Signatures In Forums For Link Building Bad For You

I came across an article on the internet saying that if you use forum signatures for link building then it will negatively impact your sites PR. Basically it is seen as an attempt to cheat the system. It is not really frowned upon by Google but it can cost you one or three positions in SERP. What do you think guys, is it bad that you are advertising your site through forum signatures or Google just being a big bully?

 

Hello @carlalexander, do you have a link to the article?

 

I must have been reading and researching on webmasters articles, so I never really got a chance to save the link , but I believe that I must have been in Google's webmaster tools TOS or somewhere, let me search for it and I will update this post once I find it. Hold on a second.

*edit*
@Brandon I found it together with a host of other practices that Google considers to be "link schemes" Here is the link to the article: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en

 

That link doesn't say that signature links are bad. What it does say is

1. That footer links across a whole site are bad:

and that

2. Highly Optimized or Over Optimized (i.e., keyword stuffed) signature links are bad:

and that

3. Links embedded in widgets are bad:

 

Signature links won't hurt you. My siglinks are not necessarily relevant to A-T so it may slightly hurt the forum's ranking but the effect would be nominal.

Personally, I don't post my links for SEO value. I post them so my fellow posters can see what I'm up to.

 

Basically you don't want to be going out and getting Site Wide links where your links end up on every page of the website, where most of the content could be deemed as unrelated to your own site and won't do you any favors SEO wise.
The best way to use Signature Links in Forums is to manually only Include your Signature into a post that is related to your sites niche. And even then do it sparingly, don't go spamming your link around too much too soon.

 

You do know most forums look down upon people adding a manual signature, right? I've seen quite a few people get warned or banned for that, and it's often seen as a way to escape signature rules. Indeed, you could get in trouble due to them thinking you're linking to your site in your posts...

I do have to wonder another thing though... what are you meant to do if a product you're using does add spammy links to the signature automatically? I mean, would Google punish anyone using the theme or script or whatever just because the creator was a bit of a sleezeball and sold out the footer credits to the highest bidder? That seems a bit unfair to the less tech savvy people unable to remove unwanted links easily.

 

Well there are some WordPress theme sites offering free themes, but contain 4-5 links in the footer leading to spammy sites. So yeah, you should be careful about certain free WordPress themes. Check how many links are included in themes footer and where they lead too. You usually find they are encrypted as well using Base64.

 

I post sig links for link juice. In fact, I tend to avoid forums that don't allow me to get a dofollow link in return for my posting. This site being one of the few exceptions.

 

I really like this idea of a template a lot. Signatures can for sure do wonders if done correctly. My company is proof of that. Since launching in Jan, we have grown to hosting over 125 xenForo communities. I have spent $0 on advertising, my business has grown strictly from signatures and word of mouth.

 

Using a signature template is a fantastic idea. People actually appreciate it if you post relevant content in your posts and then follow it up with a signature that leads to something of higher value. And yes, it can be an excellent free substitute for advertising too.

At the same time if you go to a football forum and publicize your tech forum via your link not only will the members (and admin) not appreciate it but I am am sure it will be frowned upon by Google as well.

 

I've also read an article about this but he is telling something that if you use forum signature it means that you get tons of backlinks in one site which is bad in SEO's perspective. I'm not sure if its really true though, is it?

 

I have saw forum signatures as a way to gain backlink from that site. Backlinks don't matter anyway. It's more of a way to get some people to visit my blog and get them signed up for my newsletter.

 

It is not bad but it isn't a good thing necessarily. Basically if you have 1,000 links from a forum it will get you more traffic to whatever you're selling but will have the same effect on seo as 1 or 2 good backlinks. So you may end up with a good amount of traffic and conversions but not be anywhere in G for rankings