but that does not explain to me why the guys here would have to give you permission to post your links in your signature anyway... this is a reason you want to apply, not something written in the license or elsewhere...

vb.org is not a target for backlinks, nor a place where to advertise, it's a service for the distribution of addons for vBulletin...

vB.org staff can not see any details on a license. All they can see is if a useraccount is associated with a valid license or not. Providing more information would be against the Jelsoft privacy policy. The number of licenses will not be considered wehn determining the number of links allowed in a signature.

A bit of a contradiction. You are using the links in your signature as advertisement, even if only to advertise your board better on google.

Hence why we don't want to decrease the value of a backlink from vB.org by allowing too many links to, maybe not as high valued, sites.

I can fully respect that decision.

One of my original statements still stands. My suggestion is:

No active license = no signature links

Active license = signature links > 2.

Take the signature links away from the people that do not help pay the bills. And give them to the people that do.

If anything, this would decrease the number of outbound links. While encouraging people to renew their license faster so they can keep their links.

If this was implemented across both sites - .com and .org - members could lose a lot of links by letting their license expire.

One of my licenses is up for renew this month. I have no reason to renew at this very second. Most of the time I wait until there is another big update to the VB software, then I will renew and update my site.

But, if you take something away from me, such as a few hundred signature backlinks. And this might affect my sites ranking. Well, I have a solid reason to renew my license BEFORE it expires.

If you would excuse me, I would like to bow out. I have nothing more to say on this topic. Thank you for your time.

We are already considering if we should disable signatures (disable, not limit the use of links) for unlicensed members.

I do appreciate that you are trying to think about maximising the income of Jelsoft, but we are not going to create artificial boundaries only to increase sales.

boundaries?... i call this "privilege"... we have the privilege to have access to this site's resources ONLY when we're licensed, aren't we? so why letting non-licensed people have access to features most other vBulletin forums are not allowing?

if you visit some forums, you will see that guests and non-subscribers have no access to avatars, siggies, pm, etc... you already block pm, but this is just to avoid miscommunication/spam to members, it's not like a privilege so to speak.

ah, come on, i'm into it again...

It was late when I typed that, but that's what I meant. Listen to him for that part of my post. ;)

Just wanted to ask how long those with links to sites that aren't vb forums will be allowed to have them?
I mean, I got an infraction in one day, I see several Sr. members with links to their blogs, and other sites that have no forum to be found ;)
Just wondered how long till they get infractions or removed as well.

Cheers
-Brandon

Not to sound like a b*tch, but I don't believe you really need to be concerned about that, do you? You only need to worry about yourself - Staff will worry about the other users.

As long as they want, nothing in the rules says links must be to a vb forum.

Just making sure I don't get anymore infractions for things I didn't know about :)
Good to know, I was under the impressing they had to be links to your vBulletin index, since that's what the rule said that I quoted.
I'm safe to change my 2 links now I guess :)

cheers