Users Posting links to their blogs

[Tinted]

How do you deal with first time users posting links to their blogs on their first post and also users advertising different services without approval.

 

[Mr Lucky]

Just not approve the post, delete the link, ask them nicely to follow the forum rules or ban if it is obvious spamming

 

[BobHarbison]

How do you deal with first time users posting links to their blogs on their first post and also users advertising different services without approval.

I make them into last time users.

If somebody shows up and at least posts something useful, I might warn them or even point them to the website category on my site.

But if all you do is show up, post a link/spam and leave? You're gonna have problems logging in next time. "User name not found".

 

[Tinted]

Just not approve the post, delete the link, ask them nicely to follow the forum rules or ban if it is obvious spamming

Is there a way to set up approval or automatic rejection for posts with links for certain user groups or user post counts

 

[Mr Lucky]

There's a permission for signature links, so that should be off for a start for new members.

There's an addon that disallows links, haven't tried it myself but I might look into it.

Our rules state that if somebody does post a link, then we expect a reciprocal. Especially if it's a commercial link (for which we say they must ask permission) It's more of a polite request rather than a rule but it does mean we get some linkbacks so it's good to allow linking once you know the member. If they stop posting I might remove their links if I find them, but life's too short to go hunting them down.

 

[Mr Lucky]

It's a fine line between not being taken advantage of and having a useful site - links are what makes the internet what it is so we need them. In theold days of SEO there seemed to be a race to get as many inbound links as possible witha s few outbound links, but that seems to have changed. And before that all sites had a page of purely links, those seem to have mostly gone as well. Google may have succeeded in for a large part getting rid of link farms and paid for links.

It's all down to a nice balance and ensuring the outbound links are on topic and useful.

 

[BobHarbison]

It's a fine line between not being taken advantage of and having a useful site - links are what makes the internet what it is so we need them.

Many threads on my site feature links. My site is about trains, and lot of the content is news, especially right now. I have no problem with outbound links.

However, there's a difference between useful and spam. If you simply post "Hey, come check out my train photo page!", you're likely to get banned or at best the message will be deleted. However, is somebody on my page asks "So what's an SD70" and you post "It's a 4000 HP diesel electric built by EMD, etc, etc, and then add "I have a photo gallery of them at my page..." I'd be OK with that. Both are links to your site, but in is spam, while the other has added value.