I kept track of my forum postings in case I was loosing posts due to "spam" moderation. I thought that this information might be useful to others including the conclusions I make. It's kind of long so you may want to skip down to the unknowns if you don't want to read a lot. Index: Some background Raw Data data summary Observations Unknowns ------------------- SOME BACKGROUND ----------------------- I made manual postings in numerous forums; searching for <keyword> + forum. (I hear keyword + discussion board works too). I read the first posting, possibly some more (until I got board) & typically made about 3 lines of thoughtful postings. I would include 1-3 links in the signature area. I never made more than 3 postings to the same board. My links look something like the bellow. (Yes I was far more motivated by the link juice than the visibility, but I played by the rules.) I normally unchecked the box to receive mail from admins. I mostly replied to new postings. signature format: -- Joe -- keyword1 keyword2 keyword2b keyword3 ------------- RAW DATA ---------------- URL date posted Link present? Comments http://www.chowhound.com/topics/517664 Forum 5/11/2008 Yes http://www.chow.com/profile/191375 profile 5/11/2008 No Broken/entered incorrectly http://avitop.com/cs/forums/2/5483/ShowThread.aspx#5483 forum 5/30/2008 yes Many posts trying to sell http://avitop.com/cs/forums/5482/ShowThread.aspx#5482 forum 5/30/2008 yes Many posts trying to sell http://woodwindforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=886&page=3 forum 5/30/2008 yes http://woodwindforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1459 forum 5/30/2008 no Page missing/apparently removed http://woodwindforum.com/forums/showthread.php?p=11369#post11369 forum 5/30/2008 yes http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00PeVe forum 5/30/2008 No Moderated out http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=1525064#post1525064 forum 5/30/2008 yes Pending moderation as a first post! http://www.techsupportforum.com/home-support/gadget-support/254363-high-definition.html#post1509882 forum 5/30/2008 yes Forum has paid classifides & this is a clumbsy post http://speedtalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=112910#112910 forum 5/30/2008 yes http://speedtalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=112911#112911 forum 5/30/2008 yes http://www.indeed.com/forum/job/heavy-equipment-operator/05390c183c137e12787d47 forum 5/31/2008 yes clumbsy & mangled signature. http://www.indeed.com/forum/job/heavy-equipment-operator/05390c183c137e1974704206 forum 5/31/2008 yes URL as auto-anchor text. http://www.terrylove.com/forums/showthread.php?p=140808#post140808 forum 6/3/2008 yes Moderator involved in discussion; I agree style posting http://www.terrylove.com/forums/showthread.php?p=140810#post140810 forum 6/3/2008 yes Moderator involved in discussion http://www.vendingchat.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=859&st=0&gopid=4022&#entry4022 forum 6/3/2008 yes Reply to a comercial "ad" posting http://www.vendingchat.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=916&st=0&gopid=4021&#entry4021 forum 6/3/2008 yes Reply to a comercial "ad" posting http://www.vendingchat.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=929 forum 6/3/2008 yes new thread in "commercial/ad allowed zone" http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?p=5652700&posted=1#post5652700 forum 6/3/2008 yes http://lightfighter.net/eve/forums?...36084761&m=1221002183&r=6181002183#6181002183 forum 6/4/2008 ??? apparently not accessiable to unregistered members (including SE's) http://www.bulk-online.com/Forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=44257#post44257 forum 6/4/2008 yes http://www.ridgidforum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=150543#post150543 Forum 6/13/2008 no banned -whole entry I made gone http://www.ridgidforum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=150545#post150545 Forum 6/13/2008 no banned -whole entry I made gone http://www.ridgidforum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=150557#post150557 Forum 6/13/2008 no Ad/new posting in "deals" category banned -whole entry I made gone http://www.dv-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=28206#post28206 Forum 6/13/2008 yes http://autoforums.carjunky.com/auto...Discussions_F12/96_suzuki_bandit_600s_P26215/ Forum 6/13/2008 yes -------------- data summary --------------- Overall there are 26 forum postings with links of which 20% are unapproved & 1 behind password protection. bbcode enabled on all but 1. I received two "spam" infraction notices for 3 postings in one forum. Only one of these two postings were actually removed, although I did attempt to dialog with the moderator to see why he thought it was spam. captas: only one was unprotected. Random human questions = roughly 40% of forums (from memory) A previous blog comment run had about 20% of thoughtful comments approved with a link present in the URL field. --------- conclusions ---------- The only forums I actually had posts moderated out (removed) were in two forums that had a "classifieds" section where users could post ads for individual items they were selling. I did post in both for myself, which is probably why I was moderated out. Overall there seems to be a very low moderation or alteration. I've noticed that the more the link flows with the text of the posting the more traffic I get. If I put a link above my signature I get more traffic from the posting. Also I get much more traffic (which lasts much longer) if I reply to the posting that Google gave me (must be specific enough to give me a posting & not the forum home page). However most exceptional traffic volume from postings are about 4 visitors a month, so I don't get much traffic directly. ------- unknowns ------- I don't know how much impact the length of the first line of the signature has. does a longer line ie "---- Joe - "D" - Man ---- " work better than "-Joe"? Being there is very little traffic generated (low impact) and little moderation would I do better to have more links, longer link text, or more formatting/words to attract (human) attention to the links? If so, how much within constrains of anti-forum-spam moderation & ethical limits? How do SEs view multiple links? This leaves footprints from the same URL of multiple links going to the same site if there is more than one link in the signature. Also if more than one posting is made in the forum there are more links going to the same site from the same site, that are found on the same crawl. How many links per posting, & how many postings per form (at once) is optimal? These links basically are all PR0 with no links to the URL. This suggests that building links to those URLs would be very helpful. Would that be worth the effort in a linking campaign? If so how blatant can you be? Posting 15+ links at a time to an unrelated (free?) blog at a time with 5 going to pages not containing links to your page? In my case forum posting was one of few linking tactics done which is one reason why I failed to rank for my low competition phrases. I suspect it would do much better if there were more links going up as I probably left a pattern in terms of links. Thoughts? Please let me know what you think and any feedback/opinions you have of my conclusions & unknowns.