Black hat SEO ?????

[Bob R]

Doing some research to improve my own SEO. If I am reading what I found right https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/UZPh0EPOXcE, putting a link to your website in a forum post signature is considered "Black Hat" by Google and may in fact hurt your ranking.
Any comments?

[Gunnar Alquist]

Doing some research to improve my own SEO. If I am reading what I found right https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/UZPh0EPOXcE, putting a link to your website in a forum post signature is considered "Black Hat" by Google and may in fact hurt your ranking.
Any comments?

Bob,

I cannot say for sure, since I am not a geek/nerd, but I think backlinks are in the response text rather than a signature. Take a look at this IN post (http://www.inspectionnews.net/home_inspection/attic-areas-home-inspection-and-commercial-inspection/52053-cause-dark-wood-attic.html) (that was a backlink, by the way) by Matthew Howard. It seems like the only reason for his response was to put in a link to his website. I looked-up "backlink" and that seems to be what it refers to.

I wonder if Google can differentiate between a link in a profile/signature and one in-line in a forum or message board.

This is where I read about backlinks: https://www.seomark.co.uk/backlinks/

[John Dirks Jr]

It might depend on whether the content in the link is relevant. This is a site discussing home inspection topics. If the link in a signature leads to a site with similar content, it shouldn't hurt. But if it directs to something different, that may be recognized as misleading.

[Jim Luttrall]

I'm not literate with SEO, links, etc. But I have gotten many consumers that have been to this site and have contacted me concerning specific questions. So I figure my signature here is relevant and helpful to people. Not sure if the robots like it or not.