Hi all, I was wondering what your thoughts/experience are on signature links in forums or blogs that offer the possibility to comment. I can imagine it's a good way of linkbuilding since threads (when getting older) contain lots of information and will probably be well crawled by search engine's, but the subject might not be really relevant.. And another thing I thought about is; some threads get high PR's awarded by Google (after a few months). But a thing I see happen more often every day is that these high pr threads/subjects or posts on blogs are getting spammed from top to bottom by sites/people who are trying to profit from that high pr (let's skip the discussion if PR is important for a while..). When your link is at the top of this list (let's say you did contribute with an informative comment to the post/thread), is there a (fair) chance that Google will see your link/site as spam as well and give you a penalty? Hope to hear from you!
Thijsiano, IMO the impact of signature links is quite small. However, all other thinks being equal, use them. Watch out for "nofollow" links. You'll get zero credit for these and they are growing in popularity. Make your signature relevant. And post to forums that are relevant.
Hi , overall I would say that the right forum links are beneficial.. 2 things - You get inbound PR from the source , and as correctly pointed out the dburdon , check for nofollows..And of course make sure the forum is relevant to your field.. 2nd thing is that you get exposure to the surfing of like minded people who may click on your links and drive business to your site. Ive seen lots of inbound links from dp forums on my sites.. Best of luck!
Personally I don't use a signature line only for the purpose of a backlink. I normally get a fair amount of visitors clicking on my sig link from the forums I participate in. Now of course the backlink helps, I think? Google does have a complicated way of determining the weight of backlinks, if anyone can explain this in more plain english, that would be greatly appreciated. I have read a few articles on that subject but still a bit confused and not sure it is really even worth worrying about?
Well it might be small but lets take 1000 posts then that means backlink from 1000 pages which is a lot .
Thanks all.. I do understand that backlinks from signatures are ofcourse less 'valued' then links from more relevant pages, but guess even when they're posted on less-relevant forums they do help, even though it's only a little.
Me, I just put comment to blogs that is related to my site and my post is also related to the topic. Even blogs use nofollow it can also be a source of traffic.
Sig links are for traffic, so make sure you're talking on the right forums, which I am not. If I was smart I would be on forums that related to the items in my sig, like there are tons of people on DP with SEO SERVICES related items in their sig. They are marketing to you, and probably successfully.
participating on forums like this, will not on help to boost your IBL, traffic etc but also to feed your knowledge.
There's much better ways to get incoming links than posting on forums and displaying your sig file. Writing articles, directory submissions, and buying good quality links from related sites will all have a much greater impact. Forums are best used to generate targeted traffic to your site, and for branding yourself.
i think that depents on where your link is . if you mean dp forums, nobody can make spam . if somebody make spam on this forum, he will be banned and he will get nothink
i dont know if i would purchase a signature link , but i have seen some positive effects from my posts with sig links here in DP , since i have a web hosting site and DP is a webmaster forum
OK..crazy question on signature links.. when someone is selling them to others and mentions I have 5,000 sig links and charges a high price... does this mean the older signature links change to what the new buyer request as text link for the new sig links..? sound scrazy but thought I'd ask. otherwise, why would someone say I have 5,000 sig links..what relevance does that provide...besides being an avid poster.
As said by other members, signature links surely drive traffic, than the backlink worth. Instead of waiting for google to consider the the importance of backlink, getting your site in SERPS - you get a click directly from the signature link (a prospective visitor who might be interested in your service/product!) I think thats worth a lot! Isn't it???
I think the signatures do help, but I may be wrong. DP is very giving in their policy for signature links. DP doesn't show up in my backlinks from Google, but I see them in Yahoo. However, even more importantly, I have had some visitors thanks to DP. In only a few weeks, I've had several hundred clicks to see the Yahoo email login article that's in my signature. Over 600 total views for that articles and only 2 comments and those came from a bot I do think they help, maybe not much, but getting 'out there' increases recognition and that's good.
My signature links from dp has helped me to increase my ranking in the serp for quite a few terms, I think do follow signature links is an effective form of linkbuilding.
I belive that signature links are important. You get people clicking who are on the forums, and it helps with rankings. Someone should do an experiment and only build links with signature links and see how they do. _________________ Lake Michigan Real Estate