SitePoint.com

lee_vhoi_ol · Dec 13, 2007, 14:23

How effective are forum posts for SEO?

moreover, is it useful to post the sites in a forum that is unrelated to the sites? (like what I'm doing right now.

)

hooperman · Dec 13, 2007, 14:39

At the rate you're going, you'll be able to test this yourself by changing your sig links and seeing what happens

Further than getting a spider to your page to crawl it, I doubt that sig links give any sizeable benefit in terms of ranking.

lee_vhoi_ol · Dec 13, 2007, 14:41

So basically, the main benefit is the frequency of spiders crawling over the site? It isn't helpful for anchor weight?

hooperman · Dec 13, 2007, 14:52

I would guess that they're a little helpful. Given that they are merely a vote for yourself, how likely is it that Google is going to give massive weight to them?

If a page is getting 'good' links anyway, I doubt that sig links will make much difference to your ranking.

consumertreehse · Dec 13, 2007, 15:13

I think it's useful to have a link to your site anywhere, forum posts, forum sigs, e-mails sigs, social network sites, etc....

Every little bit helps, so take advantage of it.

lee_vhoi_ol · Dec 13, 2007, 15:58

I'm interested in what would happen to the SERPs of someone with 1000 or more posts here, then suddenly removing the links from their signature for a couple of days. Anyone willing to oblige?

stymiee · Dec 13, 2007, 16:17

Posting in forums for the sake of getting backlinks through signatures is a waste of time. The links have such little value that the ROI is just awful. But if you participate in forums then you should take advantage of your signature as you can get decent traffic and maybe even find others wanting to link to you because they like your site.

As far as your little experiment is concerned, I've changed my signature around several times and I have a crapload of posts. No significant changes for any terms I monitor.

lee_vhoi_ol · Dec 13, 2007, 16:39

ok, thanks for the clarification stymiee.

xdhirax · Dec 13, 2007, 20:09

Some of the best ways to get SEO links you can imagine.

There are industries that do nothing but promote this technique as your only SEO need.

dvduval · Dec 13, 2007, 20:32

Forums are more for making friends. Make the right friends, and prove your honesty and worth, and much can follow. SEO would be only a minor side benefit at best.

markov · Dec 14, 2007, 06:46

If you can participate in related forums, then definitely it could be helpful to you .

JJMcClure · Dec 14, 2007, 06:48

I'd agree with the people that said it might be useful as a way of letting spiders find a new site or to actually learn something by spendig time on the forum but the backlink will have next to no weight.

Poiesis01 · Dec 14, 2007, 07:22

Only nofollow links don't help with SERPS all others are useful to varying degrees. Backlinks are the cornerstone of ranking well in Google.

stymiee · Dec 14, 2007, 07:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Poiesis01

Only nofollow links don't help with SERPS all others are useful to varying degrees.

Not all forums use nofollow. Sitepoint doesn't for example.

splendidcredit · Dec 14, 2007, 11:30

participating in forum helped me a lot..

lee_vhoi_ol · Dec 14, 2007, 13:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by splendidcredit

participating in forum helped me a lot..

in what way?

lee_vhoi_ol · Dec 14, 2007, 13:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by xdhirax

Some of the best ways to get SEO links you can imagine.

There are industries that do nothing but promote this technique as your only SEO need.

such as what industry? And was this actually effective?

lee_vhoi_ol · Dec 14, 2007, 13:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by dvduval

Forums are more for making friends. Make the right friends, and prove your honesty and worth, and much can follow. SEO would be only a minor side benefit at best.

I agree.

rcj662 · Dec 14, 2007, 14:34

If you put links related to forum you can get traffic. Seo wise they do not help alot but do not hurt either.

zingo454 · Dec 14, 2007, 15:37

I like the traffic I get from forum postings.. I am sure the S.E like them just a lil..

MrCat · Dec 14, 2007, 23:12

The best way to optimize the results of forum participation is thru your signature. Participate constructively and people may take notice of your sig links and eventually click through it

JJMcClure · Dec 15, 2007, 07:50

The easiest way to test this would be to set up a site that only has backlinks from forums and see if it's PR rises or not.

Even more targeted, a site for each forum.

hooperman · Dec 15, 2007, 08:24

One of the problems with that is that you don't know what the real PR of a page is.

But just considering toolbar PR, suppose your toolbar PR changes after your forum backlinks get indexed. Is that because:
a) of the forum links
b) Google are messing with toolbar PR (lots of that going on recently and not just restricted to sites being penalised)
c) Google have recalibrated the scale because the highest PR page just got higher/lower
d) people have linked to your page and you now have links that you don't know about
e) Google have changed some of the factors in PR calculation (e.g. the damping factor)

JJMcClure · Dec 15, 2007, 11:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by hooperman

One of the problems with that is that you don't know what the real PR of a page is.

But just considering toolbar PR, suppose your toolbar PR changes after your forum backlinks get indexed. Is that because:
a) of the forum links
b) Google are messing with toolbar PR (lots of that going on recently and not just restricted to sites being penalised)
c) Google have recalibrated the scale because the highest PR page just got higher/lower
d) people have linked to your page and you now have links that you don't know about
e) Google have changed some of the factors in PR calculation (e.g. the damping factor)

Since no one knows for sure, we'll just have to work with what we've got won't we. Plus I did say 'set up a site', so it would have no PR at all until the forum links kicked in.

How could you have links you don't know about and call yourself an SEO? Wasn't it you who said that you understand the PR formula? No probs figuring out where it's coming from then.

You know you're one of the most pedantic posters I've ever come across, I'm going to enjoy exchanging posts with you. Feel free to thoroughly pick apart anything I say on here, it will keep me on my toes and ensure that I'm at least fairly sure of my facts before saying anything.

stymiee · Dec 15, 2007, 13:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by JJMcClure

Since no one knows for sure, we'll just have to work with what we've got won't we.

That data is so old and inaccurate it really is useless. You can't do anything meaningful with it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JJMcClure

How could you have links you don't know about and call yourself an SEO? Wasn't it you who said that you understand the PR formula? No probs figuring out where it's coming from then.

There is no way to find out where all of your links come form. None. There are tools that can help a lot but no way to know for sure. And knowing where your links are coming from really has nothing to do with PR. Maybe marketing, but definitely not PR.

Dec 13, 2007, 14:23	#1
lee_vhoi_ol SitePoint Addict Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: California Posts: 357	How effective are forum posts for SEO? How effective are forum posts for SEO? moreover, is it useful to post the sites in a forum that is unrelated to the sites? (like what I'm doing right now. )

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Dec 13, 2007, 14:39	#2
hooperman SitePoint Wizard Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Manchester, UK Posts: 3,999	At the rate you're going, you'll be able to test this yourself by changing your sig links and seeing what happens Further than getting a spider to your page to crawl it, I doubt that sig links give any sizeable benefit in terms of ranking.

Dec 13, 2007, 14:41	#3
lee_vhoi_ol SitePoint Addict Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: California Posts: 357	So basically, the main benefit is the frequency of spiders crawling over the site? It isn't helpful for anchor weight?

Dec 13, 2007, 14:52	#4
hooperman SitePoint Wizard Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Manchester, UK Posts: 3,999	I would guess that they're a little helpful. Given that they are merely a vote for yourself, how likely is it that Google is going to give massive weight to them? If a page is getting 'good' links anyway, I doubt that sig links will make much difference to your ranking.

Dec 13, 2007, 15:13	#5
consumertreehse SitePoint Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 16	I think it's useful to have a link to your site anywhere, forum posts, forum sigs, e-mails sigs, social network sites, etc.... Every little bit helps, so take advantage of it.

Dec 13, 2007, 15:58	#6
lee_vhoi_ol SitePoint Addict Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: California Posts: 357	I'm interested in what would happen to the SERPs of someone with 1000 or more posts here, then suddenly removing the links from their signature for a couple of days. Anyone willing to oblige?

Dec 13, 2007, 16:17	#7
stymiee He's No Good To Me Dead Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Slave I Posts: 24,090	Posting in forums for the sake of getting backlinks through signatures is a waste of time. The links have such little value that the ROI is just awful. But if you participate in forums then you should take advantage of your signature as you can get decent traffic and maybe even find others wanting to link to you because they like your site. As far as your little experiment is concerned, I've changed my signature around several times and I have a crapload of posts. No significant changes for any terms I monitor.

Dec 13, 2007, 16:39	#8
lee_vhoi_ol SitePoint Addict Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: California Posts: 357	ok, thanks for the clarification stymiee.

Dec 13, 2007, 20:09	#9
xdhirax SitePoint Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 2	Some of the best ways to get SEO links you can imagine. There are industries that do nothing but promote this technique as your only SEO need.

Dec 13, 2007, 20:32	#10
dvduval phpLD Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Atlanta Posts: 3,259	Forums are more for making friends. Make the right friends, and prove your honesty and worth, and much can follow. SEO would be only a minor side benefit at best.

Dec 14, 2007, 06:46	#11
markov SitePoint Addict Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 264	If you can participate in related forums, then definitely it could be helpful to you .

Dec 14, 2007, 06:48	#12
JJMcClure Site Point Gnu Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: UK Nr Manchester Posts: 2,335	I'd agree with the people that said it might be useful as a way of letting spiders find a new site or to actually learn something by spendig time on the forum but the backlink will have next to no weight.

Dec 14, 2007, 07:22	#13
Poiesis01 SitePoint Addict Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Cape Town Posts: 229	Only nofollow links don't help with SERPS all others are useful to varying degrees. Backlinks are the cornerstone of ranking well in Google.

Dec 14, 2007, 11:30	#15
splendidcredit SitePoint Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 17	participating in forum helped me a lot..

Dec 14, 2007, 14:34	#19
rcj662 SitePoint Wizard Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 1,203	If you put links related to forum you can get traffic. Seo wise they do not help alot but do not hurt either.

Dec 14, 2007, 15:37	#20
zingo454 SitePoint Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 9	I like the traffic I get from forum postings.. I am sure the S.E like them just a lil..

Dec 14, 2007, 23:12	#21
MrCat SitePoint Evangelist Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 483	The best way to optimize the results of forum participation is thru your signature. Participate constructively and people may take notice of your sig links and eventually click through it

Dec 15, 2007, 07:50	#22
JJMcClure Site Point Gnu Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: UK Nr Manchester Posts: 2,335	The easiest way to test this would be to set up a site that only has backlinks from forums and see if it's PR rises or not. Even more targeted, a site for each forum.

Dec 15, 2007, 08:24	#23
hooperman SitePoint Wizard Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Manchester, UK Posts: 3,999	One of the problems with that is that you don't know what the real PR of a page is. But just considering toolbar PR, suppose your toolbar PR changes after your forum backlinks get indexed. Is that because: a) of the forum links b) Google are messing with toolbar PR (lots of that going on recently and not just restricted to sites being penalised) c) Google have recalibrated the scale because the highest PR page just got higher/lower d) people have linked to your page and you now have links that you don't know about e) Google have changed some of the factors in PR calculation (e.g. the damping factor)