Forum Links & Signatures MIGHT Actually Hurt You!

by GeorgR.

Posted: 12 years ago 26 replies

This is bad news!

Recently i heard a few stories from people who run into trouble and/or Google penalizations, and forum links may be one reason why your site is hurting in rankings!

Google is evaluating all links "how natural" and "organic" they are, and each link which is "not organic" might actually hurt your site. Now, this is not something new.

But, here is the definition of what Google mean with real "organic" backlinks:
Those are links which other webmasters put on their site(s) to voluntarily link to YOUR site as a reference. (In-context links).

A forum link, eg. a signature is therefore NOT a natural, "organic" link since it's rather obvious that it has been put there intentionally.

Basically, all kinds of "obvious" intentional links can/could hurt your site like

* Forum sigs and links
* WIDE scale article distribution to a lot of lower quality "article sites"

etc...

This will also mean that a lower, reasonable number of "good" links might be better as opposed to many "bad" links. I know its obvious and nothing new, but just saying...

#forum #hurt #links #signatures

Maraun 12 years ago

Thanks, but what made you write this post? Did anything specific happen?
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yukon

Banned 12 years ago

Yet you have keyword anchor-text backlinks in your forum sig., lol.

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You can't possibly believe what you posted in OP or you would remove your forum sig. here on Warrior forum.

Originally Posted by GeorgR.

This is bad news!

Recently i heard a few stories from people who run into trouble and/or Google penalizations, and forum links may be one reason why your site is hurting in rankings!

Google is evaluating all links "how natural" and "organic" they are, and each rank which is "not organic" might actually hurt your site. Now, this is not something new.

But, here is the definition of what Google mean with real "organic" backlinks:
Those are links which other webmasters put on their site(s) to voluntarily link to YOUR site as a reference. (In-context links).

A forum link, eg. a signature is therefore NOT a natural, "organic" link since it's rather obvious that it has been put there intentionally.

Basically, all kinds of "obvious" intentional links can/could hurt your site like

* Forum sigs and links
* WIDE scale article distribution to a lot of lower quality "article sites"

etc...

This will also mean that a lower, reasonable number of "good" links might be better as opposed to many "bad" links. I know its obvious and nothing new, but just saying...

Thanks
1 reply

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stephenwaldo

12 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

Yet you have keyword anchor-text backlinks in your forum sig., lol.

You can't possibly believe what you posted in OP or you would remove your forum sig. here on Warrior forum.

To be fair, the links that are in the OP's sig are NOT backlinks solely for the purpose of SEO, but promoting CPA offers (seems like to me, although I guess I don't absolutely know his intentions).

That being said, I still don't know if I buy it, or at least that I buy it any more now than I have for the past "since I've been doing SEO"-years.

I mean, I believe that the huge profile blasts will raise some red flags and could possibly lead to penalties...I believe that Google is trying to fight spam links, just like they always have been...

But I don't believe that simply the overall-source of a given backlink (forum sig, article directory, blog comment, etc) will, alone, ever discount the quality of that link.

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Ord Allenbea 12 years ago

Google knows and understand the difference between "spammy links" and forum sigs. This is and always has been calculated in their algorithm and yes there is a different kind of weight put on those links.
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Mantasmo 12 years ago

Here we go again. Welcome back GeorgR.
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bigcat1967 12 years ago

You can't possibly believe what you posted in OP or you would remove your forum sig. here on Warrior forum.

He just wants a free backlink...
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- pwtmike 12 years ago
  
  I am removing my link from every forum I've joined... thanks for the tip! :rolleyes:
  
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patco 12 years ago

Why do you think Google will find these links as spammy one's? Forum sigs are an easy way for webmasters to help their SERP from years now... Did Google change anything???
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dp40oz 12 years ago

6000 posts in and this is what you post? SEO news and hearsay from 2002.
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- GeorgR. 12 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by dp40oz
  
  6000 posts in and this is what you post? SEO news and hearsay from 2002.
  
  Well obviously not all agree with you there, and with me.
  
  I am just telling what i read in the last few days.
  
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  tryinhere 12 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by GeorgR.
  
  Well obviously not all agree with you there, and with me.
  
  I am just telling what i read in the last few days.
  
  maybe throw some validated links to the source, but in reality if that was true would not the whole internet be in a spin with panites down ? or is it coming, and I am not judgung you, just facts is what people would want.
  
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tryinhere

12 years ago

Originally Posted by GeorgR.

This is bad news!

Basically, all kinds of "obvious" intentional links can/could hurt your site like

* Forum sigs and links
* WIDE scale article distribution to a lot of lower quality "article sites"

...

ok everyone removes every article and forum link ever placed / that would also apply to bookmarking , blogs and what about paid ads with links ?

yup i see a lot of people busy deleting all of that

and just when does a link to low grade article base fall foul and why does a link to a high grade article base become ok if both breach the primary rule ?

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GeorgR.

12 years ago

Uhm, why the hate?

I was pointing this out because i came across some postings HERE as well as on trafficplanet where Google pointed this out to someone and told him it was "bad" links he needs to get rid off. No, it was not me!

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Cantbedone!

12 years ago

Originally Posted by GeorgR.

I can't say that I understand it completely but I will say that I'm not surprised. I had an "autoblog" of sorts from early last year (a failed experiment) that ran nothing but user-submitted UAW posts.

At some point a contributor contacted me via email and told me his site had been penalized and that the message from Google indicated that he had too many of those kind of links ( i dont remember the exact terminology he used) but he had been told to remove them and so he was contacting me to get me to remove the links that were pointing back to his site. I obliged but I was a little confused. Since then I've been getting pretty paranoid about the long term viability of backlink generation.

Google is not dumb and I'm just wondering how long it will take them to completely negate the effects of self-made backlinks.

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thedigger 12 years ago

Not 100% agree. This is just a few minute work to identify the link coming to your site is natural or not. 2 or three forum scripts are popular vbulleting, phpbb, etc. Google can easily identify your links. Actually google started action on human behavior. If you content is not worthy or your site force user to search the related keyword again after closing your website, it can also hurt your ranking. So I advice take backlinks from anywhere but keep your blog/website worthy for users. Google notices the behavior when a user starts search, get his requirements and end his search. These things are more noticed now. Totally artificial intelligence.
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adam westrop 12 years ago

Ha ha ha ha ha.

These bad links pointed out are all types of links, even on blog networks like BMR.

I've done a lot of investigation.

You can't run scared of Google otherwise you wouldn't build any links at all!
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jdooley13 12 years ago

You know, some links are actually placed out in the internet world to drive traffic to one's site rather than solely for backlinking purposes. There is absolutley no way for Google to be able to differentiate between the two. So, are we never allowed to put a link out there to try and gain traffic because google may penalize our site?
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Fraggler 12 years ago

It might become an issue when combined with anchor text abuse and a pattern of relying purely on self-controlled link placement but unless you are using bots to spam links across hundreds of forums it shouldn't be out of the norm for most people.

IF your site was manually reviewed and the reviewer found your Warrior Forum account, I'd like to think they would realise it isn't a spam account and all your are doing is marketing your site to a target audience :: you are allowed to advertise your site.
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Andylinks 12 years ago

Seems everybody has the inside info on what Google wants. This is just a rumor at best.
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Nicky Papers 12 years ago

Forum profile links (direct-to-site) are not as effective as they once were with respect to improving rank. Using forum profiles to back links such as web 2.0 profiles, social bookmarks, etc. is still an effective method to pass authority and relevancy if you're using XRumer and loading large keyword and URL lists.

If all forum profiles are as "bad" as you're making them out to be I would drop 100k forum profile links at any site that gets in my way and call it a day.

This is a false alarm. Forum profile links and forum signature links in the right applications can be incredibly helpful.
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frank07 12 years ago

I believe the huge profile blasts with Xrumer to your money site will get the problem. The manual is OK, and we may combine many of building link method, this will make it more natural.
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gearmonkey 12 years ago

Can you provide the source?
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chensmith62 12 years ago

I think for increasing traffic must go backlinksindexer
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rydaphotoguy 12 years ago

So the only good links are to big article sites?
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topijerami 12 years ago

i think that is acctually happen...
because forum and signature can't be like that...
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Cheeth 12 years ago

If this is true then surely all you need to do to beat your competitors is to blast there **** with poor quality links! suddenly SEO becomes offensive! would google really want to start a war??
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Forum Links & Signatures MIGHT Actually Hurt You!

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