Sig Link - Myth or Magic for Link Development

[fathom]

Not Long ago Matts Cutt reported that sig links were increasing becoming worth less. Included in the same comments was the use of sitewide link - commonly used in PageRank/Text Link Schemes.

This started numerous debates, tests, experiments, more debates... with two main schools of thought:

1. Sig Links are "worthless" as far a link develop goes.

2. Sig Links continue to work as any other link.

Some past decisions:

http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=19547
http://webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=20911
http://forums.seochat.com/t11474/s.html

After reviewing all the initial test & experiements - some where extremely limited (didn't consider server-side issues, too short duration to make any observations [other than null]) other were more complex but lack a specific hypothesis to based observation thus conclusions on.

For the record - I post become I wish to share & learn and not because I want Link Pop, PageRank, Weight, Relevancy, Traffic, etc. should any of these occur because I shar & learn - great but even if none occurred I would still post

Anyway I would like to have some data to add to a summary.

1. Does Google crawl sig links (which if different from the usual www button)

2. Does Google count sig links as backlinks

3. Does Google Credit PageRank for sig links

4. Does the anchor text aid weight and relevancy to the "link-to page".

PLease yes & no answers

[I, Brian]

Google, Yahoo, and MSN, can value the keywords in signature links.

However, their power was curbed for the update in September 2003, and it's all been downhill since then.

Do sig links help for rankings? Sure - but I don't personally believe that they are well weighted. You also have the danger of forums being viewed as ffa sites via sig link overuse.

I made my personal position plain here:
http://www.platinax.co.uk/community/thread474.html

However, people have disagreed and insisted that you can still get good PageRank transfer via sig links. I've not seen that myself.

There was a thread at SEO chat that also claimed that no PR was passed via sig links after testing:
http://forums.seochat.com/t16535/s.html

So my personal answers would be:

1. Yes
2. Yes - counted - but with what value?
3. No.
4. If you mean, does the anchor text help? Yes - but the effect is limited.

Btw - I'd love to see a link to the Matt Cutt's statement on sig links.

[fathom]

Google, Yahoo, and MSN, can value the keywords in signature links.

However, their power was curbed for the update in September 2003, and it's all been downhill since then.

Do sig links help for rankings? Sure - but I don't personally believe that they are well weighted. You also have the danger of forums being viewed as ffa sites via sig link overuse.

I made my personal position plain here:
http://www.platinax.co.uk/community/thread474.html

However, people have disagreed and insisted that you can still get good PageRank transfer via sig links. I've not seen that myself.

There was a thread at SEO chat that also claimed that no PR was passed via sig links after testing:
http://forums.seochat.com/t16535/s.html

I actually forgot to add this:

While this debate has died some recent observations suggests there is possibly conclusive evidence that sig links pass PageRank, weight, and relevancy via the sig link and anchor.

these two pages "only have links from sigs" on their respected forums and no "in post" links, external inbound links, etc.

http://www.spheri.net/dave-hawley/dave-hawley.html PR3

http://www.uncommonforum.com/dave-hawley/dave-hawley.html PR3

Each is "link-to" via a anchor "spherica" and most forum threads are PR2 or less.

These two pages (orphaned but for sig links) point to another orphaned page http://www.spheri.ca/dave-hawley/emarketing.html PR2 = 2 X PR3

Numerous others were set up unfortunately Duplicate Conent penalties materialized (as the design was to see if static pages within a site and traditional links induced "better ranks" as opposed to only sig links.

Spherica (http://www.google.com/search?q=spherica&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&start=20&sa=N) #25 for http://www.uncommonforum.com/dave-hawley/dave-hawley.html

A hard drive failure killed the static site that would have compared ranks on pages identical in every way with the exception of link type... so this will go on longer.

Regardless of whether sig links are discounted or not... they seem to be worth more than just click value.

So my personal answers would be:

1. Yes
2. Yes - counted - but with what value?
3. No.
4. If you mean, does the anchor text help? Yes - but the effect is limited.

Btw - I'd love to see a link to the Matt Cutt's statement on sig links.

http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=21427 (Garnett's summary)

http://forums.seochat.com/t11609/s.html (Alan's [Webby] summary on Link Building Basics)

[hiero]

I am aware of one site in particular that has a high pr and has about 18,000 backlinks. This site's backlinks have a large amount of sig links in Google. This isn't the only site I've noticed this on, so there is some weight to sig links.

[Jill Whalen]

I don't know about all sig. links as I don't use them for SEO purposes. However, not all sig links are created equal. Some aren't even seen by the search engines.

For instance at my forum, you have to be a registered user to view the sig links. The search engines can't register, therefore they don't see them, index nor follow them.

I'd advise anyone who's using sig links as a linking strategy to be sure to view the forum as a guest to see if they're viewable. And even if they are, check out some pages in the search engine's cache because some forums have the ability to not show the sigs to the search engines, but to people, either on purpose or just as a default setting of the forum. (InvisionBoard appears to have this as the default.)

[rustybrick]

Good advice, all forums are different. Some allow sig links to carry through, some don't. As Jill said it depends on the forum. I blogged about which forums allow it and dont allow it a while back, I named the post SEM Forums and the Value of Signatures (http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/000550.html). I am not sure if it is still up to date, but I would guess most are.

For instance at my forum, you have to be a registered user to view the sig links. The search engines can't register, therefore they don't see them, index nor follow them.

Jill, I would have thought you would make a special account just for Googlebot. Google isn't a valued member of your forum? Just kidding :D

[fathom]

I don't know about all sig. links as I don't use them for SEO purposes. However, not all sig links are created equal. Some aren't even seen by the search engines.

For instance at my forum, you have to be a registered user to view the sig links. The search engines can't register, therefore they don't see them, index nor follow them.

I'd advise anyone who's using sig links as a linking strategy to be sure to view the forum as a guest to see if they're viewable. And even if they are, check out some pages in the search engine's cache because some forums have the ability to not show the sigs to the search engines, but to people, either on purpose or just as a default setting of the forum. (InvisionBoard appears to have this as the default.)

Some good points Jill but the same can be said for just any link - all links are not created equal - say from a directory that uses JavaScript, JumpScripts, etc.

I also wasn't implying that "sigs" are remotely inside SEO best practices... I think we can agree "posting" is the value and not the sigs.

The Google "pattern recognition" angle is what intrigues me - and why I want feedback.

Most active forum posters post because they wish to add - that said, the discounting of sigs link suggests that this is view as a manipulation practice and not a natural part of the overall content structure. Overall a "forum" is a "content mangement system first and foremost".

That said: (and in conjunction with other comments made by Matt) doesn't this suggest in the bigger picture that Google itself is moving away from a general democratic system "all votes" to a more sophisticated - one vote system... much like the reputation voting system here - I can't just keep hitting your button simply because I like you (or have an invested interest in doing so).

[littleman]

Obviously they need to be real links, but yes they do work.

I think Google's "pattern recognition" technology needs to grow up a bit.

[I, Brian]

The issue Jill raised seems peculiarly related to Invision Power Boards, which can apparently selectively deliver at least some content by user-agent or IP.

This is perhaps a form of cloaking, but search engines certainly don't appear to have penalised IPB's for the practice.

Some other forums gave jump scripts installed, to remove any benefits for search engines - such as at Cre8asite.

Still not see a quote from Matt Cutts on the issue of sig links - just Webby's comments, which I'd read anyway. Statements from within Google itself demand specific attention. But as I said in one of the links, they've been progressively devalued for well over a year now.