We have been coping with link spammers lately.
We have removed signatures for new users.
Today I installed a "No Follow" tag- which tells google that it should not follow the link back to the owner.
To explain -
Link spammers put unrelated links in the their signatures and in forum threads to trick Search Engines into thinking they are relevant back links. Google Page Ranks is determined in part by how many quality sites link to a website. Some unscrupulous SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Companies hire contractors to spam boards like MV. They also insert spam links in blog comments.
Unfortunately this means that any legitimate links you all have posted will also not get counted toward your page ranking in Google.
Very sorry for the inconvenience.
The next step is to not allow membership without human approval.
Thank you.
The contractors spamming this board have caused many problems. Most of the new members over the last few month have been spammers.
>:(