Signatures & Search Engines

[Nebulous]

As far as backlinks/search engine stuff goes, is it more beneficial to have text links or banner's linking back to a forum/website?

 

[iron hide]

Search engines don´t count banner ads as backlinks. This is because most banner ads—the ones that move or change—have no text for the search engine to read. I am not sure about banner, but in text linking you can actually add an anchor text as well.

But if you use alt-text in banner, then it might contribute towards SERPs and will get indexed but it can't replace a anchor text.

 

[NBK*Twitch]

Anchor text links is the best way to go.

 

[InFiNiTy™]

Anchor text links is the best way to go.

You are sure right. 🙂

 

[tcxgames]

indeed, Also, not about search engines but, text or banner should be used in a different type of forums, a banner would attracked more visitors on a gaming forum while text is more effective in terms of promotion

 

[Jedi Penguin]

So, will having links to your forum in a signature in other forums, that you're an active member on, not just there to take up bandwith space putting links to your profiles, cause more people to come? I noticed it will cause the site name, or at least the link in the site name, to get more hits on the search engine, but also that most of the hits refer to a page in those other forums, which isn't very helpful for getting more members to YOUR site, though it certainly might help get members into those other sites.

We've gotten users, but as they were mainly spammers, I've had to delete tons of them to stop their evil SEO mission.

I don't own this site, though they have made me an admin, I was a mod but they upgraded me. However, this one has a TLD.

It also might, or might not, be using paid hosting too.

Don't know on that one.

 

[sigma]

text link is better for seo but banner ads is better to generate traffic

 

[Zaborg]

This question has bothered me for long time, good that someone finally asked it 😀
Thanks for the answers, explains a lot.

 

[David]

If you are able to place alternative/anchor text on that image link then it would render it as the same as a normal link. If the image has no anchor, like on FP, it would show up on Webmaster Tools, but not contribute to your SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). Importantly, to rank higher with keywords (I guess you would like "General Discussion Forum" or "Discussion Forum"), you would require a better SERPs, in turn, requiring a lot of quality anchor links, meaning, for at least FP, you should be using a text link, rather than an image link.

 

[webby88]

Don't expect a signature to boost your rankins for competitive terms, you need stronger links than that!

 

[wethegreenpeople]

Don't expect a signature to boost your rankins for competitive terms, you need stronger links than that!

+1

Anchor text links is the best way to go.

And +1

Signature links help a bit but not a ton.

 

[Hotspot]

I was thinking about this today! I was going to make a topic, but I thought I'd see if there was one already!

I was wondering this, as I know search engines can only pick up links....but on the other hand.... banners can attract attention to forum users! But some users may not know to click on the banner.

I was thinking though, what if someone put both the banner and the link together?
Does anyone wonder if that would work? Or may it seem to cluttered?

 

[Guardian]

I actually used to put a text link below my banner link a few years back. Didn't know if it actually did anything so I stopped doing it.