Would Website Forum Signature Links help with SEO?

[simpson7647]

Hi all,

I've just had an idea regarding SEO and after the experienced members of this forum if it would be worth while or not.

An idea is for us to contact active members of website forums (that relate to our website) and ask them to add our website along with a short description into their signature

This would therefore be visible to every member of the forum that reads their posts.

This would of course require something in return for the forum member and be within the rules of the forum but would this help with SEO at all?

thanks,

 

[JonathanSEO]

Not a bad idea I don't think, maybe considered a bit grey in terms of Google guidlines and what not but I don't wanna get into that.

As for SEO value it's hard to ascertain, probably some benefit but not masses. Sometimes you only know the benefit of a link once you've got it. So my philosophy is always get the link and see what happens. (Unless of course it's something ridiculous spammy, then leave well alone) but what you're describing is pretty natural and if the forums are active I'd take a link from them all day long.

The other benefit is it could bring some good referral traffic and puts your name out there.

Strictly speaking if you're remunerating them for the link it's a paid link. I can see most moderators on forums not liking that or not allowing it if they suddenly saw it crop up in every users signature overnight.

If it was me trying to execute what you're describing then moderators would be the ones I'd be tapping up as they post all over the forums. And by their nature attract the most attention.

 

[simpson7647]

Many thanks for your reply.

That's a great point regarding contacting the moderators and having them add it to their signature - Could offer a cash intensive per month for this to be done.

What would you say would be a fair price for this?

Many thanks,

 

[JonathanSEO]

Many thanks for your reply.

That's a great point regarding contacting the moderators - Could offer a cash intensive per month for this to be done.

What would you say would be a fair price for this?

Many thanks,

No idea on price. Up to you to negotiate one.

All depends on the moderator, no doubt some will take offense to it and decline, others will be glad of the cash.

What industry are you in anyway?

 

[simpson7647]

Thanks for the reply.

In the Vinyl trade - so Vehicle Colour Change Wrap, Advertisement/Signage, Window Tint etc.

So there are many modification websites or websites that focus on specific brands such as ford, vauxhall etc.. so I could target all these.

 

[Alan]

How many links do you want? You don't need hundreds of users do you?

Take my signature for example, currently loaded with affiliate links. A 10 second change by me and you get about 1,500 back links across all my posts. How much do you want to pay per month, if it beats the one of the affiliate revenue you win . PM me.

 

[simpson7647]

Hi, many thanks for the reply.

It would be the quality of the user as apposed to the quantity of users.

Your example is the exact kind of thing I'm after, a user with hundreds of posts who a simple a change (with no effort from them) would help one such company out

Thanks,

How many links do you want? You don't need hundreds of users do you?

Take my signature for example, currently loaded with affiliate links. A 10 second change by me and you get about 1,500 back links across all my posts. How much do you want to pay per month, if it beats the one of the affiliate revenue you win . PM me.

 

[fisicx]

The search engines know all about forum signature links. For a while there was a trade in selling sig links on many fora but google got wise and knobbled that enterprise.

Yes a sig link can have value. But only if it is in your profile. Adding it to someone else's may get you flagged. And remember that 1 sig means one link irrespective of how many times it appears on the forum.

 

[whatanidea1]

Forum posting is one of the most powerful as well as traditional process of link building. Forums are not a way of getting back links but also a great resource of knowledge sharing. Signatures represent you on the forum wall and a great way of getting back links.

 

[SuffolkDesigns]

Why don't you start by becoming a full member here (Only £40) and adding a link or two to your signature?

You would then be able to modify as needed and see if it does make any difference.

 

[fisicx]

Forum posting is one of the most powerful as well as traditional process of link building.

Ignore this advice. It's complete bollox.

 

[iArtist]

Why don't you start by becoming a full member here (Only £40) and adding a link or two to your signature?

You would then be able to modify as needed and see if it does make any difference.

Signature links aren't of any value other than viewers seeing them and clicking on them.

 

[iArtist]

Hi all,

I've just had an idea regarding SEO and after the experienced members of this forum if it would be worth while or not.

An idea is for us to contact active members of website forums (that relate to our website) and ask them to add our website along with a short description into their signature

This would therefore be visible to every member of the forum that reads their posts.

This would of course require something in return for the forum member and be within the rules of the forum but would this help with SEO at all?

thanks,

It's a good idea re people seeing the links and clicking on them, won't have any benefit re SEO.

Meanwhile ... People will assume the poster is a senior representative of your company, what of they bring it into disrepute with antagonistic or inappropriate posting?

What some do along these lines is hire people to post as them on forums. This is slightly safer as that person will only be posting in a professional capacity and will ideally not be engaging in forum politics or backbiting etc.

I used to be manager of an article website and I did forum posting, blogging and all sorts as that ' website representative'. I also did link building and so on. It's doing rather well. The person doing this MUST bear in mind at all times they are posting as the company and not themselves.

 

[JamesGreen]

This wouldn't improve SEO in the long term and is a breach of Google policy.

Backlinks should have unique text with them.

Certainly don't pay anybody to have your link in their signature for this reason. However if they have started forum posts that get a lot of traffic month after month then they will be a little worth as an advertisement.

 

[Alan]

And remember that 1 sig means one link irrespective of how many times it appears on the forum.

Hmm, no idea as I'm not a real expert SEO but Google webmaster tools says otherwise, at least in terms of 'count'. I guess you mean in terms of 'value' that google claculate in their algorithm, which like every one apart from Google can only summise.

 

[fisicx]

Google will count the links but that doesn't mean they are all used to calculate PageRank. It was because they were seen as strong ranking signals and there was widespread abuse Google devalued then.

It's worth re-reading Google's advice:

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66356

Note the line about optimised forum sigs.

 

[Alan]

Thanks for that, although of course Google says

Any links intended to manipulate a site's ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme. This includes any behavior that manipulates links to your site, or outgoing links from your site. Manipulating these links may affect the quality of our search results, and as such is a violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines.

so clearly such a scheme is something Google do not want

Here are a few common examples of unnatural links that violate our guidelines:
Forum comments with optimized links in the post or signature, for example:

Thanks, that's great info!
- Paul
paul's pizza san diego pizza best pizza san diego​

So google considers this unnatural.

This doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't work, in fact I would advocate that perhaps it does work, that is why Google don't want you to do it because they have difficulty filtering out the wheat from the chaff.

Of course, being caught doing it and having a manual penalty applied would not be a good thing at all. But may possible be good strategy for a sacrificial site.

 

[fisicx]

Which is probably why my signature campaign for cheap viagra on the feminist-network didn't do so well.

 

[Alan]

Surely that was down to the quality of your copy writing

 

[JonathanSEO]

Hmm, no idea as I'm not a real expert SEO but Google webmaster tools says otherwise, at least in terms of 'count'. I guess you mean in terms of 'value' that google claculate in their algorithm, which like every one apart from Google can only summise.

1000 forums links on different pages of the same forum is 1000 individual links, but only 1 linking root domain.

 

[MissoldInvestments]

Why don't you start by becoming a full member here (Only £40) and adding a link or two to your signature?

You would then be able to modify as needed and see if it does make any difference.

Why does this not count as paying for a link?

 

[webgeek]

Why would you consider undertaking an approach which has been specifically named as a link scheme to avoid in Google Guidelines, with a goal to using that approach for improved Google rankings?

They're easy to spot which makes them easy to whack. With all the moles and holes in the world to choose from, I can't for the life of me recommend someone should stick their head up through that hole over their with the giant WHACK ME bullseye around it.

If you're going to do it, you might as well keyword stuff it a few times, making it bold and +2 on the font..... urgh.

 

[alanaburton]

Generally any links put into signatures on forums are No-Follow, therefore they carry no link juice anyhow so would be of no real value.
In Google's eyes, anyone could just go in to forums all day long, add 2 word replies that may be of no added value at all and so it would be totally unfair for those links to count therefore they are devalued.
Link Building is a long and tedious old business but once you have a good formula for finding the right sort of sites to contact and work with as regards getting links you're totally quids in! My partner's company have spent years building a massive excel spreadsheet with a complete range of good link sources covering every sort of online means and we use that on a daily basis for our clients across the board.
If you search for "SEO Sussex" in Google we have 5 of the 10 organic results between the main company websites and my freelance site etc. You just gotta know the right places to link from! ;-)

 

[ITsoldUK]

And also write a very well veiled spam post on a forum...!

Sent from my GT-I9300 using UK Business Forums

 

[JonathanSEO]

If you search for "SEO Sussex" in Google we have 5 of the 10 organic results between the main company websites and my freelance site etc. You just gotta know the right places to link from! ;-)

Judging by your link profile you won't be for very long.

 

[Ali-v-8]

Use it to get website cached -Forums are spidered more frequently so there is an advantage to placing signature link.

Oh and by the way £40 is for membership not for the link.

Why does this not count as paying for a link?

 

[Annoying Donkey]

If you search for "SEO Sussex" in Google we have 5 of the 10 organic results between the main company websites and my freelance site etc.

Less than 10 exact match local searches per month. Guess that took a lot of work...

 

[fisicx]

Don't forget, they have a massive excel spreadsheet with a complete range of good link sources so for them it was easy peasy.

 

[mikekingpin]

If you are wanting to do this in for SEO & ranking reasons, don't.

Hundreds of forum siggy links will look suspect to Google, especially since Google Penguin.

Add to that the fact that they will mostly use the same anchor text for the link (well, the ones from each user will), and you have a recipe for a ranking drop, not increase.

You may find this sort of tactic could work in the short term, but long term? I suspect all it will do these days is get you an unnatural link warning via webmaster tools

IF however you are genuinely looking to get traffic for targeted leads from siggy links (instead of rankings), then it 'may' be worth considering - However I would look for forums that allow a nofollow tag to be used, and/or use VERY natural looking anchor text (brand or http:// style).

That's just my thoughts though, others may well disagree!

 

[simpson7647]

1000 forums links on different pages of the same forum is 1000 individual links, but only 1 linking root domain.

Thanks for the reply. I see what you mean so adding a advertisement to a signature may be worth doing.. or at least testing etc.

I'm not referring to adding a link to a website in the actual post reply which some people seem to be getting at. Just adding to the signature like many many members of this forum do.

what do you think?

Thanks,

 

[simpson7647]

Use it to get website cached -Forums are spidered more frequently so there is an advantage to placing signature link.

Oh and by the way £40 is for membership not for the link.

Does anyone else have any input on this?

Thanks,

 

[ITsoldUK]

Does anyone else have any input on this?

Thanks,

Which bit?

Sent from my GT-I9300 using UK Business Forums

 

[simpson7647]

Which bit?

Sent from my GT-I9300 using UK Business Forums

Is this true?


'Use it to get website cached -Forums are spidered more frequently so there is an advantage to placing signature link. '

thanks,

 

[Suzuki]

Use it to get website cached -Forums are spidered more frequently so there is an advantage to placing signature link.

Oh and by the way £40 is for membership not for the link.

I think people like yourself who abuse it, are certainly starting to blur the line between it being seen as a 'membership fee' and 'buying links' as far as google goes.

2 anchor text links to your own sites and 4 anchor text links to clients... its not really what I'd call natural linking. I think if you ended up with a link warning email these are exactly the sort of low end links you'd be looking at removing first?

 

[Ali-v-8]

Hmmm why do you class it as abuse? My links are used to refer people to work I have done. Except for the Lighting company the rest are friends.
However thank you for your concern.

I think people like yourself who abuse it, are certainly starting to blur the line between it being seen as a 'membership fee' and 'buying links' as far as google goes.

2 anchor text links to your own sites and 4 anchor text links to clients... its not really what I'd call natural linking. I think if you ended up with a link warning email these are exactly the sort of low end links you'd be looking at removing first?

 

[ITsoldUK]

Is this true?


'Use it to get website cached -Forums are spidered more frequently so there is an advantage to placing signature link. '

thanks,

In short...no.

A spider does not know a site is a forum.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using UK Business Forums

 

[Suzuki]

Hmmm why do you class it as abuse? My links are used to refer people to work I have done. Except for the Lighting company the rest are friends.
However thank you for your concern.

With most things in SEO I don't think there is ever a "this is black hat" or "this is white" hat answer only... there are always a variety of shades of grey in the middle. As far as profile backlinks and what you're doing... I'd put it pretty much in the black end though.

Did you place those links there for seo purposes or for humans? With double linking to one domain, highly targeted anchor texts, and absolutely no surrounding text telling anyone why they should click them... I think the answer is pretty obvious.

Then you have no relevance whatsoever - you mostly post in an seo section of the forum which would make the first two fine... but you're advertising a gym, tattoos, carpet cleaning and led lighting - thats completely off topic. Which to me just further points towards spam for search engines.


I would say if your tattoo guy was posting on a tattoo forum himself, giving people advice and generally being helpful, with a "here is my tattoo shop {brand link}" link in his sig then that would be as close to white hat forum linking as you could get on the scale.

If he paid an seo company, who then plastered his link all over an seo forum via a paid link system that was almost completely unmoderated, using anchor text rich links, and mixed in with other random off topic links... then you're about as far from the first example on the scale as you could possibly be.


One of those scenarios to me is white, the other black. Then you've got everything in the middle where it starts to get a bit fuzzy.

I think with anyone doing the latter method, you would really struggle to justify the links being legitimate in a WMT reinclusion request. And I think we need to think more and more in that direction... if you're not going to be able to justify a link via WMT then you probably shouldn't be placing it in the first place

 

[Ali-v-8]

So what you are saying is your have a theory (as opposed to my fact) that you want to put out there and in effect tell people not to become members and place there businesses in the signature link.

IMO, there is no issue with using signature links the way I have. It is not a paid link.

 

[Suzuki]

Everything in seo is theory... there is no definitive list of what is allowed and what isn't, or what works and what doesn't.

I'm not saying people shouldn't become members at all... I'm saying if they want to become members they should use the signature links in a way that doesn't potentially waste it for everyone else.

What you are doing might not be a 'paid link'... but from an algorithm point of view it certainly looks like one. For me personally I think they're paid links but I appreciate some people will say they're not. I certainly don't think you could call them naturally given links, even if you're saying they're not paid for...

 

[babblemouth]

They way I see it is that you cannot have a link in your signature unless you are a paid member, thus in a way it's a paid for link. This is why many users sign up as full members....to add their link for ranking/seo purposes.

You can call it what like, membership, administration charge etc etc to get around the paid for status.

Also, i've seen many times before a paid member start a thread to help generate a 'related' page, for example a thread title of "Which printer should I buy?" the text in post would give their personal opinion on printers, perhaps name a few models etc. They'd then get other members giving their opinion and there will be lots of keywords mentioned again and again "printer", "which printer", "i recommend this printer" and then the original thread starter adds a nice little link in their signature "Buy Cheap Printers Here" - hey presto!

Or have I got this completely wrong?