Forum Link Building tips (it's not just your signiture!)

Tuscan Chef asks...

1) Forum signature link is valuable? Someone says they are not evaluated by google. I see some sites however where there is not much competition being pushed by participating to one forum only

My sig links on DP often show up as back links on google... so they have to count at least a little.

2) How fast would you see, if any, ranking or positioning benefit. Would crawler check posts that are 1 year old or would crawl just look at new ones. My experience is that there is no apparent difference inbetween post or thread date.
A guy bought my sig link here on DP and he was ranking number 1 for all three keywords he was using in my link within three months...however, I am not sure how else he was promoting his site. However, I can say, that the longer the link is in the sig, the more perks it will have.

I think it's more of a matter of when Google finds the link. DP gets indexed almost immediately, so post date is rather effective....post date can also indicate that content is being added to the thread date.

I'm not sure how thread date actually effects anything in and of itself other then the possibility that new content is added via the follow up post dates.

3) What happens if you change your signature link after, let's say, one year. Assuming you have actively and truly participated to a forum with signature of site A, and you have 200 backlinks through signature. Now you go back into profile and change your signature to site B. I assume all your posts would change link retroactively. So site A will receive a negative 100 links and site B will receive a positive 100 links all in a sudden.
OLD threads that get indexed will maintain their "link" till Google checks them again. Some old buried threads here in DP likely still have some of my ancient links listed in my sig (via google cache). That is where age can come into play, especially if the thread is bumped with a new post and google sees that the same old link is there.

If the link is changed, the backlink changes. I am not fully sure just how that effects things for either site... but as the link has changed, there certainly will be change.

Is site A going to be affected the same way that site B will benefit?.
On some level, sure they will be the same... though, on other levels no... linkA will loose it's age and importance once google sees it's no longer there. So again, the longer the better in the long run of 'rank' and 'serp' however, see below...


Did anyone experimented toggling, like switching site on signature every week? Could this be beneficial counting on google inertia....creating like a swing pushing.....

CHANGE IS GOOD!

Especially for humans!!!


On my site that I have Ads displayed, I can earn 2-3 dollars a day on it... after a month or two my earnings drop down to less then a dollar to maybe two bucks. If I change the ad, the clicks increase. If I remove the ad for a week or two they jump back up to 2-3 dollars.

The same can apply to a sig link on some level... though the higher the post count, the more the change will be noticed. If you have 100 posts and have been around for a year no one will notice the change. However, if you have 4k posts and make several posts a day the regular members here may notice the change...even if it's the same link with a different color.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Change can be bad for bots (see point#3) and for your account... as if the admin/mods of the site see your sig jumping all over the place to the same or similar sites, they may call you out for being a spammer! If you are deemed a spammer, then you have no sig link at all

 

Very good guide indeed! the only problem is that there are no good forums under my category....

 

If there isn't then start one!

What is your niche?

 

Qryztufre great..
I found your tips very healthy..
i am forums link builder and i got new horizons by reading your threads.
will you please tell how can i get permanent signatures on forums. Although i have joined the forums and do post in real manners but after few days or months I am baaned due to signature links.

 

Hmm.. the sticky threads sounds like a great idea

 

Increase your worth as a community member! You are not really banned because you put a link in your sig (unless the link is really spammish, or against the sites ToS), rather you are banned because of how you present yourself. Chances are you are coming across as a spammer, which really makes ANY link look like spam.

First, turn on your signature, but don't bother using it. Next become an active member on the site, friend a few people, make a few link free posts, ask a couple of questions and get yourself established... then and only then actually put a link in your sig (but again, don't come across as a spammer, or link to crap sites). After that you can slow down on your activity... pop in once every couple of weeks, check subscribed threads, say hello to a newb, and the like.

 

i tottaly agree with all the facts you said

 

lol. "most post whores are admin or mods…"

their is some truth in that.

 

nice man...

 

Thanks, nice tip! I'm going to do it.

 

I have more posts on my forum then I do here!

On another site, I got modded due to me being a post whore. So yeah, certainly some truth to that. Though,even if it's not the case, in many cases the post whores are very well liked, and if you can get them to stick up for you you are 'made'

 

Being friends with the mod is probably a good strategy. When I join a forum to drop some links my strategy usually is to avoid mods some mods are just to opinionated and have pwn every thread they are on, so it just makes me want to call BS on them just for the fun of it. lol

I don't mess with forums that I can't contribute to, so i will try to feel out the policies for links then contribute to a few discussions and then put some links in appropriate places. I have never been banned dropping links just when I am on not dropping links usually for making a moderator mad or one of the moderators little lap dogs.

My wife is a moderator on a forum she watches all new member until she thinks they are not spammers. So I usually figure the first few post are watched on most forums.

 

Sometimes it takes more than just pretending to be active. I used to join a lot of forums and just post here and there but that got tiring. Now I'm just active on 3 forums: Digital Point, Warrior Forum, and a forum relating to a personal hobby (6,000 posts on that forum). I've found I get a lot more traffic to my sites by being an active member of forums than by trying to get my link on a lot of forum and not spending much time on any of the forums getting to know other members or actively being part of the communities. I get a good number of backlinks from the forums, although they're devalued.

 

In most cases I find forum backlinks rather worthless. I only have a few more obscure SEO tactics for certain niches that I sometimes use forum links for.

Other then that I separate my forum posting from my work. I don't want to be politically incorrect on a forum and offend clients or work partners so I separate work from forum posting and I am free to offend people, make jokes, etc.

 

Forum posting is not bad at all as long as you research before replying to a unfamiliar topics. Its just rude to answer way out of the fence. Besides you do help people doing that and in the long process you retain something in your head and learn new things.

 

Thankyou to whoever brought uo this old posy. Very nice info here.

 

Good Tips i'm already using all of them, you can also try to post on the page ONE of the thread! Search engines gives more value to the links on the first page...

 

Yerppers! GOt that covered on the first post

“Sitcky threads” will gain in PR faster then others. If you can, try to sneak a link in (even if it’s your sig) on page one for the best effect, failing that, look for the default post cut off and try to land your post on the top of a new page.

 

That was a pretty great post. I'm kind of new to forums in general. Have been bouncing around a number to try and learn as much as I can, and funny, I've kind of ignored how to actually better use the forums themselves.

Thanks,

 

Very well explained. I think its very good for new bloggers and following all these steps will definitely increase their audience gradually. It just cost a little time and for bloggers its a fun.