Links from forum signatures

does the identical link text/site trip the filters?

[loftx]

Hi I have a small content site which is doing very bad in google (301st in a non-competitive industry) and I can't see any real problems except I get most of my traffic and links from forums.

I'm a regular poster in the forums in my industry and have over 3000 posts across 5 or so forums which are likel to be filled with useful keywords, though the anchor text will be the same for every link. Might google penalize me becuase it sees 2000 links from one site with the same anchor text?

If this is the case, what should I do as I get lots of traffic through the links in my sig.

Thanks

Tom

[sabai]

Links form forums have long been used by spammers as a way to get some quick, easy links, so it's something to be wary of... I think that for identical link text, and for most forum links google would be more likely to ingore them / not give credit for them than to penalise your site for having them.

There are a lot of small content sites out there doing very badly for no particular reason, if that makes you feel any better :-)

[isitreal]

If the sites support bb code your link text doesn't need to be the same, like this:

(url=http://yoursite.com/pagex.htm)our great widgets(/url) ( replace ( ) with [ ] )

If the site runs phpbb it supports bb code, I don't know if most forums do, I think they do though.

However, try visiting the forums with your cookie support turned off, see if there is a?sid=l;jsdafljadslfjl;au53402w5hh34257324p743p597 type string in the url of the page, if there is, google won't index it if I remember right, and a lot of forums are not set up correctly to be search engine friendly, so many of your postings will be wasted if that's the case. This also applies if no registration is required to post in most cases.

[Marcia]

I've seen loads and loads of links from forum pages in Google with no title/no description/URL only - and they're not even sigs, it's just too many and too close to near_duplication.

[nalin]

I dont mind putting my site in my sig and there are a handful of forums where I do so but generally do not post frequently (and specifically DO NOT POST for pr - I post to post with the sig as an added bonus, one of my competitors posts for page rank and it drives me bonkers because I dont think you could devise a more sef serving ruin the net for others scheme without exploiting windows bugs)

Perhaps if you were to change your sig regularly (~weekly) then the higher pr pages would be spidered and get the new anchor whereas the lower ones would retain the old anchor for some time - you could in this way (and barring a full respidering) perhaps get 4 or 5 sigs in rotation. Dependant upon how much repition is out there you might need to go more or less gung hoe on it, get a second or third identity involved, etc.

Additionally take careful note of where you are posting - for instance alot of people put their site in the sig at other seo forums - I avoid this like the plague because it allows your competitors to find these sites (rather trivally) and know what your asking and where your stratergies are headed, know your handle, (there and likly elsewhere), and such.

[skipfactor]

>>I avoid this like the plague because it allows your competitors to find these sites (rather trivally) and know what your asking and where your stratergies are headed, know your handle, (there and likly elsewhere), and such.

Nothing like having a quasi-daily diary for your competitor(s)! However, those who still spew their sigs all over the place are usually too far behind to make it worth the read.