Warning: Tread carefully on Forums

1. 60

   Adam Harkusposted 8 years ago

   A word of warning. Posting your Hubpages links on forums will, if you're not careful quickly get you booted off it. Advertising is against the T&C's of most forums, although some are more strict than others.
   
   Be careful out there, particularly if it's a forum you regularly participate in.

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2. 96

   EricDockettposted 8 years ago

   It is something many of us have learned the hard way.
   
   Posting self-serving links on forums is not only bad form, it is pretty much pointless these days, and has been for many years. Most web users are savvy enough to figure out you are benefiting from their visits and it won't take long until you are reported as a spammer.
   
   And, it is not a strategy that leads to sustained traffic anyway. If you learn SEO and write decent articles people will find and share your Hubs often enough all by themselves.
   
   If you are a longtime member of a forum who is in good standing and well respected there is nothing wrong with sharing a link to your content now and then. Otherwise, it is a pretty quick way to get a bad reputation for yourself and for HubPages.

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3. 88

   NateB11posted 8 years ago

   My logic has been that Google likes organic links, so I haven't posted to forums. I use some social media judiciously though.

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4. 60

   Adam Harkusposted 8 years ago

   Honeymoon period. Over !

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5. 0

   calculus-geometryposted 8 years ago

   I wouldn't fret over it too much, Adam. The worst that can happen to anyone is their link gets snipped and they get banned for a few days.  Life will go on.  If someone is excessively wagging their finger at you over an innocent mistake, that says more about them.

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   1. 96

      EricDockettposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      If you mean me I really didn't mean to excessively wag any appendage. Just trying to offer advice.
      
      As I said, its a lesson sometimes learned the hard way. We were all new at this at one point.

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         calculus-geometryposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         I have no idea what you are talking about. I don't  know where Adam was posting links that got him into trouble or who wagged their finger at him .  I was only telling him not to get too bothered about getting in trouble.  You are reading  into my comment something that isn't there.

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            EricDockettposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            Sorry! I thought you were suggesting my reply to him was overly harsh. I misunderstood.

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               calculus-geometryposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               cool

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6. 94

   FatFreddysCatposted 8 years ago

   I am a long time member of several forums where my status as a wanna-be writer/blogger is well known, so I've never had problems with posting links to my Hubs on them.  I never get more than a couple of token pity views per Hub out of it, but hey, it's better than nothing.
   
   I do agree, though, that it's bad form to sign up for a forum and immediately start posting links to your stuff all over the place without ever taking part in any other discussions. That can and will get you banned.
   
   In my case, I was a member in good standing of each forum even before I started Hubbing. Even so, I still made sure to ask the admin(s) if it was OK to start posting links to my Hubs on their sites, and they were cool about it.  On two of these forums I was even given my own thread ("My Deranged Ramblings on HubPages.com") to post my wares in.
   
   Here's a good example of the WRONG way to go about it: some time ago a small-time author/self-publisher registered at one of the forums I hang out on, and he proceeded to carpet-bomb the entire site with dozens of random threads about himself, his books, his magazine articles, and even a contest where we could "meet the author and be written into his next story as a character," etc., etc. -- mind you, this was not even a forum devoted to writing! This guy just showed up out of nowhere, posted nothing but self-advertising and acted like we should've all known who he was, even though he was a total nobody, haha. Needless to say he was escorted to the door fairly quickly.

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   1. 81

      jackclee lmposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      This HP rule like many other hard and fast rules are not perfect. In my mind, if a hub contains detail information regarding the topic of forum, there is no reason why a hubber can't link to it whether it is his own hub or not. Information is information regardless of sources. Personally, I'm confused about the Q/A and forums. It seems that these have overlaps. Why not just have one discussion place where topics can be raised and people weigh in with their opinions.

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7. 94

   FatFreddysCatposted 8 years ago

   I think we're talking about two different things. Yes, there is an HP 'rule' that says you are not allowed to post self promotional links to your own hubs in HP's own forums.
   
   However, there is no rule against posting them on other web forums/message boards which are unrelated to HP. I believe those are the types of forums the original poster was referring to.

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      jackclee lmposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks, on careful re-reading, I got the point. I hardly do that anyway. I do think putting links in this forum should be allowed.

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8. 88

   Stacie Lposted 8 years ago

   I will go to a hubbers profile if I find their post interesting or to learn more about them. They don't need to put a link about themselves.

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      jackclee lmposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      If a topic discussion is relevant and a hub exist already, I don't see the harm of posting the link.

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9. 60

   Adam Harkusposted 8 years ago

   I was referring to using external forums as a method of driving traffic to my hubs. I've already used the old 'can i have feedback on my hub' trick

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