I checked my traffic stats for my link directory and i found out that the traffic exchanges don't really do that much. Most of my traffic comes from the 40+ forums i've joined and have a signature on. Look at my traffic stats for the last 18days for proof of how many people visit my site:
http://img168.imageshack.us/my.php?image=trafficstatsez2.gif
It averages out to be 102.78 visitors per day
I am still joining forums as we speak and using my signature to advertise my link directory.
my advice would be to do what i'm doing because it works.
Megan posted this at 13:09 — 21st April 2007.
She has: 10,228 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
Well, my opinion is that 100 visitors/day out of 40 forums is not that great of a return rate. That's 2.5 visitors per forum per day. And how much time do you spend posting?
My opinion is that forum signatures work okay when you're just staring out and need any traffic you can get and/or if you've got a ton of time to put into it. When I tried this stragedy last year I found that it really wasn't worth my time. When you're already getting several thousand visitors today a few hundred for that amount of work isn't really worth it, especially considering all the other things that need doing!
Here's another thread with more opinions on the effectiveness of forum signatures:
http://www.webmaster-forums.net/showthread.php?t=34723&highlight=forum+signatures
I do think there are a lot of other benefits to posting in forums. If you build a reputation for yourself and gain trust from the community the rewards could be a lot greater.
Megan
My web design blog
markov posted this at 03:32 — 22nd April 2007.
They have: 83 posts
Joined: Aug 2006
I think the forum posting is a good method to get one way links? But its effectiveness in the old sites is of not much value. When a signature is put at the end of the forum post, out of curiousity itself the visitors click the signature. Its not a targetted visitor's click.
Hello Megan! I do have some queries regarding the forum posting?
Case 1: Posting in around 40 forums in a month @ 10 posts in the whole month.
Case 2: Posting ionly in 5 forums in a day @ 10 posts per day...so concentrating only on 5 forums.
In which case, benefit will be better?
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Megan posted this at 13:22 — 23rd April 2007.
She has: 10,228 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
Ten posts per forum or ten posts overall? Doesn't really matter - I think concentrating on fewer forums is a much better strategy if you're going to go this route. Then people get to know you a bit and you can build trust from the community.
I sort of think that readers ignore signatures most of the time unless the person has been particularly helpful to them or posts particularly valuable comments. I don't know - I'll have to check my referrer logs to see how much traffic I get from here.
Megan
My web design blog
demonhale posted this at 03:28 — 24th April 2007.
He has: 3,301 posts
Joined: May 2005
I think the first post is a little suspicious though... unless he increases his number of posts, I would say it's Spam...
Visit my New Blog Gee, Please... | Designer Graphics 9
Megan posted this at 19:47 — 24th April 2007.
She has: 10,228 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
LOL, you're probably right. I'm surprised I didn't catch on to that - there have been a bunch of those lately. I'll remove the link and see if he shows up again.
Megan
My web design blog
Michelangelo posted this at 12:39 — 25th April 2007.
They have: 7 posts
Joined: Apr 2007
In my oppinion signature links could be a great way to promote your website. the problem with this way of promotion is, that you have to be very active, and therefore, it might be very time consuming to make posts on 40 forums.
Musson posted this at 11:58 — 4th May 2007.
They have: 91 posts
Joined: Dec 2006
Yep, it's time consuming and even if the surge of traffic takes place it's more of the post-effect, so on the whole, forum-posting alone can be called an effective strategy.
Wind is not constant, unlike the musson.
Azam.net posted this at 13:06 — 30th April 2007.
He has: 73 posts
Joined: Sep 2005
I suppose it could work, but would be a bit spammy to just post for the sake of your signature.
LinXhunter.com posted this at 10:46 — 24th May 2007.
They have: 5 posts
Joined: May 2007
I wouldn't recommend using forum signatures as a key promotional tool - think of them more as a bit of free traffic in return for posting and a few extra backlinks.
For the time spent posting it is not really worth it, but you've obvioualy shown if you are posting anyway it is worth ahaving a signature for the free traffic.
Purchasing sig space from busy forum posters can sometimes be very effective.
-----> SELL UNDISCOVERED AD SPACE ON YOUR SITE:
Click here to make money with LinXhunter.com
Megan posted this at 13:07 — 24th May 2007.
She has: 10,228 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
Oooh, that's interesting! I'll have to think about whether we would allow that here or not.
Megan
My web design blog
LinXhunter.com posted this at 16:26 — 24th May 2007.
They have: 5 posts
Joined: May 2007
I dont think there would be any point banning it as people can still do it behind your back without you neccesarily knowing it.
Selling Sig Space is very popular over at Digital Point.
-----> SELL UNDISCOVERED AD SPACE ON YOUR SITE:
Click here to make money with LinXhunter.com
Finntroll posted this at 12:27 — 25th May 2007.
They have: 132 posts
Joined: Sep 2006
You mean it's not allowed?
Megan posted this at 12:57 — 25th May 2007.
She has: 10,228 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
Ummmm.... I'm not sure about that. We like to avoid as much commercialization here as we can. Eventually we'd like the forum to be completely ad free. So it would kind of suck for us if users started running ads in their signatures. IMO, signatures also aren't really the property of the poster to sell. It's a privilege we've allowed you to have, with a little bit of space to promote your own sites if you want.
It is true that it could be difficult to detect. With the size we're at now it's often easy to tell whether a user is a webmaster of a site or not.
Megan
My web design blog
hasen posted this at 20:45 — 21st June 2007.
They have: 1 posts
Joined: Jun 2007
Everyone seems to talk about traffic but I think signature links are a far better source of free one way backlinks for SEO purposes.
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Megan posted this at 14:17 — 23rd June 2007.
She has: 10,228 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
The great thing bout being married is that Jeevesbond and I can discuss these things tat the dinner table
We don't exactly agree about this one yet 
Except that search engines don't exactly consider these to be important links. You used to be able to tell that by checking the linkdomain: command at yahoo but they seem to have changed that (now my sig links don't show up there at all - they used to be at the bottom of the list). Anyway, search engines know what links you may have created yourself and obviously they don't want to count those when passing value. The only SEO value sig links have IMO is if your site is very new and you just need to get it crawled.
Another thing I've heard is that search engines may not count multiple links from the same domain in the same way they do single links. So 10 links (or even fewer!) from one domain are about as useful as 100. That might be just a rumor though - I haven't heard much about that since I first read it. I need to start bookmarking these things so I can reference them when I need to.
Megan
My web design blog
JeevesBond posted this at 20:27 — 22nd June 2007.
He has: 3,591 posts
Joined: Jun 2002
Well firstly, we're not Digital Point
I think this is something we'd turn a blind eye to, we'd never encourage or endorse it but it's pointless trying to prohibit it. If someone had a two hundred line sig. with nothing but blatant adverts in it then we'd ask them to change it. If someone didn't add anything to the community, posting mindless drivel in order to get their sig. shown then we'll probably politely ask them not to.
Although these are separate issues what is a little worrying is selling sig. space will encourage people to do the things I've mentioned (that does not mean we will try to stop people selling sig space though). So it might mean we have more work to do to keep the spammers at bay, but on the bright side we may get some good members posting for fun and profit!
Whoah there Skippy! We haven't decided really, we're pretty open about decision making around here: saying whatever comes into our heads about an issue.
Sometimes people take this the wrong way, thinking that the mods/admins are bashing them. We just want to have a lively debate about everything, if we get feedback from people we can make the site better!
To be honest we hadn't even heard about this before someone mentioned it in this thread.
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