All SEO practitioners know the importance of building backlinks to their site. However, doing so is notoriously difficult. Especially these days when almost all user generated content contains “nofollow” links, thereby removing their value. This is a good thing as it means that you will have to work for your backlinks. Most forums follow the “nofollow” procedure as well. However, there are some forums that allow “follow” links in their signatures.

The good ones try and prevent spammers from abusing this generosity by forcing a period of several days (possible weeks) before you are allowed to use signatures in your posts. They also have a certain number of posts that need to be made over that time. This procedure ensures that spammers don’t have the time, nor the inclination to spend this much effort in creating backlinks.

However, as a webmaster, it’s important to realize that nothing comes from free – and the same is true for backlinks. Determined SEO professionals will indeed try and use these forums to build backlinks – but they will also contribute to the forums by ensuring that they make useful comments and are regular participators. When it comes to building backlinks, give and take is the name of the game. And you have to ensure that you’re really concerned about building and contributing good content if you want to improve your site listings.

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