Are sig links from popular sites considered to be SEO links?

[hansi]

Hi friends,

I am not sure if this belongs in the SEO forum or not, but I was wondering, if I posted often on Slashdot or similar, and my sig had links to my site, would that be the same as Slashdot linking to my site, or is it not counted at all?

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[elantra]

They only seem to help my sites, but my competition is small time.
Not sure about others though!#@@# -- This message may have been cut off and the rest will only be shown to members. To become a member, click here --

[zac]

See I was thinking the same idea because I noticed that I post in a lot of threads on the first page which sometimes gets a PR1 and it doesn't mean that you should spam, but if you become an active member, you're basically "harvesting" possible good PR pages to get links to your site.

When you update your signature, it changes on that thread and voila, you get linkage from your favorite forums But don't spam, try and make it useful posts so members don't hate you and you the page has content for Google to give PR to

And don't bump old threads just for PR, you'll get burned by a lot of angry people.. -- This message may have been cut off and the rest will only be shown to members. To become a member, click here --

[pycroft]

I'm pretty sure that sig links are devalued, if they're off topic to the forum as well they're probably devalued again for that making them 'almost' worthless. -- This message may have been cut off and the rest will only be shown to members. To become a member, click here --

[unclesam]

They are not as valuable as site wide links, but as long as there are no-follow links then it will help a little bit. That's what I think.

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[almighty]

I have to agree with Pycroft here. Sig links are pretty much devalued, since it's obvious for Google who creates them

However, let's not forget sig links can give you traffic from forum members -- especially if you're an active and well-respected one. -- This message may have been cut off and the rest will only be shown to members. To become a member, click here --

[gilchrist]

There are pro's and cons.

First of all what makes a quality link?

1. Relevance, Relevance, Relevance
2. links to page/site
3. quality of those links
4. the quality of those sites back links
5. do these sites that link to the page your link is on rank for anything
6. age of site
7. sites cached
8. sites indexed
9. IP farm
10. sites content

There are many others but those are some major ones

With forum posts IMO you dont get a lot of what is required for a quality link.
forum sigs are posted on pages that are dynamically generated and might not be cached, have little to no back links, normally horrible keyword density and keyword proxemity.

I have no idea if a search engine devalues a link based on the fact that its a forum link but probably looks at the page more then anything.

Also with google doing so many hand jobs they could -- This message may have been cut off and the rest will only be shown to members. To become a member, click here --

[sorenstam]

To me, any type of text links from high reputated sites are counted as one of the most important backlinks. Be it forum sign or whatever. -- This message may have been cut off and the rest will only be shown to members. To become a member, click here --

[Goldie]

I read through these replies and still don't get it, I seen the topic and thought great idea! But also see through the boards not many signature links here. -- This message may have been cut off and the rest will only be shown to members. To become a member, click here --

[BusinessGal]

I think what gilchrist says makes a lot of sense. There are many things to consider when looking for quality links. I know that when I'm in different forums I click on signature links about 10% of the time. The signature links that I click on are always related to the topic, and I tend to click on links where I know I can get more information. I tend to find most other links are ads for products that don't even relate to the forum, or are just pure garbage. It really ticks me off to waste my time like that, and most people feel the same way. I think if you want to use a signature link, it could possibly be a good link if you make it a good link. Don't dump it everywhere you go. Build that link, and build a solid reputation with it. Good luck. -- This message may have been cut off and the rest will only be shown to members. To become a member, click here --