Are signature links on irrelevant forums a potential problem?

[bijan814]

having links will not penalize you, the more links you have, the better it doesn't matter from where. It's just some links our worth more than others. worst case they won't count your links. best scenario you will get ranked higher. Think about it. If you can get penalized by having lots of link, you're competitor can do that and you would get penalized. Only way you would get penalized from having to many links is if your website is brand new and you have built thousands of links.

[ozsubasi]

If you can get penalized by having lots of link, you're competitor can do that and you would get penalized.

This is the subject of a lot of discussion currently, and while in theory what you are saying should be correct, there have been some findings which suggest it may not be
http://trafficplanet.com/topic/2369-...e-seo-results/
But I am putting my signatures back anyway, I am not spamming any forums and I am leaning towards your suggestion that it is most likely they would simply be discounted.

[ozsubasi]

It is helpful if the signature link is always relevant to the forums.

I don't think there is any argument against it being preferable to have links from a related forum, the question is whether it could be detrimental if it isn't related. You obviously think not because your signature link to a paragliding website is ready to go as soon as you have enough posts.

[redfeilds18]

only forums that are relevant can give some link juice. irrelevant forum signatures wont help out much. and another important thing is that link (anchor text) only counts single time.

[dgswilson]

I "think" a hundred forum comments/posts with linked-sig-A on forum-A counts as one link from forum-A. I don't think sig links count much as "in bound" links anyway. I'm sure somebody knows?

[ozsubasi]

I could be wrong but I think that only one link counts per page on the forum, but that e.g. a 100 signatures on 100 different pages would be 100 links. Certainly my GWT shows multiple links from forums, not just one from each. However, it isn't what I may or may not gain from the links that concerned me, but the possible negative affects from them.

What I am doing is varying my signatures on different forums, not just in terms of anchor text but to where they point, e.g. to inner pages, my Google Plus profile page and my Google Places page.

[weegillis]

100 links out of one forum equals one link, if all the links are the same. If they're all different, it will be up to the search engine to determine whether they should be treated separately, or be treated as one link from one domain.

It should also be noted that as links go, signatures are not natural as we place them there ourselves. Their value could drop like a rock.

One question I have is, when was the last time you heard of anybody looking for a realtor in web forums? When was the last time you purchased anything from a site you visited through a signature link?

[redfeilds18]

haha nice point. people use signatures just for seo purpose and nobody likes to click on the signature links as many people are aware of it and most of the people join forums just to place signature..and they think "Oh this is PR 7 forum i should place my keywords in the signature and in a few weeks my keyword will be on top of google"

100 links out of one forum equals one link, if all the links are the same. If they're all different, it will be up to the search engine to determine whether they should be treated separately, or be treated as one link from one domain.

It should also be noted that as links go, signatures are not natural as we place them there ourselves. Their value could drop like a rock.

One question I have is, when was the last time you heard of anybody looking for a realtor in web forums? When was the last time you purchased anything from a site you visited through a signature link?

[ozsubasi]

One question I have is, when was the last time you heard of anybody looking for a realtor in web forums? When was the last time you purchased anything from a site you visited through a signature link?

My market is international, and the real estate is holiday and retirement homes in a coastal resort. People on web forums are from different countries, they perhaps take holidays abroad and they will probably eventually retire and may consider relocating, so there is potential.
It's true that the chances of getting a sale through a forum signature link are small, but then I have links on real estate sites that haven't delivered any sales either
I just had a look and over the last month I've had 18 visits to my site from web forum links. That isn't many but I don't get high traffic anyway and because of the nature of the business, I don't get volume sales either. Some of those were of course just curious bounces, but for example I had one from this forum that looked at a couple of pages and was there for 5 minutes. From another forum a visitor looked at 3 pages over 15 minutes. Maybe they just forgot to leave, but we never know where a sale may come from, and it wouldn't make business sense to ignore an opportuntity unless there was a good reason for doing so.

---------- Post added at 11:42 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:07 AM ----------

100 links out of one forum equals one link, if all the links are the same. If they're all different, it will be up to the search engine to determine whether they should be treated separately, or be treated as one link from one domain.

I'm still not sure about this. For example, GWT shows 33 links from this forum to my site.

---------- Post added at 11:50 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:42 AM ----------

most of the people join forums just to place signature

I don't know whether it is "most" but it is undeniably true that many do have that sole purpose in mind. Fortunately however, the better forums are well moderated and they don't usually last long.

[ozsubasi]

When we make back-links of our website to another site then category are very important.We should make back-links in relevant category.We must use relevant forum in forum posting to increase visitors on your website.

I don't know what your website is, but I take it that it is SEO related then?