Changes in signature rules

[dominique]

, some even changed the link to a pseudo link - WTF?

Ok, what's a pseudo link - is that what I have? Maybe this needs to be a bit clearer, because I assumed this is what you wanted...

[dendrite]

I think it was what I put in one of my earlier posts, Dominique (13th September 2009, 02:26 AM)

I put it in hoping to have a bit of a jovial laugh when the links got switched off, I thought someone might notice and say "hey look, why isn't that link switched off?" - just for a bit of fun (well, at 2am in the morning, when I put it in, I thought that might be a comedy moment, anyway, lol)

But then the debate moved on, with people getting all annoyed and then I found I couldn't go back and edit the post...

[lots0]

Tell me why I shouldn't just shut off the sigs globally, or a least just for the webmasters.

Turn em off, don't matter to me one way or the other... never has.
As a matter of fact I will remove my link from my profile right now and would you please remove me from the webmaster group... I'm tired of being green.

Bryan I gotta laugh about about your comment

...that is extremely self-serving in my opinion.

I know it is probably not cool to find humor in that statement, but then I am a very cynical old man.

[dendrite]

Bryan, here is some data that might help explain why this has become more of an issue than you predicted it would

The debate here made me go and look at my google stats (I used to have a link up in my sig) to see what sort of traffic the site got directly from Casinomeister. Remember I only have 90 posts, so am very low profile here, but these were the stats nonetheless:

130 visits
89% new visits
4.1 page views per visit
3.06 minutes on the site per visit

The stat I don't get to see, however, is how many of those went on to click banners, become players, deposit etc. It's not possible to get that from google analytics, so I can't say whether the traffic made me money or not. I just don't know

But, what if I had thousands of posts, rather than 90? - the traffic could be considerable. It might even be bringing thousands of online casino enthusiasts to the site every year and many of those might bookmark the site and click banners, play at the casinos etc. So, you would have to say that for some posters here, the links could have generated quite a bit of revenue, no matter what they say

To be fair, I think most newbie webmasters like myself just put links in because experts at GPWA and CAP tell everyone that if you do take part in forums, you may as well add your links in the sig. The idea was that you might just get an SEO benefit as an added bonus to posting. I'd never thought about direct traffic from the links before, but now I looked at the data, it makes sense. Thousands of posts and thousands of sig links could equal significant dollars

The other thing this data tells me is that you might get a deserved and unexpected positive effect from taking out the links - it will probably mean tens of thousands of people that were leaving your site to visit portals in the sigs will now stay at casinomeister and hopefully click your banners instead. That is great, imo as it's your site and you should get the rewards

Finally, there is also the benefit of the newly discovered 'no follow link-sculpting' revelation by google. For those that don't know, all the pro SEOs have recently been telling their clients to remove all unnecessary 'nofollow' links from there sites asap, after it was revealed by Matt Cutts of google that this could hurt a site's position in the search engines

So, overall, this has to be a good move by you - for a start, the forums will be easier to read without links, they will be a much better place to visit. But also, you, as the owner, deserve the unexpected benefit of not leaking traffic via the sigs and also deserve the other unexpected benefit from the link-sculpting situation. It's a win win situation and hopefully very good for this excellent site and its forums

The only people it will hurt are the webmasters that were being helped out by the traffic from the links

[lots0]

I only have 90 posts, so am very low profile here, but these were the stats nonetheless:

130 visits
89% new visits
4.1 page views per visit
3.06 minutes on the site per visit

Thats because you are new and the regulars here were checking you out.

I have well over a thousand posts and I don't get that many visits from here in six months.

Actually I have found that because of some of the things I have posted here (speaking your mind has a cost).. having my link in my profile here has hurt my site far more than it has helped... hence my decision to remove my link.

Do any of you remember the minesteringangel thing? Those friggin jerks spent six months trying to hack my site... they found my site only because of the link in my profile here.

[RobWin]

Well I'm back and rather p.o'd.

I had no idea that this would be an issue worth discussing - yet here we have a multi-page thread - webmasters up in arms over a policy that changes the sig rules. So in short, you are participating here just to boost your site or gain some traffic? This long and hard about that - that is extremely self-serving in my opinion.

And even when I changed the policy over a week ago, a number of you decided to just drum your fingers, roll your eyes and wait, some even changed the link to a pseudo link - WTF?

Tell me why I shouldn't just shut off the sigs globally, or a least just for the webmasters.

I thought that based on what you had previously said in your post, your email and your Private message that you were going to turn off Sig's globally but I may have misinterpreted all of that because I see peeps here now who had nothing but writing in their Sig's that now look like this "COLOR="DarkSlateBlue"]WagerWitch[/COLOR]" as my Sig below does too... and then I still see several other peeps who are not mods have live links that look like this....(just using Spear as an example) there are others too...Sig Pic below taken at 12:35pm EST 9-19-09

Attachment 19102

so IMO I think everyone is still confused about what is allowed and what is not just to be fair to all. Like the others have said, it is your forum Bryan and I for one respect that and as you noticed on day 1, Thurs. Sep. 10th when you first issued this statement for everyone to remove their links, I complied with your wishes and removed mine immediately as posted in this thread on page one I believe. So there again I have to assume that this was a volunteer thing to do out of respect for your wishes I presume.

Here we are now 9 days later and there are still several peeps here who still have live links as of my posting this. Personally I would not add my Website Sig back to my posts here now if I was told by you it was ok. Hell, before I became an affiliate back in January of this year I had already made almost 4000 posts to Casinomeister over the previous 5 years IIRC, so I can live with the Sig's or without the Sig's myself. I can even deal with the text looking like crap in my current Sig below.

What does peek my curiosity though is why some of the other highly respected members here that are not mods have chose to leave their Sig's live and also why they don't look like crap like some of the others do, does that in fact mean that they too think they are getting benefit or link juice out of those live Sig's?

[BingoT]

This all reminds me of the time where you had a promo area for members and you took that away.
And that place you can post any link to any poker,bingo,casino you have to offer.
But I do have to say many members that use to post in that area are no where to be found today.and to me they are the one's that used you.
And some members are still here after all that like myself.
Life goes on.
~T~

[WagerWitch]

This all reminds me of the time where you had a promo area for members and you took that away.
And that place you can post any link to any poker,bingo,casino you have to offer.
But I do have to say many members that use to post in that area are no where to be found today.and to me they are the one's that used you.
And some members are still here after all that like myself.
Life goes on.
~T~

I dunno - I promote Casinomeister on my site.

I have both links and a VIDEO on that - I also twitter interesting info - and tell people to come here.

That does not sound like I'm "USING" anyone.

I like signatures - as long as they aren't annoying or flashing...

Just me.

[WagerWitch]

I removed my signature and whatever that extra stuff (HTML) showing was...

SO y'all boogers can quit pickin' on me... Sniffle (cry) Sniffle...


Just FYI - I rank 21-30 in Google for Casinomeister Forum.... Which shows that I do absolutely PROMOTE Casinomeister.

[WagerWitch]

By the way - I didn't realize that BEING AN AFFILIATE was considered a bad thing - SINCE IT WAS AN "option" as a group of people.

I thought it was a badge of honor...

Kinda like I think putting your site below your name as a signature was.

I guess Others have differing views - and AFFILIATES are scumbags or something.

I mean - that is what I'm getting out of all of this.

Well - I'm not a scumbag affiliate... That's all I want to say. I'm a decent affiliate - and I share links and I put people in my site - and actively promote others... And you know what? I'm also a very nice person. So there... Pfffffffffftttttt.