Disable Viewing Signatures for Guests

[Joeychgo]

This is something most forums will want to do - for several reasons -

Outbound links may count against you in the eyes of google and can reduce your pagerank; They can also be bad if they are links to "Link Farms" or "Bad Neighborhoods"
Signatures with pics can slow down the loading of your pages. Search engines prefer quick loading pages, so do visitors;
Signatures with pics can chew up alot of bandwith if your hosting the pics;What this will do is make it so only registered members of your forum can see signatures - so visitors and search engine bots wont see them.

(We dont employ this on vBulletin-FAQ)



In the postbit or postbit_legacy template find


<if condition="$post['signature']">


change it too


<if condition="$post['signature'] AND $bbuserinfo[userid] != 0">



Thats it.

[Peggy]

NICE... I'll be adding this on my site. thanks

[BamaStangGuy]

I don't do this for the simple fact I like for guests to be able to see my members signatures. Plus I do not see it helping tremendously with rankings. Just a personal preference. I think it looks to plain without signatures.

[icare]

Thanks

[Peggy]

I don't do this for the simple fact I like for guests to be able to see my members signatures. Plus I do not see it helping tremendously with rankings. Just a personal preference. I think it looks to plain without signatures.

but if you have the type of site that I have, while not porn, there are still instances where I feel the need to protect the eyes of the innocent, this is tremendously helpful ;)

[Mike]

Thanks for this mod. I remember it from a while back, but had forgotten about it. Used this modification in the past, but haven't had any of these installed since I installed vbseo last year. With VBSEO off my system now, I need to get things fixed back up like they belong.

This is a very good SEO modification here.

[minstrel]

We argued about this on your old forum, Joey. I still disagree vehemently with you.


This is something most forums will want to do - for several reasons -
No. This is something no forum should ever do for several reasons.


Outbound links may count against you in the eyes of google and can reduce your pagerank;
There has never, ever, anywhere been a shred of evidence that this is true. The myth of PR bleed is just that - a myth - without any substance whatsoever.


They can also be bad if they are links to "Link Farms" or "Bad Neighborhoods"
That's what forum rules, moderators, and admins are for.


Signatures with pics can slow down the loading of your pages. Search engines prefer quick loading pages, so do visitors; Signatures with pics can chew up alot of bandwith if your hosting the pics;
Yes but the solution is not to disable sigs for visitors - the so0lution is to prohibit graphics, or at least large graphics, in signatures.


What this will do is make it so only registered members of your forum can see signatures - so visitors and search engine bots wont see them.
One of the things that brings new members to forums is the chance to display links in their posts which can be picked up by spiders, especially links to brand new sites. When you disable links for guests, you disable links for spiders. That eliminates one of the reasons for someone to join your forum. That may discourage new members from joining and posting. That is self-defeating for a forum owner. The object is to reward members for posting and encourage new members, not to discourage them.

[Joeychgo]

We argued about this on your old forum, Joey. I still disagree vehemently with you.

Nothing says you have to agree with me. Differing opinions are what makes forums great.




One of the things that brings new members to forums is the chance to display links in their posts which can be picked up by spiders, especially links to brand new sites. When you disable links for guests, you disable links for spiders. That eliminates one of the reasons for someone to join your forum. That may discourage new members from joining and posting. That is self-defeating for a forum owner. The object is to reward members for posting and encourage new members, not to discourage them.

This wont be true on most forums. My car forums users have never complained, or even mentioned it. For a webmaster forum, different story. But most of my car forums members dont know about spiders, pagerank, server loads, etc etc. I cant imagine a scuba diver forum, or model railroad forum would have members that cared if Search engines or visitors saw links.

If you have a busy forum like mine, signatures can also throw off Adsense targeting. A thread with many wordy signatures, can confuse adsense and deliver the wrong ads. I found this out when I put some Lincoln information in my sig at my mitsubishi forum. I kept wondering why I would sometimes see Lincoln ads on a mitsubishi site. Then I realized. My signature. When I deleted sigs from visitor viewing, the Lincoln ads stopped.

[minstrel]

That AdSense thing is a bit weird. You must have had a very heavy ratio of sig to page content to swing it that much :eek:

That said, if your original post had said that it might make sense for SOME forums instead of MOST, I'd have less of an issue. I also wish the post had pointed out that SE spiders are "Guests" on a forum and they see what a Guest sees and no more. That's important information for a forum owner and forum members to know.

For your car forums, you've said that your members really like large graphics in their sigs - that makes sense and for such a forum you SHOULD be giving your members what they want. For my psychology forum, most members don't care about links but they do like having personalized sigs and SOME like the link value to blogs or favorite sites. For a webmasters forum, my opinion is that sig links should never be disabled.

[Brandon Sheley]

There has never, ever, anywhere been a shred of evidence that this is true. The myth of PR bleed is just that - a myth - without any substance whatsoever.
.

uuum,, I have to disagree with you strongly here.. it's a proven fact and has been stated several times over the net.

do u see high ranked link farms ?

btw, I implemented this long ago :)

I do see Bamaguys point, and will think about this letting my members show sigs

[minstrel]

it's a pr oven fact and has been stated several times over the net
Show me where. The only place you will find any evidence of this is in a couple of entirely theoretical papers with no relevance to the real world of the net and in other forum posts. There is more superstitious thinking about Google than almost anything else except political conspiracy theories.

It's a total myth. It just simply is not true.

[Mike]

All the links on my forum get a no follow tag anyway, so nobodyis benefitting in terms for link value for putting a link in their signature.

And if they come in and just post 4-5 times to get their sig in, then leave, the signature always disappeared soon after anyway. If it is all about getting a link, they can go to the directory and set up a recip link automatically. I dont need them using my forum as a billboard.

[Brandon Sheley]

Show me where. The only place you will find any evidence of this is in a couple of entirely theoretical papers with no relevance to the real world of the net and in other forum posts. There is more superstitious thinking about Google than almost anything else except political conspiracy theories.

It's a total myth. It just simply is not true.


there is some good info here

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/

I know I've read about it on his blog, if need be I can track it down ;)

it's a simple fact, that if website A has 300 links to odd sites on a page, it's going to be very hard to get good PR for your relevant keywords ;)

maybe I'm misunderstanding you, because it seems like common sense to me..

[minstrel]

It may seem like common sense but like many things that seem like common sense it's wrong. Cutts is not saying that outgoing links hurt your PR. The only thing he's said is be careful who you link to, don't buy or sell links, and don't have a preponderance of non-relevant reciprocal links because Google will look at those as artificial linking practices and discount them.

[minstrel]

All the links on my forum get a no follow tag anyway, so nobodyis benefitting in terms for link value for putting a link in their signature.
That's just as bad and just as misguided.


And if they come in and just post 4-5 times to get their sig in, then leave, the signature always disappeared soon after anyway. If it is all about getting a link, they can go to the directory and set up a recip link automatically. I dont need them using my forum as a billboard.
It's not all about getting a link. It's a little extra way of saying thank you to forum members - you benefit from their posting - why not give a little something back, especially when it's easy to give and doesn't hurt you in the least.

Look at DigitalPoint, just to name one of the forums I frequent. I have over 11000 posts there. Do I need 11000 sig links? No, of course not. Does that even count as 11000 backlinks? No, of course not. But if Shawn were to start a no-follow policy or a not-visible-to-guests-and-spiders policy at DP, I would leave in a flash. Why? because it's petty, discourteous, disrespectful, and would clearly tell me that he doesn't know enough about search engines, forum promotion, or SEO to warrant my respect or patronage. It's a matter of principle to me.

[Joeychgo]

The only thing he's said is be careful who you link to, don't buy or sell links, and don't have a preponderance of non-relevant reciprocal links


You just made the SEO argument for doin this.

You cant control sig links, or where they go to. Often times they are not relevant.

I say again Minstrel... You have to consider the majority of forum topics. Sure, webmaster sites such as this one and digital point pretty much have to permit links, I agree with that. But most other forum topics dont apply.

A photo gallery is a GREAT and almost necessary add on for a car forum, but it wouldn't get much play here, so I dont have one installed.

[minstrel]

You just made the SEO argument for doin this.

You cant control sig links, or where they go to. Often times they are not relevant.
No. I haven't made any kind of argument for this.

1. sig links are outgoing links - outgoing links do not bleed PR

2. what needs to be relevant to the forum content are incoming links - those are what increase PR and provide relevant anchor text

3. you don't have to control where sig links go - if the targets offend you, have the moderators or admins remove them

If you are really worried about outgoing links, Joey, why are you still using Coop links on this site? why aren't you worried about those? You should be: are any of those outgoing links relevant to your forum content? for that matter, how many of the Coop incoming links are relevant to your forum content? I would be far more worried about continuing to use Coop links than sig links.

[Joeychgo]

If you are really worried about outgoing links, Joey, why are you still using Coop links on this site? why aren't you worried about those? You should be: are any of those outgoing links relevant to your forum content? for that matter, how many of the Coop incoming links are relevant to your forum content? I would be far more worried about continuing to use Coop links than sig links.

Im not worried about the outgoing links. I disable sigs for other reasons. Speed of page loading, less HTML, etc. Im just following the debate as others are taking it.

[Brandon Sheley]

http://www.google.com/technology/

I think this has info on exactly what we're talking about :)

[minstrel]

???

Where does it say anything there about outgoing links hurting you?

[Brandon Sheley]

okay, well I'll find you the proof, until then you go ahead and give out links ;)
I wont be on any of my sites
or will I advise any of my clients to either

[minstrel]

you go ahead and give out links
Thaks! Will do. :)


I wont be on any of my sites
Trust me. I won't be on any of your sites either. :D

[Brandon Sheley]

lol..

"they" wont be on any of my sites..

I think that means I need to go to bed..

[Brandon Sheley]

http://webworkshop.net/pagerank.html


A page "votes" an amount of PageRank onto each page that it links to. The amount of PageRank that it has to vote with is a little less than its own PageRank value (its own value * 0.85). This value is shared equally between all the pages that it links to.

From this, we could conclude that a link from a page with PR4 and 5 outbound links is worth more than a link from a page with PR8 and 100 outbound links. The PageRank of a page that links to yours is important but the number of links on that page is also important. The more links there are on a page, the less PageRank value your page will receive from it.

;)

[minstrel]

1. that article is from PhilC - and like PhilC it is older than Stonehenge

2. there is nothing that emanates from him or his forum or the rat pack that frequents his forum that is worth reading

3. even what you quote does NOT say that outgoing links decreases PR (although PhilC has tried to claim that elsewhere) - what you have cited says that the PR value any page is able to pass on to another page is divided among the number of outgoing links on that page - if your page is PR5 with a single outgoing link, it can pass approximately (0.85 * 5) to that page - if it has 10 outgoing links, each gets ((0.85 * 5)/10) worth of PR - BUT: the original page containing those links is still PR5 no matter how many outgoing links there are

There is no such thing as PR bleed. The page containing the links does NOT lose PR.

[Brandon Sheley]

okay, well tell me this then.. if you submit your site to a directory for backlinks.. do you submit to PR0 sites ? or do you submit to high PR site ;)

You'll get better backlinks from higher PR sites ;) you know this as do most webmasters that have read anythign about SEO

how about this,, you try and prove me wrong, I've researched this for months, and I know for a FACT that a higher PR site with my link, will help me out more then a PR0

[minstrel]

okay, well tell me this then.. if you submit your site to a directory for backlinks.. do you submit to PR0 sites ? or do you submit to high PR site ;)
Both. Today's PR0 directory is tomorrow's PR5 or 6 or 7 or 8 directory. Every site starts out at PR0 (more or less). I've started three directories myself this year - two are now around PR3 and PR4; the most recent one (less than a month old) still shows PR0 - all of course based on Toolbar PR which we know isn't accurate. When I submit to directories, I look at quality, whether or not submissions are screened and edited, preferably human-edited, the topic/niche and target audience, etc. If it's a decent directory, PR will come. If not, I don't care how high the PR is - I don't submit.


You'll get better backlinks from higher PR sites ;) you know this as do most webmasters that have read anythign about SEO

how about this,, you try and prove me wrong, I've researched this for months, and I know for a FACT that a higher PR site with my link, will help me out more then a PR0
:confused:

loco, where did I EVER say anything to contradict that statement? We were debating the myth of PR bleed - the misguided notion that outgoing links somehow decrease the PR value of your page. They don't. PR is based on INCOMING links only, not on outgoing links.

What you are debating now isn't a debate. I never, ever, anywhere said you should ignore PR entirely or that high PR sites weren't in general more beneficial (for the moment) than lower PR sites.

[Brandon Sheley]

okay, well I'm not going to discuss then anymore cuz i know I'm correct :p

I'm not trying to start a fight or anything, u do your thing and I'll do mine.. but I doubt anyone can argue that a link on a pr9 site isn't better then a link on a pr0 site ;)

[minstrel]

???


well I'm not going to discuss then anymore cuz i know I'm correct

I'm not trying to start a fight or anything, u do your thing and I'll do mine.. but I doubt anyone can argue that a link on a pr9 site isn't better then a link on a pr0 site
I don't know if you're joking here, drunk, high, or just insane.

Please: WHERE DID I EVER ANYWHERE HERE OR ON ANY OTHER FORUM OR ANYWHERE ELSE EVER STATE OR IMPLY THAT "a link on a pr9 site isn't better then a link on a pr0 site"????

Go back and re-read this thread. The thread was never about that. This thread was about the myth of PR bleed and nothing you have posted has anything whatsoever to do with that issue.

[Joeychgo]

Actually, this was about disabling signatures for a variety of reasons...

You guys should start a new thread to discuss PR bleed and linking issues.