Do Forum signature links really work?

April 20th, 2009, 2:09 am

As I heard from beginning, signiture links in forums helps to improve link popularity...
I haven't added the link anywhere except on forum sign and when I searched for the links there have been no link results...
So I was wondering whether these links help or does it take time for them to appear?

[zhouyi]

April 20th, 2009, 3:02 am

Of course, it works. When you post links in powerful forums, and when you post valuable posts.
Better make good use of it,and take care of spamming.I'd like to do advertising for my site too.But really hate spammer,anyway.
Good luck,BradPitt.

April 22nd, 2009, 1:17 am

Hey it works for me too. Forum posting is one way of getting backlinks for your site.

April 22nd, 2009, 4:57 am

Forums sig is really work in a way of improving of link popularity, it gives more backlink to your site.

[ATNO/TW]

April 22nd, 2009, 5:51 am

In some cases, forum owners add "nofollow" to the links, so spiders will not crawl them. OZZU is one such forum. Not all forums do that though. In those cases where "nofollow" is in place, you will not get backlinks so all the hogwash about link popularity is out the door on that one.

Even if they are "nofollow" forum signatures can be very beneficial. My signature is on over 20,000 posts here and even though it isn't indexed by the search engines, OZZU has long been my best referrer for both links in my signature.

When you are an active participant in a forum, friendly and helpful, people do notice you and visit your websites.

[spork]

April 22nd, 2009, 6:31 am

ATNO/TW wrote:

When you are an active participant in a forum, friendly and helpful, people do notice you and visit your websites.

On the flip side, if all you do is make useless posts to increase your post count, no one feels compelled to visit the sites in your signature. Additionally, this behavior often raises a red flag to moderators and is likely to result in your signature being removed.

[joebert]

April 22nd, 2009, 1:31 pm

Here are the stats (via Google Analytics) for the Picksel link in my signature from January 1st 2009 to April 21st 2009. (111 days)

Code: [ Download ] [ Select ]

source: ozzu.com
page views: 559
unique page views: 525 (4.7 daily)
avg time on site: 00:02:36
bounce rate: 89.57%
exit %: 87.48%

1. source: ozzu.com
2. page views: 559
3. unique page views: 525 (4.7 daily)
4. avg time on site: 00:02:36
5. bounce rate: 89.57%
6. exit %: 87.48%

The signature is pretty targeted and the destination page is an intermediary page between here and the source code, so I expect the bounce rate to be high.


//Edit -- Better yet, here's the stats going back to August 8th 2008. (257 days)

Code: [ Download ] [ Select ]

source: ozzu.com
page views: 1,135
unique page views: 1,041 (4 daily)
avg time on site: 00:02:17
bounce rate: 87.57%
exit %: 84.23%

1. source: ozzu.com
2. page views: 1,135
3. unique page views: 1,041 (4 daily)
4. avg time on site: 00:02:17
5. bounce rate: 87.57%
6. exit %: 84.23%

I don't remember when I added the Picksel link to my signature, but I'm sure it wasn't the same day I wrote that post and in any event Ozzu still outpaces any other referer to that page by a ratio of roughly 10:1.

April 24th, 2009, 10:35 pm

I believe even if there is a nofollow tag to your signature link, you should use signature links, becoz, the more you post, the more you get visible to others and thus many might get interested and click on your signature link.

April 27th, 2009, 3:04 am

Forum signature are the good source of making one way links for the website. A good number of valuable post in forums are definitely helpful.

April 27th, 2009, 8:21 am

Moreover, leave their posts in the forums you find many interesting and useful information. And it increases your knowledge in a particular area. So, stay here and keep posting.

May 8th, 2009, 11:14 am

yes,it will increase your website's import links

May 8th, 2009, 12:48 pm

Yes they do work if the forum is sig link friendly. Most are not its a way of blocking spam.

May 10th, 2009, 12:33 pm

Yes it works. It helps in increasing back links as well as traffic to your website.

Make Sure you participate in discussion in forums rather than marketing your website product or service.

[ATNO/TW]

May 10th, 2009, 7:44 pm

karmadir wrote:

Yes it works. It helps in increasing back links as well as traffic to your website.

Make Sure you participate in discussion in forums rather than marketing your website product or service.

Prove it. Did you read what I posted earlier? And lets say a forum doesn't have a nofollow in place and a user like me places 20,000 some odd posts on the forum, so are they going to get backlinked? Don't worry about answering that, because I can tell you before OZZU changed to nofollow, my links here were backlinked but Google changed that algorithm before that even happen and they dropped off the map.

I don't understand those of you that think forum backlinks do anything for you on PR. Can they help your traffic? Yes. for reasons I stated prior. But to think posting redundantly on a forum is going to help you to me is a complete mistake.

Why do you think there are moderators at forums? Moderators are there to stop the kind of spam that exists from people thinking that spamming their crappy sites is going to help them. Geez. Wake up people!

[joebert]

May 11th, 2009, 5:16 am

I think Google Webmaster Tools are misleading as far as links go. For instance GWT says I have thousands of "external links" from Ozzu, but if I look at that via "link:domain.com" those links are nowhere to be found.

Something similar happens with another forum I visit. Now, I know Ozzu applies nofollow, but this other forum does not. Same deal, hundereds of external links in GWT, but only a few dozen via "link:domain.com".

On the other hand, with a third forum, I know there isn't any nofollow applied, but links don't show up in GWT, "link:domain", or anywhere else I've ever looked.

Links are strange creatures, it seems impossible to tell for sure what they're going to do until it happens.

Not to mention, the rules are in a whole different book when it comes to search engines other than Google.