Spamming forums

[tomysole]

Any way to effectively use forums to promote your site without being a spammer. Just had an idea of being a member of lots of forums that I'm interested in and not really spamming them with poker ad but just participating normally and making my signature my website. Any comments on doing this. Maybe I could get a few unique visitors just by posting on forums regularly. Maybe a waste of time? Or maybe a way to get a few extra visitors without really spamming.

[gPowell]

yes, I have used this method before and increased my traffic.

Spamming forums is a crappy way to do business. The best way to get traffic from forums is in signature files. If a forum allows you to have links in your signature, I don't think this is violating any policies. I wouldn't sugget placing affiliate codes in sig. files but a simple link to your website shouldn't be an issue if it is okay with the webmaster.

[Nick0r]

A few people from here have done that on my forum and been banned. Spam is a big nono.

I think it is up to each webmaster to decide if they will allow url's in the signatures. If you do allow them however though you shouldn't ban people for utilizing that function of your board, why not just turn it off?

[Nick0r]

It's not that, it's when people come and make dumb posts that are only there to serve the purpose of showing their sig. Adioking and Randy contribute well and I don't have a problem with that.

It's all about intention.

If you're there just to get links to your site visible in the hopes of getting traffic, it's spam, or trolling, or whatever you want to call it.

If you're there to participate in a conversation, and contribute to the community, to learn something, teach something, share something, etc, then it's not spam, it's just a signature link.

It's always a good idea to make sure you're signature link is okay with the forum admin too, although usually if it's not allowed it's mentioned in the forum rules.

[Webzcas]

To be honest, I think if you are going to have signatures with your links in them, you should ensure you regulary contribute something to the forum that you are link dropping in.

My Casino forum isn't very busy as it is new, but it bugs the hell out of me when fly by night affiliates drop their links over the place never to return.

I also run a very popular politics forum and it gets a lot of 1 post spam wonders and is very annoying.

[Georgia Poker]

I would stick to finding a forum of something else you like. For me it's cars and I'm a regular on several enthusiasts forums, I've stuck in the occasional post about a freeroll, etc but keep in mind that my relevant post count to my occasional poker post is about 50-1. Meaning that I make 50 relevant, content rich posts for each poker related post. It's the same logic when building your website, you need to create content rich pages with a FEW links for your affiliate programs. Banner farms and spam just don't work nowadays.

Hope this helps.