Lately, there has been a lot of discussion about links in their signature. First, let's start with the rule related to links in your signature:

Having a link to your personal site like Freewebs is allowed. Having a link to your business website in your signature is prohibited without having a link back to SCF. The link must be approved by the SCF staff. Please refer to the Advertising Guidelines and if you have any questions please contact the Off-Site Relations Manager.

Also, links to eBay stores are permitted in your signature only for staff members, ex-staff members and VIP members. No other auction or store site is permitted unless you are a site sponsor promoting your own store. However, you still can use the eBay profile link that's under your username when you post as well as post auctions in the Sites and Auctions Forum.

First, any member can link to a personal page (non community). If you have a blog, photo bucket or something similar you can place the link in your signature. The basic idea is you are sharing information and not making money from the link.

Second, we have an affiliate program for those making a profit from your site. This is my preferred method. Your business and SCF get promoted without either of us spending any money. If you place a SCF banner or link on your main page, you are permitted to have a link in your signature and we place your site on our affiliate page. For larger sites we do tailor the relationship.

Third, if you do NOT wish to have a SCF link on your website then you can pay for advertising.

I will still exchange links/banners even if your your site is a sports card community. This will be done on a case-by-case basis. For example, if your community is equivalent in size I will do equivalent banner exchanges. I reserve the right not to do banner exchanges with sites that have spammed SCF or equivalent rule violations.

SCF costs a LOT of money to run and grow. I spend several thousand dollars a month on average. The only way to sustain that is through the VIP program, affiliates and paid advertisers. With the manufacturers we provide box breaks and reviews that take a lot of time. The breaks are used to stock our contests and CC Store. There are publishers that charges thousands of dollars to do this. We do this and get very little compensation in return, but it makes SCF a better place.

I'm posting this long thread to explain the reasoning behind our signature program. In general, I will exchange links with just about anyone as long as we get equivalent promotion in return. If you own a personal website (non community) and don't make money from it you are free to post the link in your signature. If you run a community or for-profit website then please contact doniceage or myself to become an affiliate or advertiser.