Forum profile section or signature line as backlink

[mtthompsons]

Hi,

Forum profile section or signature line as backlink VS Answering a question and giving a related post URl as the answer is better?

I have the above question on which would be better

Would a signature or website name in the profile is valuable then a link to your site where information is available?

Does Google consider both as spam/blackhat?

Thanks

[artdivision]

The idea in engaging with people in forums is to drive traffic, become a source of information and eventually achieve sales. been there done it.

Do not focus solely on link building, SEO now is more of a complete digital marketing package than link building.

Unfortunately I do not remember the source I saw this but I am 99,9% sure that signature links might be penalised by Google so i wouldnt go with that direction (should you insist in pure link building ofcourse).

[mtthompsons]

Thanks but my questions would be will answering in forums and providing links of no use?

[Chris.Menke]

If I were to chose, I'd say profiles are better than signatures. They're less pushy and less likely to be harmful to your site's rankings.

[mtthompsons]

Direct traffic is the goal

But will the Algorithmic benefit hurt?

[Chris.Menke]

What is the primary benefit you're looking to get?  Algorithmic benefit? Direct traffic? Branding?

[mtthompsons]

So forum posting is not a good medium?

Helping members on sites and then giving an exact URL which has relevant info?

Among these 3 and blog commenting which do you suggest

[Chris.Menke]

More often than not, signatures and links from profiles are nofollowed so you probably won't get any link juice from either.  If I were to chose, I'd say profiles are better than signatures because it's better to have one link coming from a stronger page than a bunch of links with the same anchor text coming from a bunch of weaker pages.  If you have a page of content on your site that would be important to your target audience, you'd be better off not using either of those methods, as they're on the spammy side.  You'd be better of promoting through social media channels.