Why are so many forum admins scared of links to other forums?

Hmm...Branding is done on your site yes. However, I think links to competition have little effect on you own branding.

Yes, you can no-follow a link, so it gives no "value" to the other site from an SEO perspective. That is all you should do though.

Thing of it is, I can go to Twitter and post about Facebook all day and visa-versa and they have no problems with this kind of linking to their own competition at all (and never have). It seems only forum owners have an issue with linking to putative competition and this is what I really believe will keep them small as a group. It is why Facebook and Co. can and will continue to steal the users' on site time from them/us.

Scott

 

We allow the discussion of other forums like ours, but no direct advertising of it. Users still talk about the other forums and we don't have any issues with that. I just don't want to give them free links or anything like that because we value the websites that we give links to, like our partners/sponsors.

 

It is funny people consider links to have such value. Hyperlinks are a core part of the Internet. Sites are supposed to be linked to each other. You can take the only value away from a link, the SEO value, by making them no-follows.

Scott

 

Like I said, it all depends on the situation. If an active member posts a link somewhere else I don't really care. But then the other day, some asshat registered, jumped in a thread, made one post which basically said "if you want to talk about that then you should do it here" and posted a link to his lazy ass reddit section on the general topic as our site. One click spam and ban goodbye. My members would not respect me if I didn't. Even though it's a legitimate place on the internet that is spam and always will be spam. So it all depends

Actually, the post was moderated so he never got through.

 

Yeah, ok. Trying to direct people to actually move the discussion to another site like that is not a proper thing to do.

But finding another conversation about the same topic and noting it with a link and saying something like, "Hey, just FYI, there is a similar discussion going on over xyz forum too with some pretty interesting information/ view points", wouldn't be wrong or inappropriate, would it? There may be other points being made or information noted, which are very relevant and maybe even important.

Scott

 

Yes it would be wrong since it leaves useless information on your page. Most of my longtime members will quote a snippet of the relevant information and put an attribution link. In fact they point that out to newcomers quite often. This leaves some relevant info regarding the link and your topic while still directing readers to the full related story.

The worst kind of post is where someone just starts a thread with nothing but a link to somewhere else forcing people to leave the entire site to go find out what the hell you are talking about.

 

I don't think it's an issue of trading length of the primary problem I think that the primary issue is the base of a competitor in the wonderful world of any online business. Most for moderators are concerned with the possible traffic be converted over to a competitor's site when a link is exchanged for the possibility of being able to with double their possible fan base with the position of being able to trade links. I think there are a fantastic amount of professionals on this very forum that will be able to provide you with the option to trade links if your nets for category matches meets with their needs.


I think some forms focus more so on their own success more so than being able to generate a huge interest the category as a whole. I think the best alternative to be able to turn this around is for you to approach a possible partnership for forms in your niche with a great marketing package. I find other forum operators are moderators respond better when they are able to look over numbers, traffic information and potential revenue shares vs simply being told that trading links may increase the bottom line. At the end of the day everyone's forum or site is essentially a business to generate residual or effortless income.

 

The only problem with having links in your forum. Is the premise of possibly promoting a site your competing against. I've had members post threads that promote another forum and haven't received any negative outcomes. I think letting members promoting their sites to some degree actually benefits you.

 

If the competitive site also allowed links to your site, would you have an issue with that?

There are reasons why users link to competitors. It is better to find out those reasons, as they are way more valuable to you and possibly your business, than the little bit of loss the links represent themselves.

For me, not allowing links to my competition is a simple sign of my insecurity. I wholeheartedly believe I'd need to fix why I'm feeling insecure first, before I'd worry about the linking.

Scott

 

because sometimes, indeed often, people who have invested a great deal of time and money into their site, are not prepared to allow it to be a free advertisement for someone else.

The "reciprocal link" thing doesn't work either, because nine times out of ten the reason your site is having links to a competitor posted, is because your site is busy and the competitor site is dead/just started.
Therefore, they gain a lot from you having their link, you can nothing from them having yours.

In my experience, these sort of inks are only posted by two types of people:

1. Genuine members of your own site who are disgruntled and maliciously trying to drive traffic to a competitor.
2. Fake members, working on behalf of the competitor, trying to steal your traffic.

Occasionally someone puts a link in as part of a genuine discussion but this is so rare it's usually only worth dealing with on a case by case basis. There are so many "member thieves" and "agenda driven people" acting maliciously that in most cases it's safer to block/ban such links globally and deal with any genuine links if you happen to find them.

Even hobby sites like myself have spent years of time and effort building up what we have. there's no way I'm going to let someone come in and post saying "Hey, here's another site like this, why not post there instead?"

At my site's stage of life this wouldn't work and no members would really go, however for me it's the principle as much as anything else. For younger sites there's a very real danger of losing all your hard work. For a hobby site, that's soul destroying, for professional sites it's stealing people's livelihoods.

 

I've had it happen on my forum before. When that "forum promotion" site was first new I created a thread to talk about it, then two people running that site came over spamming the site link in the thread multiple times with their two replies, then vanished never seen again. I deleted their posts a week later, because as Mark says, some forum admins only join yours trying to promote their own and later disappear having no further interest in posting on your board.

Why should any forum owner put up with that, leave their posts intact or allow their links, when frankly it's obvious link spamming - doing the rounds searching out threads about their site and then link farming back to it?

I don't mind people adding a site link in a topic, but won't put up with link spammers, who come and join your board just to post some links, then never get seen again posting after that.

 

I agree. Spamming is a no-go.

As for your answer Mark and reason #1. Why is the user disgruntled? That is what needs addressing. If it is a genuine gripe you are not concerning yourself with, then the problem lies with you and you need to fix it and worry less about the link to the other site.

If it is someone just holding a grudge, that is naturally another story.

Scott

 

As I have said in the vBulletin discussions, being 'disgruntled' is not a valid excuse to deliberately flout the rules.

 

Especially if the content gets indexed and you rank for their own keywords. Thus, it benefits you because you steal their members somehow with how better your content is.