Is a signature with website's url outside of link any useful for SEO?

[thosecars82]

Hello

I would like to ask you about the signature in those forums in which neither "[url=..." nor "<a href..." links are allowed in signatures. My questions is: Is it still any useful/worh it for SEO purposes to include a websites' url in these forum's signature outside of a link?

For example, a signature like this one:

www.nameofwebsite.com


Thanks

[buckworks]

If you make intelligent posts in a forum that's relevant to your type of business, some users would copy and paste a signature like that to check out your site. It could have value for direct traffic.

But don't count on it for SEO value. We know that the search engines try to give less weight to links that are self-generated. We don't know what kind of weight that unlinked "citations" are given, but it would be reasonable to expect that they'd get similar down-weighting if the search engines suspect they are self-generated.

Assume that such a forum signature could be useful for reaching targeted human visitors, but very little use for SEO.

[mikeavery11]

I think these links are not useful for SEO purposes, I mean ranking up your site PR, but it will helpful to get traffic.

[halang2x]

I have the same thought with thosecars82. I always wondered if it was useful if I put my website url on my signature. Most people say that any kind of advertisement is useful for promoting a website.

[edited by: bill at 5:36 am (utc) on Oct 18, 2011]
[edit reason] Please see our TOS about linking to your own sites [/edit]

[stephen011]

It is useful to get traffic.If your post is attractive and helpful to user then they would copy and paste a signature like that to visit your site.

[g1smd]

Where a site does not have provision for signatures, placing a plain text URL is also likely to get the URL deleted and/or your post removed.

Given that a site has taken obvious measures to discourage spammers, it seems that some just don't get it.

[pageoneresults]

I believe all http/www references have value, whether they are linked or not. I've always believed that and then this topic below came along and it appears there are others who feel the same way.

Top 20 Stealth Links
[WebmasterWorld.com...]

[indusharma]

According to my experience these links are helpfull in getting traffic to our site.