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In looking at the linking policy on this forum, I have a question for you internet guru folk.
This forum encourages content generation by requiring ...
In looking at the linking policy on this forum, I have a question for you internet guru folk.
This forum encourages content generation by requiring a minimum post count before being able to post links in an actual post. Members can, however, post a link in their signature right off the bat (at least I was able to, not sure if I was supposed to...).
I'm just curious if a Link Exchange kind of policy for a forum is considered a kind of "Black Hat" method in the realm of the internet. Sure, most people I've talked to are willing to exchange a link one-for-one in private. Would a link exchange as a policy on the forum be any different? I.E., if you show evidence of posting a link to this forum on your own website, then a moderator would allow the user to post links in their threads and signatures.
I thought someone here would know if there's any difference. Backlinks are a pretty important part of the optimization process for the search engines. It seems to me that if a forum were to do this and it appeared to benefit all parties involved, it would be a good thing. What are the pitfalls to doing this?
This forum encourages content generation by requiring a minimum post count before being able to post links in an actual post. Members can, however, post a link in their signature right off the bat (at least I was able to, not sure if I was supposed to...).
This is not really correct. The rule is not to encourage the generation of content. The reason why you cant post a link right away is to discourage and decrease spammers. There are many people every day who join this and other forums just to put their spam in. By having the software not allow their links, it discourages these spammers.
In general, fewer spammers will take the time to make a signature and spam that way, so we allow signatures right away.
As far as a linking back policy, it is really not very practical to force people to link back to you before they can get a link on your forum.
Many insurance agents do not want any of their clients or potential clients to see what they write here on this forum. Also, the free backlinks are a way to entice people to post. If you make them link to you, you lose that edge.
We are thankful to all those that do link to us, and have given away some nice prises to encourage it.
Cool. I see what you mean about discouraging spammers as opposed to encouraging content generation. Surely more content is generated as a result, but I see the point of why you do it that way.
If you have the (mis)fortune of managing a forum or blog (even a relatively inactive one), you'll see a barrage of spammers creating accounts and making one post or comment along the lines of "Good Post! Please check out my Paris Hilton Viagra website..." (using not so PG terms). These are typically generated by bots (scripts that scour the internet looking for forums and blogs to post to), but sometimes humans will do it too. It takes a bit of an investment in a forum to get to 15 posts, so it's a pretty good gateway.
It's amazing how many automated systems are out there. Actually, I like the "semi-automated" ones. They'll enter all of your information, but you enter the comment, or decide which directories to join yourself.
Are the bots capable of getting around the verification pictures that forums have now?
I realize there are probably ways to get around it if you start the account and then start the bot, but it seems pretty counterproductive to go through the manual process of creating an account that will just be closed after the first couple of posts by a bot. Certainly there are other security measures that forums have today to prevent bots from spamming a forum with a buttload of posts.
Since you are getting ready to start a new insurance forum, let me give you some advice.
1. Hard code into the backend that you are banning ALL DOMAINS that end in .ru. I have found that a full 50% of the spambots are from .ru domains.
2. Captcha's do not work very well at all against spambots. It is much better to have a group of possible questions that are easy to answer but need human intelligence. (Even these don't always work)
3. If you set your settings to not allow anyone to post a link in their first x number of posts, you will cut down on the effect that spam has. Yes, they will; still come and post, but no one will follow the links. These spam bots are very smart and when someone follows a link they post, they know the source and they concentrate their efforts on that forum as somewhere that they can get traffic.
4. There are more affiliate marketers in the insurance industry than almost any other industry, now that mortgages have gone way down. (Dating and ringtones are still higher) These people will spam you anyway and there is nothing you can do about it except to delete and ban once they get through.
5. When we started this forum we were using PHPBB. We spent a lot of money to migrate to VBulletin and the single largest factor was the increased control over spam that it gives you.
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