Google & Forum Signature Links

[CDJohnston]

Hey guys,

In an effort to promote our company we are considering adding our site links to our signature on various related niche forums that we post on..Rather tan just posting our link as advertisement on the forums.

How does Google view this? Will it hurt? Will it help?

Thanks in advance!

 

[archon10]

Those are unnatural and they can be held against you if you get a penalty including Penguin. Make sure they are nofollow.

 

[CDJohnston]

They are not no-follow. I should get rid of them then?

 

[archon10]

If you have a good backlink profile, I would not worry too much. However, forum profile links are indeed considered unnatural and they have to be removed if you get a manual penalty, so it could be considered a low quality Penguin signal if you have too many without any other back links.

If you think you'll get business from them and you aren't doing anything shady with your backlinks, then I'd probably do it for the direct business.

 

[himanuzo]

Due the Penguin update, vary the anchor texts in each forum.

Accept both ******** and also nofollow of any forums so this way will be natural at Google.