https://www.seroundtable.com/google-forum-link-dropping-18609.html
A very good info.
I guess some info may be helpful to take decisions, for example, based on that link, it may be worth consider make at least the links in the signatures (and maybe those in the "post bit" as well) nofollow.
Link is normally a promotion of user own site be it a blog or forum etc. However, it may be misused. It is also old style. If only a link i.e. from profile, that will suffice. But in each and every post, it is more like a spam. That I think was a reason why search engines punish such a link. A forum may add them back via addon or permission. That is why I think website and signature permission addon is useful.
Thats indeed interesting, and unusual for them to provide such a clear response. You would not think that filling in a profile field with a link to your blog or whatever would actually hurt you. Seems like we should have the nofollow on those to prevent that on profile and signature links.
@ahrasis are you suggesting to remove the website link from the profile dropdown in the topic listing and only have it shown when you navigate directly to the members profile page?
I like what you did with the permissions as well.
There may be also another option that is hide signatures and (some) profile fields from guests.
Yes. Something like that. But I think nofollow will be good too.
Noted that too.
Edited: What I really hope is that the forum will not get punish for its members act.
An interesting (almost old) reading:
http://techli.com/2013/12/the-truth-about-internet-marketing-part-2-seo-is-a-scam/
As someone who gets link removal requests because of the nature of his forums (roleplayers linking to a lot of pictures setting up a scene to trigger these hits), I can say a few things definitively.
1) Google does not punish you for having a few links in your signature, unless they are seriously keywordy. Google Webmaster Tools will let you know.
2) Google does not care whether or not your links are nofollow in order to punish you, if they do. Google has its own tacking mechanisms to determine the value of a site's outbound links, nofollow or not. Twitter for example appears to be based on if you have genuine followers, get mentions, etc. I'm a bit flattered at how much weight Google puts on my sites' outbound links, honestly.
3) Google's algorithm is still far from perfect, and I'd kindof like them to fix it. -_-
The most important thing you can do, SEO wise, is to eliminate duplicated content. Signatures by their nature are repeated content, so this drastically reduces their value on sites.