Importance of Forum Signatures

[affearner]

opensourceforece: Are you saying that links on forums no longer count?

[opensourceforce]

No....I did not mean to make it seem like forum signatures don’t "count" but I just think that some people feel like forum posts are like a score that directly relates to their search rank. "If I just make it to 1000 posts for my signature then it will be as if I have 1000 links back to my site, and I will then be in the top ten." The people that work at Google and other engines are bright ;-) Their success depends on their ability to accurately judge the relevance of search results. There is nothing too complicated in determining if a link comes from a forum post signature or that 1000 links to URL all come from the same forum, or that the links only come from forums.

I could go on…but I know there are people who know much more then I do on the subject. Do the links hurt? I doubt it. Do they help? Sure. My opinion though is that there is some magic point (and it is probably MUCH lower then you might think) where having multiple links on the same forum stop benefiting your site. Moreover, what matters most is relevance to engines. Having 100 links on a forum, especially if only in a signature might mean there is “some” value in your site, but it doesn’t necessarily make your site more relevant then one that has only one link on maybe 5 forums, but also has listings on shop compare sites, article links, press releases, blogs, AND great content, etc. However, since anyone can quickly generate 100 links from a forum signature…my guess (and guess only) is that the good people at Google HQ and others…have already accounted for that ease in determining relevance.

Really though…this is more based on an assumption…I don’t have any real SEO research to back it up. It would be interesting though if someone took too similar URLs with similar content and tried a bunch of signature links to one on a few forums and then one or two links for the other URL to see how much difference they can see between the two in a search rank.

You could do the same with two other URLs. Link like crazy with forum signature posts to one.....and just link once to the second URL but make sure that other URL has much more content that is relevant to your search terms. My money is on the URL with quality content and a single link over the one with "multiple drive by forum postings" to a less quality content site. In short, your time is better spent building quality and relevant and changing content rather then just spending all day going from one forum to another making posts with a signature.

Anyone have plenty of free time on their hands to test?

[affearner]

Thanks opensourceforce. I'm glad you have given me a reasonable response to my query. I'm just alarmed because I was once informed that a friend of mine was requested by her boss to sign up to forums related to the list of KW given to her. I really thought it was unreasonable because signing up to one forum and making a name there not only through sig but through valuable insights and questions posed is far better than signing up to a bunch of forums along with her sig. I also got confused because probably each sig is counted as one so I said why not give it a try. But then again, I said SEs aren't that dumb; otherwise other sites would compete with Google at the first rank right.

[darsh999]

All this is future thing but at present yes forum signatures are weighed heavily in SE's.

[affearner]

Can you elaborate on that darsh99?

[QuikShop]

All this is future thing but at present yes forum signatures are weighed heavily in SE's.

Forum signatures are not given any special rating by search engines, they are just counted another back-link to your web site.

It will be interesting to see if Google change the way they appraise forum links, if they do then I can also seeing it affecting social networking web site links, i.e. bookmarked pages on Facebook / MySpace etc which link back to your web site.

[affearner]

Thanks for the clarification QuikShop. But still I'm confused and doing my own research.

[sarasolomon]

I agree to opensourceforce

I also doubt they count the links much at all right now .
They have to be smart

[affearner]

OK. But I'm really interested about their exact weight.

[Fred333]

I think is is one of those where might as well do rather then not do it and have a regrets.

[demeterapollo]

Thanks!


Demeter Apollo
Edit by admin: no contact info permitted on the forum, thank you

[Volusion]

Most forums assign a "no follow" attribute to links. Putting links in forum signatures allows other users to know where to know where to find you. It's "branding" so to speak.

[veikoh]

Sure Signature links are important for search engines as to your visibility. How relevant those are for search engines have nothing to do how many times they has been used. If used in the thread or page having relevant topic to your site and with relevant keywords as your link anchor text, they will increase your page rank.

[aree]

Kind of like the salesman at his niece's wedding reception.

While he may "talk shop" with a few people, he doesn't go around indiscriminately passing out business cards ... unless he's a real Dilbert.

Dear Old Sarge!

Why ! they are counting our link without putting signature are SPAM?

[ecommerceguy]

Like many others have said, the link value in the eyes of the search engines is questionable. I would not rely my link building efforts on forum sigs, but the great thing about forum sigs is the actual traffic you get from the sigs. Since the forums are very targeted traffic, your sig link will provide good traffic, assuming you leave interesting and relevant forum postings. The point of links is to rank higher to obtain traffic anyways.