I recently joined a few forums to help promote a new website I'm starting and half the moderators are telling me to remove my link in my signature. What's odd is the fact that they allow links in your signature but don't permit you to add a link to your own website. However, if you're just linking to a website you like it's ok with them. You should be allowed to add a link to whatever website you like. Especially if you're contributing to the forum.
uhmm....some forum owners may see your site promotion as competition and unwelcome in their very own forum. Others see links as spam....they don't want to devalue their own site by allowing what they see as spam. Whether or not it is true, their forum, their rules...that's just the way it is If you have a travel or employment related site and want to promote it on a forum...you can promote it on mine at forum.thelifenomadic.com
It's just a fact of life that some moderators/posters will jump on you for spamming, even if you're actually only putting in a few subtle sig links while posting useful content (ummm..you are posting USEFUL comments, aren't you?). Anyway, there are a LOT of forums out there, in all sorts of different niches, so as long as some of them allow sig links, you're laughing. It's quite time-consuming to join forums, build up post counts, etc, so it's worth digging through them a little bit before joining, just to read terms of service, and getting a feel for what is (and isn't) allowed by scanning through some of the threads.
Because they feel really bad if your site gets traffic, rank higher in Google, you make some cash, etc.
It really depends whether the forum owner wants to allow forum sigs or not. Some allow, some don't and some have certain rules to be followed if they allow you to use forum sigs.
I think a number of forum owners hope to prevent those who won't really contribute to the forum, but sign up and "great post!" to the end of a number of threads just to get their signature on there. It's also a general hinderance to spammers.
Personally, I won't join a web/business/design forum unless I can put a signature in my posts - if the forum owners want me to post and contribute, they will have to give me incentive to do so. Now, for hobby forums (stuff not related to my business), I don't care.
I was posting useful content on their forums. That's why they "kindly" asked me to remove the link in my signature but didn't want to remove my postings because they knew they were good. Most "intelligent" forum owners should allow you to add a link to your own website as long as your postings are quality.
mostly the moderators won't ask u to remove siggy link if it isn't a referral link, few forums have rules like those.
The main reason would be because people will sign up merely to spam the forums with their websites in their links, you see a couple of people from time to time doing this on these forums however with a large base of admins they are soon banned.
You said it yourself: "I recently joined a few forums to help promote a new website I'm starting" They don't want someone coming to promote. I wouldn't either.
So how would you feel if the admin or moderators of this website asked you to remove your "Online Deals!" link? I'm sure that's half the reason why you have 550 posts. To get a little something back for contributing to the forum.
I added that about a week ago, so no. I've been on this site for a year and a half... I'm happy to take advantage of opportunities when they're allowed, like here at DP, but I would never sign up somewhere with the sole intention to use it to my gain.
I can't STAND forums like that. It's happened to me before. One night it happened to me (after it happened a few more times earlier) and I just had to let loose on the moderator. We got in a little e-fight. I really do contribute as if it were here at dp. It's very stupid. You're providing content for THEIR site. The least they can do is let you have a god damn signature with your link in it. Screw them selfish arseholes. I never visit the forum again if it happens.
I have seen forums where they put nofollow on the links...what if just dont want to give out link then wats point in having signatures..
ahhh...but getting SEO juice is just one aspect of signature links. With a forum, you can very effectively target a whole bunch of (hopefully) like-minded folks in a specific niche. So, from a marketing point of view, it's quite a useful tactic.