Search Engines, links and Forums

[mortgagecalculator360.com]

Do search engines value links from forums for calculation of link popularity or because forum pages are not static urls there is no value?

[sre]

yeap .. i think there's no "PR value", but as forums get more updated content, the data within also get "hit" by the engine bots faster than other kind of portals

[MR22]

Forum links can be very powerful if used correctly. They are even more powerful when the forum links are relevant to what you do.

[northcaptiva]

I think every link counts that is relevant, but the forum links are hard to quantify. My feeling is that new forum links help, older ones do not.

[PaulEvans]

search engines, particularly google dosent take much notice of forums due to the fact that it is categorized as a forum. It does help your site get noticed more but it will not take much effect in comparison to a signature on a forum to a link on static page.

[axemedia]

search engines, particularly google dosent take much notice of forums due to the fact that it is categorized as a forum. It does help your site get noticed more but it will not take much effect in comparison to a signature on a forum to a link on static page.

That's my opinion too. The signature links in a forum can help but it really is a minor issue. Yahoo, on the other hand, may give them a bit more weight than Google does, maybe. I think?

[spanishproperty]

Forum links are great, as the content is new and searched more often than a normal site like one of mine.

Plus they are one way links, I dont do link exchanges with any of my established sites, only with new sites to get them up and running off the ground.

Link exchanges for me are a waste of time.

[Monkeyleg]

spanishproperty: "Link exchanges for me are a waste of time."

It's none of my business if you don't want to reply to this question. But, if you don't engage in link exchanges, where do you get your links?

[HomeSurfer]

All forum links are really good for is creating a route to a new page so it can get spidered. My opinion.

[FlatFeeKing]

it depends on the forum popularity. You can see in your google webmaster tools what pages google is considering as an inbound link. I am too new to this forum to know if it counts or not, but digitalpoint.com def. does.

Also, it cant hurt to get some extra traffic to your site with your signature links, in addition to hopefully the forum threads can show up in the search engines too. A lot of times the benefit could be not only pushing yourself up in the rankings, but pushing your competitors down.

[skypix]

dont most forum links include code so that search engine spiders ignor them or am i incorrect?
Thanks
Dan

[tarheit]

Most I've seen don't. It's easy enough to check. The links with the "nofollow" attribute should be ignored by the spiders. There are a lot of links here with "nofollow" but they are all for private, search pages and navigation. The links within the posts are not marked with the tag.

-Tim

[Monkeyleg]

One forum that I frequent has "noindex, nofollow" tags on the posts. But I still can find my posts in Google's index.

[garths]

Since Rules at Search Engines are always changing, I try to follow the simple maxim of creating the maximum amount of original and valuable content that I can and then link it to as many meaningful ways as possible.

Your signature will likely point to your home page.

A good strategy for using links inside forums is to write introductions in the forums and then relate back to specific, on topic pages in your site. That is if the forum will let you.

[HomeSurfer]

Since Rules at Search Engines are always changing, I try to follow the simple maxim of creating the maximum amount of original and valuable content that I can and then link it to as many meaningful ways as possible.

Your signature will likely point to your home page.

A good strategy for using links inside forums is to write introductions in the forums and then relate back to specific, on topic pages in your site. That is if the forum will let you.
Obviously, I'm in the minority, but I have rarely used signature links. Links in a post, when appropriate, are an entirely different matter.

[agentmonster]

Forum links are not hugely helpful when it comes to your SE rankings. The problem is that they're are so many links on a given page within a forum that the link value is very watered down and barely helps. It's like that by design because if they were hugely valuable, forums would get abused by SE spammers more than they all ready do.

[charlieberry]

I believe the link from the forums are helpful, they are 1 way, non-reciporical

[jmorrison]

other than links in forums, what would be the best way to get traffic to your site?

[FlatFeeKing]

you can make posts on craigslist, and get your affiliate companies to put links on their sites to your site

[wood1e]

Craigslist is completely no follow I believe. Saying that, still worth posting as humans is what you are looking for, ie footfall past your website. THis in turn does help with your exposure and therefore your sales etc.

[charlieberry]

Craigslist is completely no follow I believe. Saying that, still worth posting as humans is what you are looking for, ie footfall past your website. THis in turn does help with your exposure and therefore your sales etc.

If you type your ad is a wysiwig editor and then post the code in craigslist you can have a "follow" link. It works for me, I have noticed I get a substantial bounce rate though

[wood1e]

Hey good one....should have thought of that :)

[RJacobsen]

I agree with much of the previous posts. In my own opinion, there is some value to forum links, even if it solely acts as an additional link to your link count. The more the merrier, right?

Besides the SERPs benefits, I get several referrals from the links posted in my signature... I love traffic anyway I can get it!:D

[newagentfinder]

In your experience, what is the best way to get a new site to post to the top of a search engine?

[RJacobsen]

You need two things: (1) Time and (2) Dedication. Or just a whole lot of Money!

Time: to get that domain age, steady growth of incoming links, and for getting your content/product/services noticed.

Dedication: grinding out directories, consistently link building, and learning SEO.

Money: if you got it, you can disregard the other two! :D

[Alan Murray]

Signature links don’t carry much value in Google. Much better to use them for marketing purposes.

[Orlando MLS]

Do blog title links carry any weight? Or even anchor text in a blog. Does this fall under the same category as a forum link? I've heard the best thing to do for links is to be active in a lot of blogs.

[MAAOnline]

If you type your ad is a wysiwig editor and then post the code in craigslist you can have a "follow" link. It works for me, I have noticed I get a substantial bounce rate though

I am really trying to increase my site's ranking but I keep hearing so many things I'm not sure what to do. What is a wysiwig editor and how do I use it.

[rainier]

yes!they value links from forums,links from forums is easily crawled by SEs.