Do forums have an equivalent to the "no follow" tag that blog comments have? I know that digitalpoint doesn't because signature links show up as backlinks, but im wondering about other forums.
I get decent traffic from DP signature links. Another thought — forums like DP and the like are surely well known to Google, Yahoo, and others as being non-spammy, professional forums. To me it is a virtual certainty that the search engine algorithms recognize such forums (and the links from them) as definitely being non-spammy. Am I guessing? Yes, but I think it's a reasonable guess.
Hi, Using signatures in forums are very common by all the members and it is recommended too. But there are some forums which uses the NO FOLLOW tag and controls signature spamming and in this case the signature link you are using will not have any weight.
links in sigatures are good, for direct traffic and backlinck... but be carefull, some forums put the "nofollow" atribute.. that means you won`t get any backlinks ... good luck,\ Kriss
You will get better results if you use anchor text along with your URLs... http://www.reviewlizard.com http://www.mobilegolfstats.com http://www.ridgeriding.com Is OK, but this is better... review lizard mobile golf stats Riding the Ridge Or replace the text with more suitable keywords... [URL="http://www.reviewlizard.com"]review lizard[/URL] [URL="http://www.mobilegolfstats.com"]mobile golf stats[/URL] [URL="http://www.ridgeriding.com"]Riding the Ridge[/URL] PHP: And as you have an empty slot, feel free to add in one of my sites
Since there are possibly thousands of links from all the forum posts, there is probably very little "link juice" passed along. If you are fortunate enough to have your thread stickied then you may get some actual juice. Also, it does help to get indexed quickly by having your links in your sig. Also, you must consider "stale links" or link decay, as the forums threads get archived. The big thing is potential traffic from related sites.
Link decay can be slightly countered by discouraging duplicate threads and by keeping old threads alive with fresh content/discussion. Though, the larger the forum the harder that can be. Posting on the first three pages of any sticky can also help that. By default, the first three pages are shown in the forum display. Also, a small push can be given by being the first to post on a given page. The default I think is every ten posts = 1 page, though here at DP it's 20 posts. I give other tips in THIS thread. Though I can not stress enough, that the largest perk of signature traffic is member click through. By being helpful and informative will show the best result compared to pointless one-liners or being off topic.
People are openly selling links here. Google will catch up with that sooner rather than later. I agree that links from the posts are likley to be non-spammy but anyone can put any old crap in their sig links.
The fact is that it is clearly better having a signature link than not having it. Use it, and check the beneficts by yourself.
Wow, don't see you post outside of DMOZ often... I suspect that DMOZ already does discount sig links. How hard is it to discount what's inside of <!-- sig --> <div> __________________<br> Not for Sale. </div> <!-- / sig --> PHP: Or to treat: <!-- message --> <div id="post_message_7036676">People are openly selling links here. Google will catch up with that sooner rather than later. I agree that links from the posts are likley to be non-spammy but anyone can put any old crap in their sig links.</div> <!-- / message --> PHP: Like it's... <!-- google_ad_section_start --> AdSense Section Targeting <!-- google_ad_section_end --> However, I still think they are looked at, followed, and counted on some level, and more importantly then google, they are looked at, clicked on, and read by humans. After all, it's human traffic that is what's wanted and needed in the end.
Thx guys!. What if the signature link comes from unrelated site theme? e.g my site is about gardening but the sig link comes from automotive forum. Will it bring negative effect on my gardening site for specific gardening search terms in search engines?
I got my backlink from some tech forum back to my unrelated site, so it is still fine as long as it is not spammed.
It wont HURT, though it's helpfulness tappers off the further you are from your niche. And by it's helpfulness tapering off I mean both humans and bots will give it less of a value. But again, it will help, and it won't hurt. If you are talking about your sig here, then you are posting anyway, go on & add your gardening site. If you are a member on a car forum, and they let you have a garden sig, then more power to you... Though, you may wish to join a few garden forums and give helpful answers to random questions. You'll find that the human traffic is often worth the investment of time.