Contradictory Signature Files

Who the heck is going to follow their user link though if we can see that they clearly have no clue what they're talking about? I would think that this would have the effect of driving away potential clickers.

I think we all tend to forget that newbies generally don't have a clue. or been given bad clues. Things that seem drop-dead obvious for many of us are not so obvious for the new guy. The internet has such a "wild west" feel that many don't stop and think that what they are doing in IM is creating a business, not just social networking for profit.

So many things are free on the internet that people seem to think that making money online should be absolutely free and easy - shortcuts are tempting, especially when you're not aware of how they can bite you later!

joe

That's not faking it till you make it though. That's playing the newbie part.

If you are faking it until you make it, you don't ask those questions out loud. You research your butt off or contact people directly.

Asking a question that your signature claims you fully know how to do is eliminating the faking part altogether.

Travis

Yes it should. But i'm sure by now you've realized how uncommon common sense is.

Maybe in this strange IM world... otherwise, in real life it's not like that. Although most people like to think so

When I used to be a theatre critic sometimes the not-so-bright actors that were heavily criticized for their less than stellar performance used to angrily provoke me: "can you perform better than I do?" - And the obvious answer is, of course not.

Not, because it is not my job. Same goes quite often with teaching/coaching: the best coaches are not the former star players, did you notice?

just my $0.02

p.s. But I agree with everything about the sig files

Is it legal to do that?

A wiseman once said: "Online, appearance is everything" - Felix Kelly

N00bs learn from those guru type courses (even though they claim not being one) that they can appear to be an expert in anything even if you know nothing about the topic; research the topic and learn and poof you're an instant expert in the subject. This is somewhat true to a certain extent, to appear to be an expert you have to be able to give information that is nowhere else on the web. I can easily sell someone tennis rackets and I know nothing about tennis.

About the above quote, specifically, this is a great example... That's an SEO tactic and goes as follow. Go and "target high traffic and authority websites because the question might just appear on page 1 of Google", which, if you think about it, yeah, it happens a LOT. This could also be a paid service, someone paying for SEO services so this person made an SEO related thread, if it makes #1 of Google for that question... Fight won and it's a double-double whammy! A backlink from a high PR domain, from an authority website, high traffic website and a backlink that can potentially end up on page 1 of Google. They're getting a backlink from a page that appears on page one.

It's rather hard to tell in those cases if it was created with a tool. Usually, if the poster only created one post on that thread, chances are high that it was made with a bot. If you Google the thread's title and find multiples of the same thread, with a highly similar "post", then it was likely done with a bot. *HINT HINT* Joke's on them though, yes, they will look pretty stupid posting a question on SEO with a sig link about SEO services, we (us being smart) can then post an educated reply with our sig link. They id all the work

Hope this helps