Forum Signatures No Longer Viewable To Non-Logged In Users

[slappy12]

I only commented on it due to you stating non relevant sigs should not be allowed, personally I don't care what sigs people have as long as they are not deemed detrimental to the forum they are on, I would prefer it if they only showed once per page and only if there are a certain amount of words in the post though.

[slappy12]

Heres a good analogy of allowing sigs on every post, post 73 and 75 we have your sig showing, what would happen if you approached google ads and said you want their adverts at the top and bottom of your portal page of one of your websites, but, you want 4 ads in each block and the top ads have to be the same as the bottom ads, would they laugh at you and the dumb idea of repeating the same ads? So why bother allowing repeats of sigs already on a page, it doesn't help anyone at all and is just a waste.

[seekers]

Oh..now i'm understand why my signature go nofollow..

[bgil]

Anybody else think that Asset Finance is actually a comic supervillain? It's just that post I can imagine him on top of an ivory tower, stroking a white cat, in a huge leather chair.

At the risk of a fluff post: I am so LOL!!!

[slappy12]

Perfect example of why sigs should only show if a certain amount of words are in the post there bgil, 11 word post showing a 16 word signature, so stop fluffing

[gurukid22]

A lot of forums are taking this approach but i think it is dangerous the success and growth of forums is due to people wanting back links the amount of people who simply help people for nothing is very small. as you can see that nearly every poster is promoting something in their signatures that's why their here if you stop them completely the amount of people asking question will take over the amount of people replying and forums will loose their power.

Why don't you use the community to vote out what crap a "this is spam button" that will remove the post by qualified members (made at least 100 posts) i think this will work because forumer's who work hard to give good responses will always vote against spammers.

And why shouldn't people doing the right thing profit with some back links after all its the people who reply with quality that have built the forum world give them something back!

Please tell me what you think!

[livetech]

And why shouldn't people doing the right thing profit with some back links after all its the people who reply with quality that have built the forum world give them something back!

Go back and reread the last 4 pages. On those pages, there are oooh, at least 5 people on each page who are do the right thing for nothing, plus there's a bunch of others in the forum who aren't posting on here.

Suprisingly, not everybody wants to "profit" on everything. Myself one of them. I come on here to grow myself, not my websites.

[r937]

... the success and growth of forums is due to people wanting back links the amount of people who simply help people for nothing is very small.

you obviously weren't here before all the "seo experts" arrived and started to pollute this forum with crap

[longneck]

I come on here to grow myself, not my websites.

seconded.

[slappy12]

Here's a good idea, this is a website development forum, it has I think 4 million odd posts so a lot of info if you read all of them, everybody is allowed to and encouraged to post threads on things they want to know about, so how bout only allowing sigs to sites that are on googles first page for at least 10 keywords in different selections, if you read even 3 percent of this site you will learn how to get your stuff on first page anyway, that will benifit other members in that google has already appraised the site and recognised its worthy of recognition, it will benifit the person who has the sig as he will be getting hits from search engines and actually has something half decent to put on the table so to speak, and also gets the crap and spammers off the site.

Just a shame it could never be implemented

[Tarh]

the success and growth of forums is due to people wanting back links

That sounds like a very nasty place to be. Remind me never to visit those forums!

[gurukid22]

Go back and reread the last 4 pages. On those pages, there are oooh, at least 5 people on each page who are do the right thing for nothing, plus there's a bunch of others in the forum who aren't posting on here.

Suprisingly, not everybody wants to "profit" on everything. Myself one of them. I come on here to grow myself, not my websites.

Your a good person, doing the write thing good for you! I hope there is enough people like you to support the forum.

[molona]

I come on here to grow myself, not my websites.

Have you ever thought that by growing and learning more your websites would benefit from that? And you said that you didn't come for profit

The profit isn't necessarily monetary. Knowing that you are a bit closer to wisdom helps!

PS: It is not my case but I try

[gurukid22]

Wisdom is something that beginners need like me, we get it from experienced people who don't need wisdom they come here for back links. If there not here to answer us we wont be here to ask.

[bluedreamer]

That's good news, anything to deter link droppers and spammers!

Maybe you should also put a profanity filter on the word "SEO"

[molona]

Here's a good idea, this is a website development forum, it has I think 4 million odd posts so a lot of info if you read all of them, everybody is allowed to and encouraged to post threads on things they want to know about, so how bout only allowing sigs to sites that are on googles first page for at least 10 keywords in different selections, if you read even 3 percent of this site you will learn how to get your stuff on first page anyway, that will benifit other members in that google has already appraised the site and recognised its worthy of recognition, it will benifit the person who has the sig as he will be getting hits from search engines and actually has something half decent to put on the table so to speak, and also gets the crap and spammers off the site.

Just a shame it could never be implemented

As you said, that idea can be hardly implemented but it would also be so unfair. The beauty of internet is that all of us can make it to the top if we are smart enough to learn from our mistakes and work hard. It is that easy. But I think that making it harder for new businesses for the sole reason that they have not gotten there yet is unfair.

Forums are created to help other people that are interested in a certain topic. That is, we want YOU to profit from this forum and achieve your goal.

But I personally don't want to help someone sneaky or that annoys people by sending them unnecessary publicity.

If people didn't abuse the help they're given, if they didn't come only for back links, or to spam users, then it would be no problem at all to leave signatures visible.

Unfortunately, these persons think that just because they are part of the community, they can do whatever they want. But the majority prevails, and wants quality. That means fighting against spammers and people solely interested in back links.

[slappy12]

For people that are worried about there sigs and all the traffic it may or may not bring them from forums heres a couple of things to think about, lets say the sigs are dofollow on this thread, its going to be a long thread with a lot of views so really shouldn't be taken as an average thread which may have say 300 views before dissappearing never to be seen again, forum pages are dynamic and not static, you are competing with probably about 300 outgoing links on each page, google etc will most likely only go 4 clicks deep into a forum, so page 5 and thats it?
This page here has nothing of value to google so yes they will index it and then most likely drop it, out of 4 million posts on this forum google has kept ผลการค้นหา1-10จากประมาณ512,000จากsitepoint.com half a million, assuming that the forum is submitted as posts and threads etc to google most of the forum is not on google which is the case of all forums, so looking at those figures you need to do 8 posts with your sig showing to be able to get one to stick with google, say one of your 8 posts that stick is on this thread, basically its a worthless link as people are not going to be googling about different forums sig rules, well, unless they really are anally retentive

[slappy12]

And this thread will most likely never get page ranking, believe me forum spamming for backlinks isn't worth the time and energy, if you want to spam just find a spammers user name, google it, join the first 2 pages of forums that show on google, ie the strongest, make sure guests can see members details and there is a place for homepage, join the forum with a name similar to what you would want your anchor text to be, fill out all the other details with stuff you want associatted with your site and you got yourself a backlink, aint annoyed anyone, the forum is happy they got a new member and everything is hunky dory.

A good example is if you promote a yearly event, your user name would be the event, chuck all the details in there, your birthday fill out the date near the event, your birthday comes up on the main forum index page which is one of the strongest pages, you got that on say 100 forums thats quite a lot of links that will get indexed, but for spamming just follow the spammers, it makes life easier.

[falsealarm]

Absolutely. One of the main reasons why people contribute in forums is the return on their time investment. I post here and not only expect to get feedback/answers/knowledge in return but also the signature links. This is not the sole but an added benefit to being a member of this forum. However, when there are several other forums to contribute and receive both the main and added values, when contribute here? This is what a considerable portion of the members will think.

I think it is a good thing, but I am curious to see what it does to the volume of new posts. Will it send more than the fluff away? I suspect that at least some percentage of people who made good posts chose to participate in this forum rather than another forum because of the perceived value of the signature links.

I guess time will tell.

[slappy12]

Another idea for all those so worried about their signatures etc, why not put some good original content on your websites, believe it or not it does work, if it is informative and reasonably well written people link to it for you, just an idea for some of you to mull over.

I should mention that over 50 percent of traffic to my main site comes from search engines and an extremely small percentage from links, I reckon probably 1 in 50 on a normal link page or forum may click a link to your site, on here I should imagine a lot less as so many people have multiple links in their signature.

[slappy12]

Also don't forget that linking pictures from your website is probably a better way to get your site in googles radar as it is in the main body of the text, also google only knows its a pic by the .jpg or whatever and can only guess what it is by the pic description, ie your url and anchor text, another thing with pics is to water mark them with your url and also fill out the alt text.

Also if its a funny picture that may get emailed around you want to upload it to photobucket, imageshack and all the others, ok it aint much good for search engines but people get to see the url etc.

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Last edited by spikeZ; Today at 12:12. Reason: I am evil

[Artashes]

@ slappy12, you've already made 11 posts in this thread alone. Are you planning to hit the 100 post minimum just talking about the new simple signature rule that was introduced?

[slappy12]

Does it worry you that I might put a link in my signature Artashes?
If you want I can promise here and now never to put in a signature, it really wouldn't make any difference to me or my websites anyway as they are not related to web development, plus as you can see there really is no need for sigs anyway to get traffic

Mods you can edit this post if you consider it spamming, just thought it was funny so done it quite big so easy to find, 1 by 1 transparent is better

[Five 25 Media]

@Five 24 Media - welcome to the forum then You are exactly the type of member we need!

That's it I'm leaving Ryan!

[molona]

an added benefit to being a member of this forum.

You said it. An added benefit which spammers abuse of. I repeat, an added benefit, not a mandatory benefit.

If there were not so many people trying to break the rules, there would have not been a problem and signatures would have been dofollow.

However, when there are several other forums to contribute and receive both the main and added values, when contribute here? This is what a considerable portion of the members will think.

I take your point and I understand it although it is a bit of a shock to me that some people can't simply understand why this decission has been taken and prefer being spammed than keeping the quality up.

I will insist on the fact that a forum is not created to satisfy your need of backlinks but to respecfully discuss about common interest topics.

@slappy12 - you certainly love attention

The picture came unexpected and it is amusing indeed, yet it is unappropiate for this thread and completely unnecessary to make your point. Please, remove it. Thank you.