Considering charging for signature links

Implications?

[stuartmcdonald]

I currently allow forum members on my travel-related site to add a signature to their forum posts -- if the link goes to some kind of business, eg a travel agent, then I require a link back before the signature link is activated. The signature link is not marked as nofollow.

I'm considering changing the rules and requiring business to pay an annual fee in order to add a signature link. Was wondering if anyone had experience in doing something like this?

In doing this, I assume they'd become "paid links" in Google's eyes, so I'd need to mark them no-follow and brand them as advertisements -- that's not a big issue for me, but I was wondering if others had any suggestions/advice.

Tks in advance

[MWpro]

How do you mark them as no follow? Javascript?

[stuartmcdonald]

It would be hard-coded into the forum -- I'd just alter the signature function to output the link with ref="nofollow" appended to the link.

[rogerd]

That's an interesting idea, Stuart... Do you also restrict links in posts? I can certainly imagine some of your members not paying for the sig link but trying to stick their link in posts as often as they can.

Chances are, the nofollow won't dissuade too many of your commercial members. I'd guess most are trolling for customers, and any SEO link benefits are secondary (if they even know about that).

[stuartmcdonald]

We don't allow any HTML posted in the message posts. The site in question is travel related, so if a member mentions a destination in their post that we cover then a link is automatically added to their post, linking the destination in their post to its coverage on the site, but aside from that, if a member posts a link we consider to be worthwhile, then me make the link live manually via the admin panel.

That being the case, posters realise pretty quickly that if they want to get a live commercial link in, they need to have it in the footer and have a link back to us.