AFAIK it has been implimented already, but I may be wrong. If I am, it’s going to happen very soon…
Having said that, you have 100 posts so your links are followed. Or are you talking about other people?
It’s all good. That’s why you come to forums and ask questions! (Not that I am an expert in all things… I just happen to see more forum myths than most people due to the amount of time I spend here!)
100%. You have hit the nail on the head. PR is calculated at a page level, not a site level.
I wish I could answer that. All I can suggest is that you read entire threads before making a judgement, and ask for an explanation (just as you have here). Don’t listen to the people that give one-liners but can’t back it up.
Have you read the posts in this thread? You’ll find that the overwhelming consensus of members who can actually reason things out, is that forum links have very little effect. They even give reasons why they think this.
Because you never know when someone may find your site useful, or a post insightful enough to warrant checking you out further. It happens with me all the time and most of the links in my signature come right back here to SitePoint.
Don’t know if anyone is thinking about doing this but when new members sign up, there should be a huge notice on the sign up page that says:
[B][SIZE=“4”][COLOR=“Red”]Signature links on this forum are NOFOLLOW for the first 100 posts.
Forum signature links have almost no SERP value. To make the most of your forum signature links, make sure that your posts have value and contribute to the community and make people want to visit your site.[/COLOR][/SIZE][/B]
For me forums such as DP and Sitepoint are 100% about the community and the answers they bring to the questions we all have as we build our sites/businesses. Of course I have signature links so that people can see what I am working on (and that changes from time to time) but the most interesting thing about these forums is the advice and support I get.
For traffic, make sure that your signature links is relative. I.e. people in this forum don’t really care about Drug Rehabilitation. I have had some solid traffic from my signature and even made some sales.
For SEO, I link most of my sites because “it doesn’t hurt”, but I can’t imagine having any real significance.
These links must be relevant for the forum’s target. In example if you have a dating link you will probably get good traffic from dating and related forums. If you have a webmaster resource link you will get good traffic from forums like this one.
Post your links if these are relevant for the people on the forum and they will click.
I would not click on my video conference software link if I didn’t have a website that could use that. I would probably not use this signature on a forum about music - most users there don’t have websites to be able to use this software. Although, discussions about “videos” could be relevant to “video conference” in search engines.
If you’re posting in a relevant field than I think they’re very valuable. Although, I was able to get a fitness trainer’s website to #1 for major keywords just from DP forums sig.
The thing is though fireworking, those signature links DON’T help. Look at how many links are on a given thread. (Or even just this one.) If you divided that number by 100 (just to make things easy), you’d quickly see just how little they actually help.
(Not that I am an expert in all things… I just happen to see more forum myths than most people due to the amount of time I spend here!)
