Signature links in forums may help some but they aren't as beneficial as they once were. Search engines can now tell the difference between a signature link and an inbound link from another site quite easily. Say you have 500 posts here on WebsiteBabble.com. That means you'd have 500 threads with your sig file on them. The problem is, your sig file is duplicated on every single thread so the engines no longer consider this a high quality backlink. It's too easy for anyone to achieve links in sigs through forums, so they've been devalued over time.
On the flip side, say there are 500 different websites (in your niche) that are linking or recommending you in different ways and using different verbiage to describe your site. THAT is much more beneficial and the search engines give a lot more credit to those kinds of backlinks then signatures in forums or signatures on article sites, etc.
No, the point is not to advertise or write articles on the forums. That's not going to fly with most forums and as you said, that would be spamming. So the key is to get more unique inbound links from other sites as I described previously.
Now forum sigs are still beneficial because you can draw clicks from other members who are curious about your site. But don't look for them to give you many quality backlinks anymore.
Re: your Google issue. Have you checked with your web host about this?
|