Advanced LMH signature link advice from a passing guru?

[marcus]

Ok while I'm waiting for help on the above here are a couple of comments.

Yes links from forums do help, and more is better. 50 isn't 50x as good as 1 but its better. On one forum I'm on signature links are actively sold between webmasters - say, $10 a month for someone who has made 1000 posts.

Joining forums to make posts just to get the links is an acknowledged and accepted approach to link building, as long as you're not just spamming a forum for the sake of it, which will get you chucked off.

It is because forum links do count that spammers post links all over blogs and forums

Although google might only show one link they know about lots of them.

Each page in a forum is generally buried quite deep in the forum, and has lots of links on - both these help devalue the links, but not make them worthless.

In summary, if you are a member of this or any other forum where links are permitted, use them, and when possible use anchor text as above rather than the website name. i'll change mine as soon as someone tells me how!

[Mountain Goat]

Marcus, hello

Try this:

[url=http://yourdomain.com]Anywordsyouwanttobevisible[/url*

Instead of the * use a ] closing bracket - I haven't done it as I don't want it to work if you see what I mean, and it has to be a square bracket thingy not curly or curved.

That forum on which I posted the orignal query is getting a bit of feedback so will copy here when relevant.

MG

[marcus]

Yes OK 3 posts in a row will have the moderators chopping my entries. Anyway, it was bugging me so much I went to the PHPBB forums to find out.

Seemes to work, now lets find out how much links from LMH are really worth...

edit: thanks MG, think we posted at the same time
edit 2: thanks susan below as well!!!

[la vache!]

Marcus,
try this
signature text

website = http://www.blahblahblah

[Mountain Goat]

Mmm, well, another reply in the geeks' forum (not Google-specific BTW), to my query about does it optimise the SEO, from a mod with 8,500-odd postings is:

No. Google discounts such links. Thousands of links from one site are only counted as being just a few, or several, links.

Clear as mud, eh?

I can see, though, that although the link value might not be boosted, the fact that you've got, say, Luxury Tree House even on LMH will draw a punter in from Google, but they may be a bit baffled by LMH as an intro to the website they want. Thinking more about it, that could be a real disadvantage, especially on the more eccentric LMH postings?

MG

[Topcat]

Yes, they might get more than they bargained for!! Perhaps we should put links on all helpful medical sites, especially for hot flushes! (Ros, try increasing the vitamin B).

Oops, wrong thread!

Pauline

[Big Sis..]

Pauline

Youd never catch me doing that ....as my fridge magnet says[but me being me its on my toaster]...I used to be hot...but know it just comes in flushes...

Maybe if someone picks up one of my posts[as i only have a few ] They might offer me sponsorship[or medication] both would be gratefully received...but they better be quick as the post will probably disappear soon....[this post will self distruct in 30 seconds from now.......]

Thanks for the vitamin tip I will give it a go.....[Im having so many different letters at the moment a B might help...anyone fancy a game of scrabble]]

BTW on topic...Im reading all of these posts[and have got a headache..what letter do I take for that]
and its amazing.... I didnt know how much I didnt know...
but luckily I know a man who does

[marcus]

MG

I don't generally talk about links etc on this forum any more because it makes people think I'm an alien, but at one time and another people have said: links in free directories aren't worth much; reciprocal links aren't worth much; forum links aren't worth, links from low page rank pages aren't worth much etc etc

No they're not as valuable as one-way links from important, high PR, relevant sites, but my personal experience, as with the phrase 'visit france' and many others, is that lots of lower value links and carefully chosen anchor text together add up to quite a lot of value. And to be honest, wikipedia and the bbc aren't knocking on most of our doors begging to be allowed to link to us...

The alternatives, and pursued by the webmaster you are talking of, I would guess, are: (a) to have a large enough network of sites that you can link to your own sites and promote them or (b) to buy links on high ranking sites. Neither possibility probably applies to most LMH members.

The bigger problem is for people who ignore links altogether, and then wonder why their shiny new website never shows up in google or gains them a single booking.

Just my 2c

[Topcat]

Well, to be honest, I'm only just starting to get my head round this. Something that has been recommended to me and I have made a start on is article syndication. Whether that makes a lot of difference only time will tell.

But something puzzles me. If I put my domain name into google without using the URL, so far I don't get anywhere. But if I google my name, (and I don't have any links as far as I know), I come up with quite a lot (including my website). It even brings up things that I'm sure are on an intranet rather than the internet, such as the minutes of meetings that I have attended.

Can anybody explain that to me?

Regards,

Pauline

[Topcat]

Try this link.

www.seo@seo-news.com/

There's an article on here about making deep links which might interest some of you.

Pauline

[Mountain Goat]

Pauline

It may depend on how you've set up Google vis à vis your desktop and other possible tweaks such as networked machines.

If you stick anything in Google that could be on your PC as a result of work you've been doing and saved, then the first Google result could be subtitled something like 776 results stored on your computer - in other words it's searching the web as well as your machine.

If your PC is networked then Google may also be searching other machines. This latter statement sounds a bit dodgy, as mine is heavily networked and doesn't return results on other machines, so best to ignore ths idea.

Marcus

Thanks for all that. I need to mull it over a bit before replying; initially it makes a lot of sense.

MG

[Topcat]

Hi MG. No, I'm not networked, and no, it isn't telling me it's stored on my computer. The stuff that comes up at the moment is of 3 kinds.

There's info from regional meetings, but the minutes would have been put on an intranet, not at large on the web. Even if they were distributed more widely it still mystifies me that my name should trigger all this stuff, when my website is still not getting recognised.

There's stuff linking me to a photographer's site to which I have posted.

There's a page from my own site

Previously I found (or a friend found it for me) that my name brought up an article in the West Briton for which I had been interviewed some years previously.

I just find it puzzling.

Pauline

[oskar]

But something puzzles me. If I put my domain name into google without using the URL, so far I don't get anywhere. But if I google my name, (and I don't have any links as far as I know), I come up with quite a lot (including my website). It even brings up things that I'm sure are on an intranet rather than the internet, such as the minutes of meetings that I have attended.

Can anybody explain that to me?

I would think that´ll be because there may not be too many people with the same name as you on websites! You won´t need any links to show up.

Put "spainbeachapartment "into Google and you´re No. 1, even though Google shows you as having only 2 links. Not surprising really as no one else is targeting that word. Put "spain beach apartment" into Google and you´re nowhere. That´s because lots of other people are targeting these key words and those shown on the first page will have many links - the first one has 5850. To rank high with them, you need to match their inbound links using the anchor text "spain beach apartment". If you want to rank high for other key words, you´ll need to have inbound links with a different anchor text. All this will take you many months, even years, or a large bank balance!

[Topcat]

Oskar, that's very helpful, thank you. I'll get on to my webmaster immediately (although he seems to have gone to sleep at the moment).

Regards,

Pauline

[oskar]

If you´re going to get someone else to do it, Pauline, it´ll cost you a fortune - every year! Remember too that link building is only one factor in achieving a high position in search engines. There are many more.

Having said that, there are people, particularly in India, who will get you a number of one way links to directories for a very reasonable price.