Effects of outbound links in site forum?

[AuctionMapper]

We're constantly having people register to our forum apparently just to post a link to their site. When they post inappropriately I delete their forum account, but could the outbound links in the profiles of the others have any SEO effects? If they have no effect, I can't understand why all these guys are going to all the trouble of creating an account, verifying their email address, etc...

Thanks for any insight.

[incrediblehelp]

Because it used to haven effect on all SE's and those guys may be morons doing it still. Seriously though I have tested forums signatures and they still work on medium to low competitive keywords in Yahoo.

[AuctionMapper]

Ok thanks.

With all the talk about penalties for outgoing links, didn't know if we should get rid of nonsense websites in profiles that are obviously just there to somehow help their search ranking. Fine with me if they stay there as long as they don't damage our own ranking.

[greeneagle]

Good gawd almighty! - You mean we still have "drive by spammers" that think every sig'ed post means another link?

I have around 5500 posts in the WPW forum (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-50,GGLD:en&q=link%3awww%2emountaineagleweb%2ecom) alone, with untold hours of consulting time here.

Just where in the hell do they come by that misconception?

Damned virgin SEO's!

No more drive by spammings - OK guys?

Don't most professed SEO'rs by now know that multiple links are relegated to nearly "1" under any top domain by the GOOG, free, puchased or stolen?

What gives here?

LMAOROTF

Ken

[djstreet]

I permit them in signatures....otherwise no. Plus, they're all 'nofollow' so no biggie.

[greeneagle]

The thing is distreet, no matter whether sig'd links are allowed or not... multiple links, freely submitted, bought, purchased or stolen... the GOOG says, IMO:

"I see about 1 under any top domain."

That's pretty funny, isn't it?

Thank god they went there! That's not what this, any other forum or any other play is about!

If anyone feels the need to buy sitewide links from anyone, they should take a serious look at their stats and determine relative value.

Ken

[Orion]

hehe gotta love it..

In a quick search I can only find ONE (1) single link attributed to webproworld to my domain(s). So might help a bit it's nothing to waste time to get.

As a side note..

I have found GREAT benefit in participating in various forums and have actually gotten business directly as a result of people searching for help, reading posts I've contributed to and contacting me that way.

Basically, if you don't see the point in participating in a community don't bother registering.

...my 2cents worth...

[noel_x99]

Ken - anyone that can READ knows that there is a lot more value to this site than an outbound link. (Thanks to the many active mods and posters like you.)

Even so...you will alwasy have people out there looking for every shortcut they can get!

[PumaSpirit]

Geee, I barely have time to read and participate in the few forums I belong to, but enjoy it when I can and have something to contribute. Most of the time I only have time to read some interesting posts though.

Do you mean to say those "drive-by" spammers are making a career out of this? lol Wouldn't they figure out anytime soon that there are more effective ways to get a few leads which require a lot less effort?

Orion said:
"I have found GREAT benefit in participating in various forums and have actually gotten business directly as a result of people searching for help, reading posts I've contributed to and contacting me that way."

I agree, I also have had some success that way, but my main reason for being in a forum is to participate and share in something of value, namely exchanging ideas, knowledge and giving something of value back for that. Looking back, it is quite amazing how much I have learned in forums, including this one.

[writergrrrl48]

So here's a low-level, dumb noob question - or two ..

1) If sig links are valueless, why does everyone have one, two or three links to their sites still? And they seem to change with some regularity.

2) Another forum was making a huge big deal about calculating how much each person should charge to "rent" their sig links, based on the number of posts and such they were doing. What on earth is that all about? Does anyone outside of that particular community think real people will get value from doing this? Even to ME that sounds stupid ...

Just being curious. Thanks for insights, as always :-)

[greeneagle]

writergrrrl48,

A while back there were so many people playing link games for top SERP, they had to relegate all those under 1 top domain to not count as many.

The only real value in forum sigs is as other posters have placed already, for contact purposes alone.

That alone can have quite a bit of value though, or there wouldn't be companies out there creating Forum Spam software still.

The SE's had to make sweeping changes to also lop Blog Spam out by the roots. There is very little spam value in forum sigs now, and hasn't been in some time.

Forums are about the exchange of information. They did us a great favor there.

Ken

[seorocks]

hiya,

i think sig links are uselful in terms of raising awareness in the forum. people click on links that are of interest.

I personally find sig links interesting, you land on pages you would never think of landing on... i love it :)

thanks
Clair

[PumaSpirit]

hiya,

i think sig links are uselful in terms of raising awareness in the forum. people click on links that are of interest.

I personally find sig links interesting, you land on pages you would never think of landing on... i love it :)

thanks
Clair

I agree with you, Clair. Some of the sites I found that way were quite interesting and I would have never known they were there if it wasn't for the sig.

In that respect, I also resent the fact that we, as legal business owners, have to tiptoe around out of fear of losing our ranking because we exercise our right of free speech. (And I don't mean spamming, lol)

[meinking22]

Damned virgin SEO's!

No more drive by spammings - OK guys?

HAHAHA!! That's some funny shizzle...



Don't most professed SEO'rs by now know that multiple links are relegated to nearly "1" under any top domain by the GOOG, free, puchased or stolen?


True that. Google and Yahoo both track IBLs by IP as far as I'm aware. Not sure how thorough MSN is...

I have to participate in these forums because I have a sick fascination for SEO and SEM, and frankly, there is nobody else out there anywhere that gives a crap, let alone is interested in talking about it...

I give the drive-by spammers this though. A quick URL drop on a high PR forum/blog without the "nofollow" is a good way to get your site indexed quickly. So even discounting the one pop IBL value, there is worthwhile purpose there...

If you think the drive-by spamming is amusing here, you should check out the Google Webmaster forums. It's a drive-by spammers delight! LOL!

Steve