Wow what a great thread and I agree 100%. I checked several of my sites that I typically put links in and found that many of them actually turn up when looking at my links.

Also I have two sites that I just put up. One I submitted via the old method to google and the other I just put into my sig links on multiple forums. Within one week the sig link was indexed. The other site, 3 weeks later still is in mediocrity.

Just to back up the theory on sig links. They work and you need to generate them when you can. As a newbie I haven't added mine in the forum yet as I don't want to appear to be spamming the forums with my links. In the future you can bet that I will be adding my sig link to the posts.

John when I say sig links don't carry much weight it doesn't mean they carry no weight. I'm sure there's some weight to them, but I think that a handful of links from authority and on topic sites would count more than hundreds or thousands of sig links.

As I'm writing this I have close to 5000 posts here. I'm sure they do something to help pages on my site rank, but I'd trade all those links if about a half dozen of my favorite seo bloggers would link to me.

How much of one is worth how much of the other I couldn't say and I doubt anyone could really.

With links you also have to look at your entire linking profile. If all your links are from forum sigs then adding a few more is probably completely meaningless. If on the other hand you have a lot of links and none are from forum sigs then getting a hundred sig links can probably help somewhat.

I think with links you can't always look at the weight of one in isolation. So much about the benefit of a single link will depend on your site and the other site and the specific page being linked to and doing the linking. It will also depend on the other links that point into and out of both pages and sites.

But in the end I agree with you that spending the time to create some good content is going to be worth far more than a few hundred or a few thousand sig links.

The best way to make use of sig links it to contribute something to the forum. I can't speak for everyone, but for the people here who make intelligent posts and further along an interesting discussion I have and will visit your sites. For the people who make one single line post after another I'm not visiting. I suspect I'm not alone in that.

You're not. I tend to be the same way.

If someone continually says intelligent things, I'll quite often visit their sites and refer them to others when appropriate to do so (assuming they're not spammy, and usually the intelligent posters are also the ones who don't spam and abuse things.)

Take Aaron Pratt for example. I saw this guy posting on WebProWorld and I liked the fact that, while he was "a weenie blogger", he somehow managed to come up with a reasonable take on things (if not always completely informed, but that's because he was and still considers himself to be new.)

Now he's got a blog: SEO Buzzbox. And his blog is pretty much an extension of his WPW posts (not so much his ones on Cutts' blog, but some of you may have seen him there too.) He touches on issues that aren't necessarily on the beaten path or that haven't been tackled from the angle he tries.

Steve, your blog is somewhat similar in the sense that, while you mention some common topics, it's your take on things, and no one else's. It's also free from the biases that most blogs (including the so-called industry leader blogs) have.

Which leads me to a question, John: when are you gonna show us your site so we can all visit it? I know I'd like to see what you're doing.

John I vote for seeing your site too. The link in your sig may not count much with a search engine, but it will draw traffic directly based on your posts here.

Yeah Van I would concur with you on that as the posts made by Learning Newbie are informative and helpful in nature and would probably get him good traffic.



I think it was good that this question regarding signature links was brought up here as I did the same at many other forums too but was unable to figure out the right thing until all you guys got it right. Thanks all for the constructive conversation.

No probs, dude. If you don't ask, you don't learn, right?

Dang, thanks guys, you're going to make me blush.

Right now my site is boring, and everyone in here is light years more interesting. I've been feeling down this winter with no natural sunlight, and my wife suggested I use my tech knowledge to do something good for others. So my web site is just a semi-open proxy. It serves up dummy content, like how the TCP/IP protocol works, and stuff like that. But it does an IP lookup, so if you're in China, there's a hidden ( yellow on white ) link to the proxy, and stuff like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

I've been wanting to launch my own web site, a more personal one so I can put my thoughts down, and hope other people are interested in them. I just can't seem to think of a clever name that's not already taken. I'm fascinated with computers and software, what we're able to achieve with them. And psychology, how people make decisions, which is really a lot like programming ( teaching the computer to make intelligent choices on how to crunch data ). All this stuff I'd love to write about, maybe we should have a "Help the Newbie Think of a Web Site Name" contest?

It's really too bad Oracle is already taken. If you want to know something, you go to the oracle, but you expect strange answers, usually in the form of a riddle. I actually sit there in Word with the Thesaurus exploring word choices, trying to find a good one ( or short phrase ) to name my web site after.

Any ideas?

John I wish I could help. I'm horrible with names. When I was picking mine I spent a couple months thinking of a name and every time I checked it was registered. I started making up words and they were taken too.

The worst part is about 75% of those domains weren't being used or if they were it was some spammy MFA site or a parked domain with ads.

Don't worry about your site being boring. Mine is too at the moment. I think it has a pretty tired look and I'm working on a redesign. We all just want to know you more, but I think we'll all understand too if you don't want to post a link yet.

I find combing words makes it a little easier to find a domain name. Maybe oracle is out, but oracleofalexander might not be. It's a little long for a domain, but I think you get the idea.

Originally Posted by vangogh

Don't worry about your site being boring. Mine is too at the moment. I think it has a pretty tired look and I'm working on a redesign. We all just want to know you more, but I think we'll all understand too if you don't want to post a link yet.

I'm curious to see your site as well. And for the record, mine is ugly as anything. That's something I'm working on, slowly, but someone told me "Don't let perfection stand in the way of performing." Or something like that. You're clearly smarter than the average bear; a lot of people are curious to see your take on things that aren't so directly related to running a site. And most of us will put up with a lousy design for good content.

I also want to echo VanGogh's frustration over domain squatting.

Maybe AlexandersOracle?

On a more personal note, give "full spectrum lighting" a try. The bulbs are expensive, but look more like natural sunlight outdoors.

I like AlexandersOracle. I think it calls to mind Alexander the great in a time when Oracles are part of the mythology.

Exactly! I'm picturing all kinds of ancient Greek artwork for the navigation structure. And maybe some quotes by Socrates?

Let's just hope John sees this before someone else grabs the domain. Since we voted on it, and decided it's the right one for him, after all...

The problem I have with an oracle is that an oracle is an ambiguous predictor of the future. You're not really predicting the future. You're offering a knowledge base for the present.

As far as a name that would apply to that...alexandersconquests.com comes to mind, since it's the knowledge you've already conquered and I like the whole Alexander the Great angle.

You dont have to use tools to submit your site to SE's, You might getting take the risk of penalties for some instance. Still manual is best.

Here are the 3 Big SE's:

http://www.google.com/addurl.html
http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request
http://beta.search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx

While I think you won't get in trouble submitting your site to any of the search engines, I still think it's a pointless pursuit and a waste of time. Just get some other sites to link to yours and the search engines will find your site. I believe the search engines themselves even recommend this as the best way to get indexed.

You guys talked me into it. I've actually been wanting to run a site for a while, just a little unclear on what to call it, and what its focus should be. I think I'm going to let the focus work i