The Value of Signature Links

[galide]

When you think everything is wrapped up, Dave comes in and reignite fire - excellent.

Ok, let's see -

There are members of this community with thousands of links from WPW. What is it exactly that you intend to "demonstrate" by reaching 100?

Is it one of the question?

I am trying to demonstrate that 100 links from a forum cannot damage a site. But also that 1 single link embedded (in the right context) in one of the post is worth much more than 100 signatures posted in the same thread.

I am betting that the page 2 of this forum will bring more traffic to my blog than all the other pages together - easy to check, just need to check my analytics in 1 month time for refferring traffic from this post.

This is not only for fun really. I'll have spent 4h in total (~2.30mn post) if I go up to 100 threads, which could have been used for optimising a site for instance. But if I am right, I will have tested results which I can show to clients or people working for me, in order to avoid them wasting their time on forums if it is just for grabbing links - they are worthless, but the 4h will have well spent to demonstrate that:

1) Links in signature don't have much impact (if all newbies know that, well why do people still use 3 - 4 -5 or more links in their signature, including you?).
2) Embedding a link in a post is worth it
3) The information given by people on forums is very often nonsense, driven by the urge to gain credibility and often taken from untrusted sources. Don't rely on it if you are not familiar with SEO.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by galide

When you think everything is wrapped up, Dave comes in and reignite fire - excellent.

Ok, let's see -



Is it one of the question?

I am trying to demonstrate that 100 links from a forum cannot damage a site. But also that 1 single link embedded (in the right context) in one of the post is worth much more than 100 signatures posted in the same thread.

I am betting that the page 2 of this forum will bring more traffic to my blog than all the other pages together - easy to check, just need to check my analytics in 1 month time for refferring traffic from this post.

This is not only for fun really. I'll have spent 4h in total (~2.30mn post) if I go up to 100 threads, which could have been used for optimising a site for instance. But if I am right, I will have tested results which I can show to clients or people working for me, in order to avoid them wasting their time on forums if it is just for grabbing links - they are worthless, but the 4h will have well spent to demonstrate that:

1) Links in signature don't have much impact (if all newbies know that, well why do people still use 3 - 4 -5 or more links in their signature, including you?).
2) Embedding a link in a post is worth it
3) The information given by people on forums is very often nonsense, driven by the urge to gain credibility and often taken from untrusted sources. Don't rely on it if you are not familiar with SEO.

No, I'm not reigniting anything.

If you reach 100 posts on WPW then you'll have demonstrated that 100 links from WPW are not going to hurt your rankings. As I pointed out, other community members have thousands.

Links within posts, provided they are in context, are almost unfailingly going to draw more followers than a signature link. They are of interest to anyone following or reading a particular thread, whether initially of from finding via a search.

In the event you or anyone else is interested I made a short blog post some time ago about my thoughts on signature links... Forum Signature Links

As far as my signature links go, one of them gets 16-20 follows daily. Low bounce rate and from a whole variety of pages/posts. So as far as not having much impact, I tend to disagree. The reason for so much signature spam, posting spam, etc. etc. is because folks tend to only consider the potential SE value their signature links *may* have.

Won't disagree that there's a whole lot of inaccurate information in a whole lot of places. I will however disagree that it driven by the urge to gain credibility if you mean it in the sense of solely or primarily. There's a lot of reasons it happens, one being when opinions are blindly stated as fact with nothing at all to support them. Could also be someone trying to be helpful that is simply mistaken with no malice intended. There's also accurate information in a lot of places that gets blindly attacked. The door swings both ways when it comes to this.

If someone is not familiar with SEO, relying on any one source of information isn't a good idea IMO. Neither is automatically dismissing any source out of hand.

Dave <---know this is a bit off topic so if anyone wishes to continue along these lines I'll move the posts to a new thread.

[galide]

Nice post Dave - and I mean it, it is not sarcasm.

As far as my signature links go, one of them gets 16-20 follows daily.

There is one thing you miss though I think.

16-20 clicks/day for the type of sites you have is ~5p/click
=> you would have to spend 5*20 = £1/day = £30/month driving this type of traffic to your sites. If I am now paying someone to post on forums, it will probably be ~£10/h (I said that you are talking a lot of nonsense, but you have some kind of expertise in putting it across, which is not something a "newby" at £5/h can do really).

Now, I suspect that you spend much more than 3h/month on this forum, which doesn't make sense from a return on investment point of view.

So at the end, posting 100 posts on a forum, takes 4h, and brings 20 follows a day? we have to put a bit of page rank value in the recipe, + anchor text but overall, doesn't really justify the investment.

Now, 1 single post bringing 10 follows a day would make more sense, and start bringing some positive return on investment.

ave <---know this is a bit off topic so if anyone wishes to continue along these lines I'll move the posts to a new thread.

Agree, this is off topic. but as I said, the only time I have got is for this post really, so please open a new thread, I think it is worth it, but I'll have to stick to this one until my 100 posts are over.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by galide

Nice post Dave - and I mean it, it is not sarcasm.

There is one thing you miss though I think.

16-20 clicks/day for the type of sites you have is ~5p/click
=> you would have to spend 5*20 = £1/day = £30/month driving this type of traffic to your sites. If I am now paying someone to post on forums, it will probably be ~£10/h (I said that you are talking a lot of nonsense, but you have some kind of expertise in putting it across, which is not something a "newby" at £5/h can do really).

Now, I suspect that you spend much more than 3h/month on this forum, which doesn't make sense from a return on investment point of view.

So at the end, posting 100 posts on a forum, takes 4h, and brings 20 follows a day? we have to put a bit of page rank value in the recipe, + anchor text but overall, doesn't really justify the investment.

Now, 1 single post bringing 10 follows a day would make more sense, and start bringing some positive return on investment.


Agree, this is off topic. but as I said, the only time I have got is for this post really, so please open a new thread, I think it is worth it, but I'll have to stick to this one until my 100 posts are over.

I spend quite a bit of time here. Personal reasons as well as responsibilities as a mod.

I don't look at the ROI from posting. Anyone who did with regularity would find out that there are far better ways to spend their time in the long run. Besides, I only gave you numbers on one of the links and nothing on conversions. Again though, not why I post.

The links themselves without content are worthless IMO (I'd like the spammers to special note of this). Doesn't matter if their in the signature or in the body. Additionally, the longer the thread, the less apt a body link is going to be followed depending upon where in the thread it is unless it's a "searched" area of the thread. Not many people read through long threads entirely and/or become less likely to do so the longer it gets. Body links get missed.

Dave

[galide]

oh well, let's carry on here, this is more interesting at the end. I don't think it makes a difference if signature links are from the thread or not.

I have got 40 clicks so far from the thread. And keep getting 1/2 clicks/day from page 3 which is the only one now driving traffic. In total, traffic from page 3 is ~50% (20 clicks) of the total traffic.

Also, the link on page 3 is quoted, which I suspect encourage people to click on it.

Cannot really draw any conclusion at the moment, provided the low amount of clicks but I suspect that:

1) You don't have to worry about short or long thread - people find the page through a search in google, land on it, read the actual page, and click on links quoted
2) The best links are quoted links - they outperform any other embedded links, and signature links as well
3) The objective to make a post worthwhile is to get someone to quote a bit of you post, which inlcudes a link.

This kind of makes sense, and figures seem to currently go into this direction.

So I don't agree with

Additionally, the longer the thread, the less apt a body link is going to be followed depending upon where in the thread it is unless it's a "searched" area of the thread

And this

Body links get missed.

Besides, I only gave you numbers on one of the links and nothing on conversions.

I suspect it must be quite low, provided that the type of crowd we have got here is probably not very likely to buy religious jewellery online? The other site you have got in your signature (directory site) must have a pretty low conversion rate as well, with only 83 links at $1 each, worth 4h of work (low paid work at $20/h).

[galide]

Oh, I forgot:

he links themselves without content are worthless IMO

I don't agree with this either. If you take a look at my blog, you will see that the post which have been sphinned (never been sphinned before I start posting on this forum a couple of weeks ago) are posts mentioned on this forum.
=> this type of forums attracts people who use online bookmarks or voting systems, and who are likely to sphinn, tag, digg or whatever your site if you drive them to a post in direct relation to the thread.

So, indirectly, links you post on a forum have an indirect SEO effect, by driving people to link to it from other platforms.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by galide

oh well, let's carry on here, this is more interesting at the end. I don't think it makes a difference if signature links are from the thread or not.

I have got 40 clicks so far from the thread. And keep getting 1/2 clicks/day from page 3 which is the only one now driving traffic. In total, traffic from page 3 is ~50% (20 clicks) of the total traffic.

Also, the link on page 3 is quoted, which I suspect encourage people to click on it.

Cannot really draw any conclusion at the moment, provided the low amount of clicks but I suspect that:

1) You don't have to worry about short or long thread - people find the page through a search in google, land on it, read the actual page, and click on links quoted
2) The best links are quoted links - they outperform any other embedded links, and signature links as well
3) The objective to make a post worthwhile is to get someone to quote a bit of you post, which inlcudes a link.

This kind of makes sense, and figures seem to currently go into this direction.

I suspect it must be quite low, provided that the type of crowd we have got here is probably not very likely to buy religious jewellery online? The other site you have got in your signature (directory site) must have a pretty low conversion rate as well, with only 83 links at $1 each, worth 4h of work (low paid work at $20/h).

As far as the body link, or embedded link, a searcher has to find the page(s) that contain it. Same if it's quoted. The longer a thread gets, the less likely a searcher is to land on those particular pages for their particular query, and the more neccessary it becomes for them to read more of thread. Ergo, the less likely they are to find it. FTR... I've not studied it in detail.

Conversions... Crowds anywhere are interested in, or can be interested in, anything from T-shirts to pizza delivery. So I tend not to underestimate what someone may be interested in and why.

Dave

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by galide

1) Links in signature don't have much impact (if all newbies know that, well why do people still use 3 - 4 -5 or more links in their signature, including you?).

Well because you get traffic from the links. It helps you brand yourself and your website.

Originally Posted by galide

2) Embedding a link in a post is worth it

Um, sure because it is easier for the user to click a link rather than cutting a pasting a URL. I think you have a little to much SEO on the brain right now.

Originally Posted by galide

3) The information given by people on forums is very often nonsense, driven by the urge to gain credibility and often taken from untrusted sources. Don't rely on it if you are not familiar with SEO.

Well sure. That goes for any forum. It is free advice you know, but you have to hang out at social spots like forums before you get to know who to trust.

[sarpras]

Signature Links provide good popularity on Search engine like google, Yahoo. It also drive good traffic to your blog or website.

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by sarpras

Signature Links provide good popularity on Search engine like google, Yahoo.

What is "good popularity"?

[AVC]

My opinion is that they are a way for a forum to reward content contributors for their effort.

Signature spammers have abused forums, this hurts honest contributors, folks are now posting on forums to sell signature links, this is directly against Google guidelines and many of these folks call themselves SEO's.

Signature spamming (and signature link selling) is a cottage industry today, Google understands this fact and they have discounted forum signature links for years now.

Many forums have gone to "no follow" by default on all user contributed links, within posts and signatures to protect their own PR and this makes great sense, especially if forums do not have great moderators watching all the time to cut down and permanently ban blatant signature spammers.

[kevsta]

guys, from what i see here im in the minority on this one, but i actually think forum sigs can help serps quite a bit.

I have aquaintances who have sites powered only by forum sig links, and when they want to target new terms the ability to change one sig in the control panel and instantaneously backdate several hundred sig links in one go, which Google then gradually recaches as they naturally recache the forum provides a good amount of "push" -& building in a steady way.

i have watched this work several times on different sites when there are literally no other links to them, and it would seem to me that multiple forums sigs definitely help. some forums more than others, to be fair.

am also not very convinced about sitewides / footers necessarily hurting much either. at worst I think theyd count as one good link, but Google discounting value of the links for ranking purposes doesnt stop PR flowing does it? which ultimately will still help serps if you get the rest of the site right?

[galide]

Um, sure because it is easier for the user to click a link rather than cutting a pasting a URL. I think you have a little to much SEO on the brain right now.

The best SEO technics are usually common sense really.

I tend to believe that if you get a lot of traffic from a link, which is not "blocked" by a nofollow or javascript, this link is good for SEO. This is common sense. Google tends to take links as votes, and provided that they now have the ability to track a lot of traffic in and out, it would make sense that they take into account the number of clicks coming from a specific URL, and then assign a specific weight for ranking.

This is common sense, but never managed to prove this theory for instance. And I have found that some links bringing not a single click can sometimes have much more impact than links bringing much more traffic in.

[inertia]

Surely forum sigs are not different to sitewide footer links? How would Google be able to distinguish between the two?

I do think that sig links make a difference, in fact I've seen them make a difference. When i added the "Windows XP Embedded Computers" link to my sig i saw the target site climb half a page for the keyword. I'm not saying that me adding the link to my
sig instantly built 300 odd relevant, high quality links but it definitely helped. It also creates 300 odd "pathways" into the site , which is great for them spiders!

I think the weight given to site wide links is reduced but not completely. I also think that many of the factors taken into account with links are still acknowledged. Would a site do better in the SERPs if it had 100 links from Wiki or 1?

[incrediblehelp]

Kevsta I have seen them work well in Yahoo, but not so much in MSN and Google.

[ctabuk]

The ONLY time when a forum link is worth a jot is when it is attached to an anchor text thread and is keyword rich. Which is why my main links are not in my sig.

Now, when you guys twig how to use your forum usernames - then I'd better watch out

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by galide

Oh, I forgot:



I don't agree with this either. If you take a look at my blog, you will see that the post which have been sphinned (never been sphinned before I start posting on this forum a couple of weeks ago) are posts mentioned on this forum.
=> this type of forums attracts people who use online bookmarks or voting systems, and who are likely to sphinn, tag, digg or whatever your site if you drive them to a post in direct relation to the thread.

So, indirectly, links you post on a forum have an indirect SEO effect, by driving people to link to it from other platforms.

Not exactly what I was trying to say.

The posts have content. A reason to follow the link in the first place. Absent that content, your post and what it says, there would be no reason for anyone to follow the link. So, absent that "content" IMO the links themselves are worthless.

Dave

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by kevsta

guys, from what i see here im in the minority on this one, but i actually think forum sigs can help serps quite a bit.

I have aquaintances who have sites powered only by forum sig links, and when they want to target new terms the ability to change one sig in the control panel and instantaneously backdate several hundred sig links in one go, which Google then gradually recaches as they naturally recache the forum provides a good amount of "push" -& building in a steady way.

i have watched this work several times on different sites when there are literally no other links to them, and it would seem to me that multiple forums sigs definitely help. some forums more than others, to be fair.

am also not very convinced about sitewides / footers necessarily hurting much either. at worst I think theyd count as one good link, but Google discounting value of the links for ranking purposes doesnt stop PR flowing does it? which ultimately will still help serps if you get the rest of the site right?

Couple of points...

While signature links *may* help, when it comes to Google, all one need do is check their webmaster tools to see what is being shown. Now, this is not to say if or how much value any that are being shown may or may not pass. If forum spammers actually did this, they'd likely see how wasted their efforts are. Not to mention, some forums aren't too bad at causing all their (ahem) "hard work" from never being found to begin with even when links are allowed to be followed.

Depending upon the competiveness, or lack therof, of a particular phrase or term, a single forum link *can* help. For that matter, so can a single internal link. It's not uncommon for me to occasionally change sig links for a variety of reasons. I can honestly say I'ver never saw any discernable swing one way or the other when it comes to rankings. Additionally, new pages, new sites, pages/sites that lack a link profile to begin with, *may* show something positive at least initially.

Sitewides and footers can be an "interesting" thing especially when they're not nav links, and especially when it comes to Google. They *can* be "seen" as an attempt to game or manipulate.

Dave

[kevsta]

Originally Posted by ctabuk

The ONLY time when a forum link is worth a jot is when it is attached to an anchor text thread and is keyword rich. Which is why my main links are not in my sig.

Now, when you guys twig how to use your forum usernames - then I'd better watch out

i have to disagree, and have just thought of a local example. the site on the end of the "fitness holidays" link in my sig now has risen more than 80 places (to about #20's) for that search since I swapped the anchor text a few months ago, and this is the only place I've used that exact anchor anywhere on the web.

have used both fitness training & pers training holidays, but neither touched the "fitness holidays" search until i switched the anchor in here.

i also have 4 month old (PR2) blog post ranking anywhere from #2 to #6 for * microsofts free websites ** (109million pages looking today) up there with MS themselves

again the only place that anchor text has been used (externally) is sig links (and maybe one thread in the content) in your forum David and this has been consistently top 5 since January now.

dismiss forums completely at your own loss IMO.

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by kevsta

dismiss forums completely at your own loss IMO.

That is the thing I would never dismiss them just because of the traffic you can get from them. If they give me some IBLs help all the more better. Forum sig links are just part of a overall self promotion or evangelistic plan everyone should have.

[kevsta]

Dave we have a CONSIDERABLE number of forum links showing in WMT, and some of them are getting to respectable PRs now too.

not to say that because they show they count much obv. understand as well that in non comp areas affects seen much easier, but if thats ll you do, and it jumps, theres a good chance it was that isnt there?

not conclusive of course, but if you do it often enough you get a sense of the pattern

edit. your last point re sitewides. we have a bit of a test ongoing with this currently on our own site. one of our partners here was so happy at the results we got that rather than just linking to us from the 3 places i had suggested when he asked, he stuck a sitewide footer on instead. (15k+ page site)

so rather than panic and remove, and as we dont need it to rank for work anymore anyway, thought would just leave it as is and watch what happened. we're approaching 3 months in now (6000+links from them so far) and no ill effects as yet.

will let you know

[ctabuk]

Kevsta - I appreciate the kind words - well our system is sort of unique

But the posts made from here, were they or did they contain keywords within the posts?

[kevsta]

only as much as they are present in this thread i should think? ie. not really?

[scanmonkey]

I believe that the signature links are discounted to a high degree. Though if you have enough of them, they may flow a little pr and give you some clickthroughs.

[raopraveen]

I believe that the signature links are discounted to a high degree. Though if you have enough of them, they may flow a little pr and give you some clickthroughs.

yea that's right because if you are putting links within the post the forum admin have the full authority to ban your account so try to specify your website url in the signature column...

[inertia]

Originally Posted by ctabuk

Now, when you guys twig how to use your forum usernames - then I'd better watch out

Would you care to elaborate?!

[ctabuk]

Originally Posted by kevsta

only as much as they are present in this thread i should think? ie. not really?

In that case they are basically short lived and will have almost zero effect in SERP. Yes you will see them, but unless they are anchor text rich - forget them.

[ctabuk]

Originally Posted by inertia

Would you care to elaborate?!

Yes, It's something that some people here at WPW don't actually believe - but Google knows my username - I carry it everywhere from gmail to youtube to blogs etc -it is probably in the top 20 best known around - so in the blog below, I have used it and that blog is on page one of Google.com (Not .co.uk yet -server location) for it's anchor text - and that was up against Amazon, Foyles etc etc and it sells my book - so if you place your username in a google search box and you see thousands and thousands of - noy exactly IBL's but username recognition then use the bugger.

Self edit - In fact I had to change the Anchor text in the link about an hour ago, it's dropped the SERP back to here on page 2 but corrected the Anvhor text within the hour - not a bad example
Substance Books - Historical Fiction Books & Novels -- Native ...

This book was featured at Book Expo America 2007 in New York! Buy this Historical Fiction. Click cover to visit the Author's Website ...
www.substancebooks.com/historical-fiction.html - 25k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

New Historical Fiction Books

New Historical Fiction Books ... Black Box, The: Books One and Two in Paperback in Books - Tesco.com Black Box, The: Books One and Two. See enlarged image. ...
newhistoricalfictionbooks.blogspot.com/ - Similar pages - Note this

In fact if you notice what I have done is added my Anchor Text to this thread - and I might gain a related IBL from it.

[inertia]

Originally Posted by ctabuk

Yes, It's something that some people here at WPW don't actually believe - but Google knows my username - I carry it everywhere from gmail to youtube to blogs etc -it is probably in the top 20 best known around - so in the blog below, I have used it and that blog is on page one of Google.com (Not .co.uk yet -server location) for it's anchor text - and that was up against Amazon, Foyles etc etc and it sells my book - so if you place your username in a google search box and you see thousands and thousands of - noy exactly IBL's but username recognition then use the bugger.

So are you saying that (for example) my "inertia" user-name, which i try to use wherever i go, will build up its own reputation within Google? Maybe my user-name is not unique enough to have the same impact but it would make sense that if your HIGHLY unique user-name is cached on many trusted, high PR, topically relevant sites then it would create an awareness.

Its an interesting theory. Something else that makes sense to me is - if your user name became so established and present within a certain industry would it become semantically relevant? But i suppose this is the long term plan of every marketing department.

[ctabuk]

Yes, obviously mine is 'unique' as it is not a word but Initials of my business. But it's been something that I personally have been doing for 6 years and the results are working.

[scanmonkey]

Originally Posted by crankydave

As far as the body link, or embedded link, a searcher has to find the page(s) that contain it. Same if it's quoted. The longer a thread gets, the less likely a searcher is to land on those particular pages for their particular query, and the more neccessary it becomes for them to read more of thread. Ergo, the less likely they are to find it. FTR... I've not studied it in detail.

Conversions... Crowds anywhere are interested in, or can be interested in, anything from T-shirts to pizza delivery. So I tend not to underestimate what someone may be interested in and why.

Dave

Unless the thread is focused and the op makes a lot of posts in the thread with the same link in the sig. I saw some forum threads ranking well in the greatest real estate agent in the world seo contest.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by scanmonkey

Unless the thread is focused and the op makes a lot of posts in the thread with the same link in the sig. I saw some forum threads ranking well in the greatest real estate agent in the world seo contest.

Not sure what you're trying to say.

My point was in regards to body (embedded) links and signature links.

A link in the body is less likely to be found and followed by a visitor since it only occurs in one place and not with every post as a signature link would.

Dave

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by savantcreative

I have seen keyword backlinks in sigs work well for serp results. When they are follow and from high ranking sources they also help PR.

This is the exact reason why people spam forums. They *think* there is some terrific *value* in signature links from a search engine perspective based upon very little to nothing.

You have seen it work? I'll hazzard a guess... You saw a signature link added, watched the SERP's 24-7, saw an upward bounce, and concluded that the signature link caused it.

Dave

[ctabuk]

Originally Posted by crankydave

Not sure what you're trying to say.

My point was in regards to body (embedded) links and signature links.

A link in the body is less likely to be found and followed by a visitor since it only occurs in one place and not with every post as a signature link would.

Dave

What he is trying to say Dave is that if the forum post has an anchor texted longtail URL and the topic is lively then Google will in all probably lift the SERP temporarily - BUT, if that thread is well used and has anchor text links added then it will lift SERP by being an authoritive link. And BTW that works - The new URL in my sig was made less than 20 hours ago - It is already on page 3 of Google.com - I expect it to fall away tonight but then with new posts and content followed by a rest for 24 hours it will climb back

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by ctabuk

What he is trying to say Dave is that if the forum post has an anchor texted longtail URL and the topic is lively then Google will in all probably lift the SERP temporarily - BUT, if that thread is well used and has anchor text links added then it will lift SERP by being an authoritive link. And BTW that works - The new URL in my sig was made less than 20 hours ago - It is already on page 3 of Google.com - I expect it to fall away tonight but then with new posts and content followed by a rest for 24 hours it will climb back

My post that was quoted, was directly about traffic. Traffic from users that clicked on the link in the post and nothing at all about rankings.

Dave

[scanmonkey]

Originally Posted by ctabuk

What he is trying to say Dave is that if the forum post has an anchor texted longtail URL and the topic is lively then Google will in all probably lift the SERP temporarily - BUT, if that thread is well used and has anchor text links added then it will lift SERP by being an authoritive link. And BTW that works - The new URL in my sig was made less than 20 hours ago - It is already on page 3 of Google.com - I expect it to fall away tonight but then with new posts and content followed by a rest for 24 hours it will climb back

Some social bookmarks work great in this regard.

Originally Posted by crankydave

Not sure what you're trying to say.

My point was in regards to body (embedded) links and signature links.

A link in the body is less likely to be found and followed by a visitor since it only occurs in one place and not with every post as a signature link would.

Dave

Sure one off topic link in a long thread is not going to do much.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by savantcreative

Short of spamming, what value do you think signature links have?
Thanks

Signature links give a reader or visitor the opportunity to click through to your site to find out more about you, or to click through to your site because they are interested in what your signature link says.

If go back and reread the posts, look at how many of them refer to their "value" only from a search engine perspective. That perspective remains, IMO, a very short sighted view of the true value of signature links. Not only short sighted but very inflated most of the time.

Dave

[crankydave]

scanmonkey... I still think you're misinterpreting what my post was was saying.

It was about the difference between a link in your signature vs a link in the body of the post and the potential clickthrough traffic it can generate.

galide noticed a larger clickthrough on a link that was in the body of the post (embedded) than the link in his signature.

My point was/is that a link in a signature is more likely to be found and followed by a visitor simply because they can find it easier than a single body link especially the longer a thread gets. Granted, the likelyhood that a body link (embedded) gets found and followed by a visitor increases if the post is quoted.

If I put a link in the body of a post it can be found and followed by a visitor from only one place... that post. If that post gets quoted, it can only be found in 2 places. A link in my signature can be found and followed in thousands of places.

How can it be found? Searchable content in the thread and the post. The more interesting the topic, the more interesting the post(s), the more that content can be found, the more people that see your link and can follow it for whatever reason. That is the true value AFAIC.

Dave

[dom-casino]

when pr matters i dont care about forum sig links,

But i really get handsome traffic through sig links to my websites,

I luv hits to my websites and more and more luv if it's converts into business hit.

I really support sig links...

[scanmonkey]

Originally Posted by crankydave

scanmonkey... I still think you're misinterpreting what my post was was saying.

It was about the difference between a link in your signature vs a link in the body of the post and the potential clickthrough traffic it can generate.

galide noticed a larger clickthrough on a link that was in the body of the post (embedded) than the link in his signature.

My point was/is that a link in a signature is more likely to be found and followed by a visitor simply because they can find it easier than a single body link especially the longer a thread gets. Granted, the likelyhood that a body link (embedded) gets found and followed by a visitor increases if the post is quoted.

If I put a link in the body of a post it can be found and followed by a visitor from only one place... that post. If that post gets quoted, it can only be found in 2 places. A link in my signature can be found and followed in thousands of places.

How can it be found? Searchable content in the thread and the post. The more interesting the topic, the more interesting the post(s), the more that content can be found, the more people that see your link and can follow it for whatever reason. That is the true value AFAIC.

Dave

I agree with you on that one CD. Just dropping a link in one post when the thread is loaded with posts isn't going to generate much traffic.

There may be a little more traffic if the link is droppped in the opening post. But a signature link is a lot more valuable for traffic.

SEO wise a link that embed in a well written post in my opinion is more valuable. Especially when the post is bookmarked or linked to from other sites.

[Webnauts]

The whole thing is about relevancy. Each of us defines what our sites are about.

Since the search engines will attempt to categorize our web site by its theme and will look to our OBLs and IBLs, also the user behavior to help them to determine our web site's true worth and relevance to its claimed searched terms, my question is:

If I am posting in irrelevant to my site's theme forums/categories, how good could those signatures really be? Are you sure that they cannot harm? Looks to me the same as adding on my site irrelevant to my theme OBLs, and/or getting irrelevant to my site's theme IBLs.

Or did I miss something?

[tamecrow]

John,

I think you've hit on a good point there. Of course, the relevancy of referring pages is important. I'd like to go one further and throw this into the mix: If you're posting on forums which aren't related to your site's subject matter, and therefore building up a large number of unrelated, off-topic links (often with the same/similar anchor text), would it not be fair to assume that this could cause you more harm than good?

[inertia]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

The whole thing is about relevancy. Each of us defines what our sites are about.

Since the search engines will attempt to categorize our web site by its theme and will look to our OBLs and IBLs, also the user behavior to help them to determine our web site's true worth and relevance to its claimed searched terms, my question is:

If I am posting in irrelevant to my site's theme forums/categories, how good could those signatures really be? Are you sure that they cannot harm? Looks to me the same as adding on my site irrelevant to my theme OBLs, and/or getting irrelevant to my site's theme IBLs.

Or did I miss something?

I don't see how they could harm? Otherwise it would be too easy to damage competitors. I'm sure we've talked about this on another thread! If you take my three sig links. One is (loosely) relevant but the other two aren't relevant at all. But they are relevant coz I'm working for one site, ones my own site and I'm posting on a forum that relates to my work so they are relevant? Just not semantically!

As long as i have plenty of relevant links creating a strong link profile does it matter about some irrelevant sig links?

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by inertia

I don't see how they could harm? Otherwise it would be too easy to damage competitors.

Would you add in your sig links to your competitors?
That is most probably too advanced forums signature ROI technique for me.

Originally Posted by inertia

I'm sure we've talked about this on another thread!

Can you tell which thread? Did I comment there?

Originally Posted by inertia

If you take my three sig links. One is (loosely) relevant but the other two aren't relevant at all. But they are relevant coz I'm working for one site, ones my own site and I'm posting on a forum that relates to my work so they are relevant?

How can Google tell that you are working on those sites? Did you contact them already? If not its time I guess.

Originally Posted by inertia

Just not semantically!

How the hell does a search figure out all that stuff? Bots are software. Software are based on semantics.
Am I possibly watching the wrong film here?

[inertia]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Would you add in your sig links to your competitors?
That is most probably too advanced forums signature ROI for me.

I wouldn't do it and maybe you wouldn't do it but some people would. I've met them! If someone confirmed that irrelevant sig links hurt and it became common knowledge then i could see plenty of people willing to capitalise.

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Can you tell which thread? Did I comment there?

Similar comments were made here Can inbound links really hurt you? about competitors attacking you and sig links.

Originally Posted by Webnauts

How can Google tell that you are working on those sites? Did you contact them already? If not its time I guess.

No, that's not my point. My point is that it is inevitably that irrelevant links will appear all over the web but they have been put there for a legitimate reason so how could Google penalise you for such?

[ctabuk]

Google will not penalise you for forum links - the reason is just pure logic - if you had something to hide then you would hardly (unless you were a moronic spammer) be daft enough to place the link somewhere knowing it was to be crawled.

Also, you can never stop anyone linking to you and Google accounts for this.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by inertia

No, that's not my point. My point is that it is inevitably that irrelevant links will appear all over the web but they have been put there for a legitimate reason so how could Google penalise you for such?

Since you a past thread, I would like to add here that a lot of changes have been taken place since then!

Did you know that if you have IBLs from porn sites you can get penalized, even if you do not link back to them?
Can Links From Porn Sites Hurt Your Search Rankings?

If you links look "unusual" or you "collect" links in an unusual manner you can get trouble too.
Google's Matt Cutts Replies to -60 Penalty Thread at Google

If you still think my points are just theories or off topic, then do yourselves a favor and read this carefully:
Anchor text link penalty in Google - Googlerankings.com Diagnostics

I can bring up more quality resources if above is not enough.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by ctabuk

Google will not penalise you for forum links - the reason is just pure logic - if you had something to hide then you would hardly (unless you were a moronic spammer) be daft enough to place the link somewhere knowing it was to be crawled.

Also, you can never stop anyone linking to you and Google accounts for this.

It is correct that we will never be able to stop people linking to us. But Google will devaluate those links to us if they are irrelevant to our site's theme. Or did I miss something again?

Please don't miss the 3rd link of my previous post.

Thanks.

[inertia]

I agree with all the info at the end of your links. Relevance is obviously a huge factor. But what I'm saying is that if irrelevant links are really harmful then sites would be getting penalised all over the place. What it comes down to is the overall link profile (which was discussed in this thread also).

I don't think we are disagreeing with each other webnauts, i think its a case of where we draw our line in sand.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by inertia

So are you saying that (for example) my "inertia" user-name, which i try to use wherever i go, will build up its own reputation within Google?

Yes, and GoogleBOT remembers like an elephant, he never forgets unless you hurt him and he throw you out of his register.

Personally, I would, ceteris paribus, prefer a forum that don't put no follow on forum sig links. IMO, it is fair to state that policy in the forum rules.