank.

 

I have no idea about all the 'technical stuff' p) but DP sends me about 50-100 visitors a day

 

I haven't really monitored my traffic from DP, but that number doesn't surprise me at all. I am a prominent poster on another site, and had placed my website link in my signature even though my site was not actually up and running yet. This was because of my procrastinating ways. I started noticing all of these 404 page hits in my stats, because of it. I was getting about 30 hits per day from that forum. I expect if my site was actually up and running I would probably get the 100 hits per day as well.

 

Dan, thank´s for that great and clear reply!

 

It seems that forum signatures have value, in that they will bring interested visitors/traffic to your site.

just to confirm...what is the easiest way to check if a forum applies NOFOLLOW to their signature files?

 

You can just view the source of the page.

 

Signature must have positive effect on PR. i have tried thats why i'm saying

 

Well that's concerning. Hopefully it's not true. It would be unjust if I got blacklisted for doing this, right? Is it against any rules to buy sig space? Besides, the main reason I would do it is for advertising, not SEO.