VB Sigs and alike

[clasione]

Just wantede to mention here - that I am suspecting that Google is no longer weighing links in pages that are directly underneath " _______________ "

Google like to find trends.

Since this is a HUGE trend, I would assume that Google is doing this.....

Google like to find links that describe content - but taking this into consideration wouldn't make sence since there usually created for such purpose unlike a link within an article or alike...

[scisoft]

Well, there has been a lot of discussion on this topic recently. But I believe that the weight of these IBLs was lowered, not eliminated.

[younghistorians]

dang

[eCommando]

Doesn't sound right though. What if you have a legitimate reason to to have a line and links under it. Are they only doing it to a line of certain length?

[thebassman]

If you look at backlinks to my sites, both have a lot of backlinks from forums...

[clasione]

Originally Posted by eCommando

Doesn't sound right though. What if you have a legitimate reason to to have a line and links under it. Are they only doing it to a line of certain length?

Probably - all vb forums are set to the same default character limit for the line....

[clasione]

Originally Posted by thebassman

If you look at backlinks to my sites, both have a lot of backlinks from forums...

They may still show up - but I doubt theres much weight assigned....

If YOU were Google - wouldn't you have done that already?

I would have.....

Theres millions of links out there in sigs....
Why should they use them to weigh?

They cant ban forums because lots of valuable information is found in discussion - BUT - they can set restrictions to characters and surrounding text....

It has to be happening....
Theres no way that I though of that and they didn't....

[awall19]

one thing you should realize is that most forums do not have a ton of pagerank so their links do not necissarily carry a ton of weight in google. the forum effect of things going into archives over time may naturally deweight them enough.

it would be logical to discount them though.

[frankybme]

funny but with this last update i picked up a few backlinks from forums i post to

[clasione]

Originally Posted by awall19

one thing you should realize is that most forums do not have a ton of pagerank so their links do not necissarily carry a ton of weight in google. the forum effect of things going into archives over time may naturally deweight them enough.

it would be logical to discount them though.

Your right about that - most forums don't have much page rank - but the ones that do are usually the ones about SEO and Webmaster Resources...

Prime canidates for text/link minipulation.

[thebassman]

Well, most of my links to both of my sites are from forums, and both my sites are up to PR5... they can't be worth that little...

[awall19]

Originally Posted by thebassman

Well, most of my links to both of my sites are from forums, and both my sites are up to PR5... they can't be worth that little...

on the grand scheme of things a PR5 is not all that great. there are still certain (double secret squirel) sites which you can just submit a link, get it autoaproved, and get a PageRank 5 for. People who know nothing about seo or internet marketing can do that. others have way way more power. link brokers are somewhat powerful middlemen.

for around $100 a month you can get a PageRank 6. 7 is a bit harder and above that you are usually spending some real cash.

[thebassman]

Yeah, I hear ya... I'm just saying, I've bought no links whatsoever, done no advertising, and I have 167 backlinks to www.photographycorner.com - all from forums... I know PR5 isn't amazing, but it's not bad considering the site just started 2 months ago, and I've only been learning about SEO since I joined here 3-4 months ago.

[I, Brian]

It would certainly be interesting to see if this applies only to vB sigs. And if so - why vB should be so singled out.

[MadHatter]

I think google would target all boards, and I think it is interesting that you have moved your sig down, away from underneath the line... I think I may do that too.

[younghistorians]

I've seen people start to sign their posts because of this. See my example below...thebassman, im in quite a similar situation to you.

-Vaughn
http://www.exit-row.com

[awall19]

I bet we could do some sort of board mod that replaced that line with something else

[younghistorians]

Originally Posted by awall19

I bet we could do some sort of board mod that replaced that line with something else

yeah, like images or arrows

[younghistorians]

this would work:


↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔

[MadHatter]

I've just done one, that replaces the with whatever you want:
Open viewtopic.php, and go to somewhere near line 1126, and find this:

[code:1:6ede09dad5] if ( $user_sig != '' )
{
$user_sig = '<br />_________________<br />' . str_replace("\n", "\n<br />\n", $user_sig);
}[/code:1:6ede09dad5]

Replace with:

[code:1:6ede09dad5] if ( $user_sig != '' )
{
$user_sig = '<br />_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _<br />' . str_replace("\n", "\n<br />\n", $user_sig);
}[/code:1:6ede09dad5]
As an example, but you can replace it with whatever you want.