Forum Signature Links Have SERP Value?

[Smuck]

I am of the opinion that forum signature links (those that do not have nofollows) have no value in the serps. I believe Google has discounted their value due to forum link spam.

I have no resources except what seems to be commonly accepted as fact among the seo community.

I'm interested to hear what others think. Am I off?

BTW, I doubt this enough to use one of my sig links for the serps, just in case...

[ericbadgley]

I strongly disagree. As soon as my 300 links hit and the nofollow was removed a week later I went from #20 to #5. That was the biggest jump I have seen in six months. I think in this circumstance it was 300 links at once. Maybe you don't notice the rankings change just like you don't notice if your girl friend looses weight because you around her so much. Just like we check our rankings often. In this case it was 300 links in one week. so I noticed a huge jump.

Also it helps google crawl your site more often.

[Smuck]

I strongly disagree...In this case it was 300 links in one week. so I noticed a huge jump...

I hope you are right and I am wrong. Still though, it might be a correlation and not a cause and effect.

[NealRM]

I have also notice my SERP placement improve with more forum posts.

[KNOX]

Now I think I've been too quiet Well, I'll try not to chime in with "Totally", "and then some" and "thanks for the info" too often.

[Smuck]

Now I think I've been too quiet Well, I'll try not to chime in with "Totally", "and then some" and "thanks for the info" too often.

Cool!

[ericbramlett]

A lot of people make this claim, so there might be something to it. However...it makes a lot more sense that Google recognizes forum links and their value diminishes as you get more links from the same domain (with the same anchor text.)

This follow the same logic as "sitewide links don't work any more." Show me any solid SEO that still pushes sitewide links.

I lean more towards correlation than causation. I definitely think the links help, but I think the cumulative links that the user has built (elsewhere) as a result of the knowledge gained on the REW forums is the true causation of the jump in SERP's.

A lot of my (friendly) competitors are active on this board, and for a while it looked like there was a race to 300...about 3-4 months after I hit 300. I didn't see any significant moving around in the SERPs after everyone hit 300 - granted, the top sites in Austin have very large link portfolios.

[Agnafl]

I too noticed a jump in the SERPs once I hit 300.

[TrimarkProperties]

I would suspect that the first 300 make a big difference, but like others have said, there is a great diminishing return after a certain point because of that sitewide link effect.

So maybe it's not actually the first 300. Maybe it's the first 50.

BTW-- I just hit 300 last weekend and can say that most pages that my links are on here have not yet been re-indexed (looking at the cache) since the nofollow was removed AND I suspect (though Webmaster can probably say definitively) that there will be some trickle effect for Google re-indexing and therefore "discovering" the links over days-weeks (or even months).

So, it's not like I'm getting 300 overnight.

[Lydia]

I can't imagine they have a lot of value, but there are other things to consider.

The cumulative effect of targeted anchor text certainly helps, but frequency of the SE's indexing of the forum may hide any effect.

Visibility in the SE's is probably the biggest benefit. I've found several forum posts that popped up in the front page of Google, surprisingly enough.