Hi i'm new...

[SEOViking]

I live in norway and i've been doing seo for 2 years now. i would like to work for google (just a dream). why the hell can't we post url's to sites on here, who cares if people are trying to promote themselves? what about the outbound links + authority topic too? the reason i don't like that part is that i don't like generalizations and i always try to back up/document what i say and like that others do it too...
otherwise great site Brett, i've learned some good things here :)

[caveman]

Welcome to WW.

why the hell can't we post url's to sites on here...

Uh, I think you meant, "why can't we post url's to sites on here," right?

Because, among other things, WW is not a promotional tool for wm's. It's a place for the exchange of ideas and information about webmastering and related topics.

If you need to promote you site - and who doesn't - there are plenty of other WM/SEO forums that allow that, not to mention blogs, guestbooks, press release sites, sites that accept articles, buddy sites, directory sites, portals, authority sites, etc. And that's only the beginning... ;-)

[tedster]

You might appreciate this recent discussion in the Community Center. The community's response highlights many of the positive effects of this (admittedly sometimes PITA) policy.

[webmasterworld.com...]

[SEOViking]

the point i was making is NOT that i wanna promote my site (i stated that in my message), it was that i can't stand statements with nothing to back them up. if you can't prove what you are saying then everything is just opinion and how do you know what to believe (plus you waste time trying to figure it out yourself <-- don't respond to that, i know the counter argument and i don't like wasting my time...:)
plus you give historical value to the posts here because they "document" how things were at a certain point in time...anybody appreciate history?

if you can't see that a URL is "spam" from the context around it then you have problems... besides, it's not like tekstlinks are annoying flashing/animated gifs of ladies in swimsuits...if you don't like the links then don't click on them...
like the guy stated in the link you posted: this is just my opinion, don't get crazy on me..

[stever]

plus you give historical value to the posts here because they "document" how things were at a certain point in time...anybody appreciate history?

Quite the reverse is true on other boards. Apart from wading through the commercial URL drops, a lot of older archived posts are useless because the referenced URLs no longer exist. The discussion follows "in-the-know" lines because everyone has seen the site, but is useless for a later visitor as they can no longer visit the site.

If the time is taken to move the subject of a post from specifics to a generality, then it retains its value.

[notsleepy]

not allowing droping of URL's is one the most ingenious ideas that has made Brett's site so sucessfull and is precisely why i keep coming back.

[Rugles]

>>>if you can't see that a URL is "spam" from the context around it then you have problems

We all know spam exists, we all know what it looks like, so why do you need to link to it? Just describing the situation is usually enough to give us the idea of what you are up against.
This site has such high PR and so many relevant backlinks, that linking to it will only help the spammer and hurt you. Plus, often the spammer is a member here, and you might be insulting or hurting somebody by drawing attention to it.
Like was already mentioned, the fact that dropping URL's are not allowed is what makes this place an authority on SEO/SEM.