Crosslinking

How do you guys feel about crosslinking between your forums?

Do you post announcements about a new forum your working on on already established ones you've made?

I'm torn on it. I'd like for my members on one forum to be under the impression that I'm solely devoted to that forum, and not that I'm commercializing and doing a bunch.

But on the other hand, I'm sure alot of people would check out an additional forum out of interest if they know the administrator on the forum made it.

I guess it depends on niche. If Daniel was to open a forum dedicated totally to publishing, that would be perfect to advertise on his WritingForums.org, and also if I was to open another TV fansite, it would be perfect to crosslink.

 

Very good question.

In general, I don't. At least I don't announce it - I might post a link in the forum footer or something. I have advertised a tv forum when I ran about 3. In general, however, I don't.

 

It does depend.

Sometimes members of one forum already know about the development of another. In that case I would tell them about the new forum and possibly put a link on the established one.

However, there is a good possibility the new forum has nothing to do with the established one. I think it's best to just let it be or maybe put a link in your signature if that is the situation.

 

Yeah.

I think it depends on the type of site as well. I run four television geared fansites, and bill it as a "network" of sorts. I think that if your a member on one TV site, you would very well be interested in another of that type of site. Though I think subtlety is the key.

 

It definitely does depend on the situation. If the sites are closely related, I don't see what is wrong with cross-linking and promoting. Using your already-established forum is a great promotional tool.

If the sites are not related, however, then I think it would be best to just place a link in the footer, on your affiliates page, or wherever you link to other sites.

 

I cross link between some of them. Usually it;'s links from the general forum to the more specific ones. I don't link back from the targeted forums to my general topic forums.

-Raymond

 

If you're like me, running an education forum, and starting an adult discussions forum, you better not crosslink them.

 

My forums are so diverse, law, finance and cars that it wouldn't help me, so I usually keep it separate.

I mean, Lawyers use financiers and they all drive cars, but still... better to keep it specialized I reckon.

 

Yeah, I agree -- especially when the niches are so far apart

 

Yes and no.

I have a forum that points to my other sites, but they do not link back to my main forum. One thing that I try to stay away from, and that is link exchanging. Instead I go for one way links. So I link a couple of my forums, but only with one way links.

 

I hope you all excuse my ignorance but why? Is there any benefit to do that or disadvantage by having the same sig on all forums.

 

If you read through the google webmaster guidelines and tips - they (google) recommend that you stay away from link exchanges.

The reason being, you should only link to sites you are interested in. With a link exchange, your not really interested in the other site, you just want to exchange links.

 

I've never come across this piece of information. Thanks for sharing!

 

I am still looking. If you have a link share that please. Ive been doing this wrong for quite a while.

 

Personally I wouldn't directly post it under my account. I would make a neat small banner and place it somewhere in one of the templates. Whether it be at the login screen (IPB) or somewhere else such as where the forum stats are or underneath that.