Are signature links on irrelevant forums a potential problem?

[weegillis]

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

Which is about 1 per thread. We still have no empirical evidence that they have a combined weight of 33. Each link could very well have a weight of 1/33, for all we know.

[ozsubasi]

Which is about 1 per thread. We still have no empirical evidence that they have a combined weight of 33. Each link could very well have a weight of 1/33, for all we know.

I agree completely - there is no standard value for a link.

Very true, it could either or neither, and one could believe that some kind of law of diminishing returns applies for links from the same domain.

[C0ldf1re]

I've tried link building on sites using forum profiles only and it usually doesn't work. Although I think it has some effects...

I have heard that some automatic SEO software systems (spambots) create forum profiles by the gazillion for the sake of backlinks. Also that it is worse than spam posts for the forum staff. At least spam posts can be seen as such. A forum profile for a non-poster might be perfectly genuine. Is there any pressure on the authors of forum software to at least make forum profile links nofollow? Does anybody know?

[deepsand]

Which is about 1 per thread. We still have no empirical evidence that they have a combined weight of 33. Each link could very well have a weight of 1/33, for all we know.

I agree completely - there is no standard value for a link.

Very true, it could either or neither, and one could believe that some kind of law of diminishing returns applies for links from the same domain.

With respect to PageRank, we do know how the value of said links are computed:

• Divide PR of page by total no. of links on page;
• Discard "nofollow" link, without redistributing its share of PR; then,
• Discard all but the first occurrence of multiple links pointing to same target, without redistributing its share of PR.

[deepsand]

I have heard that some automatic SEO software systems (spambots) create forum profiles by the gazillion for the sake of backlinks. Also that it is worse than spam posts for the forum staff. At least spam posts can be seen as such. A forum profile for a non-poster might be perfectly genuine. Is there any pressure on the authors of forum software to at least make forum profile links nofollow? Does anybody know?

Many forums, including WPW, discount any benefits from Profile stuffing simply by making Profiles accessible only to logged-in members.

[C0ldf1re]

Many forums, including WPW, discount any benefits from Profile stuffing simply by making Profiles accessible only to logged-in members.

Yes. That prevents the Search Engines seeing the profiles, and stops the spammers getting any SEO benefit. But has it stopped the spammers clogging up WPW with bogus profiles, that the staff have to remove?

[deepsand]

Difficult to say, as that would depend on those who engage in such practice following up to learn the results of their handicraft.

Here at WPW, such Profiles are, to the best of my knowledge, not removed, but simply banned - this prevents the Alias from being reused - when reported to or other wise noticed by an Admin. or Mod..

[mjtaylor]

I'm afraid the answer to the OP is a simple, We Don't Know.

I think the best answer you've gotten went something like: as long as the link profile is balanced, it should not be a problem to have some sig links from a webmaster forum. Are they truly irrelevant? I don't think so. It is logical for a webmaster to spend time on a forum like this and it follows (no pun intended) that signature links would be from a broad range of themes. Therefore all topics are relevant, IMO. Are they of particular value? The jury is out on whether Google has any ability to judge relevance. The English language is relatively complicated and there are too many synonyms and related terms for the current sophistication of Artificial Intelligence to truly grasp, as far as I can tell.

Yes. That prevents the Search Engines seeing the profiles, and stops the spammers getting any SEO benefit. But has it stopped the spammers clogging up WPW with bogus profiles, that the staff have to remove?

It's great to see you around, Coldfire ... and I think we're getting a little off topic here. The OP is about sig links not forum profile spam.

When the links are disconnected it always have some sort of effect on rankings. I personally have observed the same problem. Some times we also loose our back links because of some reasons like the web site has suspended from which we have got the back links so same here in the signatures point of view. Most of the time it causes drop in keyword rankings.

Can you substantiate this?

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.

Any source to back up your first assertion? They may not help much, but as far as I can tell the links from this forum have a positive effect on my Key West travel blog ... so, I would have to say I disagree with you.

It is also my impression that one link from a forum is not as valuable as multiple links, but I think that's because a single link is going to go 'stale' as the traffic to a thread dies and the page is crawled less and less often.

[ozsubasi]

I'm afraid the answer to the OP is a simple, We Don't Know.
I think the best answer you've gotten went something like: as long as the link profile is balanced, it should not be a problem to have
some sig links from a webmaster forum. Are they truly irrelevant? I don't think so. It is logical for a webmaster to spend time on a
forum like this and it follows (no pun intended) that signature links would be from a broad range of themes. Therefore all topics are
relevant, IMO. Are they of particular value? The jury is out on whether Google has any ability to judge relevance. The English language
is relatively complicated and there are too many synonyms and related terms for the current sophistication of Artificial Intelligence to
truly grasp, as far as I can tell.

I appreciate your opening statement that the basic answer is that no-one knows the answer to my original question.
Way back in 2005, Matt Cutts was talking about relevancy (it was specifically in terms of reciprocal links but I think it perhaps applies generally as well) and said of irrelevant links to a real estate site:
"This time, I’m seeing links to mortgages sites, credit card sites, and exercise equipment." Accepting that the last two examples are not directly relevant, what about the first? Is there no connection between mortgages and real estate?
That to me confirms your doubts over their ability to judge relevance, and to give a personal example travel sites and those that deal with retirement issues are relevant to my particular business but they cannot know that.
Although my concern remains that Google perhaps does make unqualified decisions concerning relevancy, even if that is correct there isn't really anything to be done about it.

[mjtaylor]

Of course, mortgage sites are relevant to real estate agent sites ... the best argument for relevance is traffic. If we take the wise route, we will only seek links that should bring targeted traffic; if they help with the search engines, that's icing on the cake.