Signature Optimisation - How much stuff can u fit?

I was playing around to see what are the absolute limits for Signiture Optimisation on these message boards.

When you fill out your profile signature, you have a limit of 250 characters that you can use to make your sig look the way you want. That 250 character limit does include spaces so you have to be clever to fit as much as you can into the sig...LOL

So i done some playing around and this is what i found so far;

1. With absolutely no formatting what-so-ever, you can get a 250 character sentence into your signature but people will find it very difficult to read the words with no space between them.
Example; helloandhowareyuodoingtoday

2. You can put in the same sentence and put capital letters to make it readable.
Example; HelloAndHowAreYouDoingToday

3. You can have a shorter sentence that is more readable by putting in spaces. But this eats into the number of characters you have to play with!
Example; Hello and how are you doing today

4. Another way to maximise is to use mobile phone text language and abbreviations. This example says the same thing as the last 3 examples!
Example; helo & ? r u doin Tday

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I also messed around with URL's to see how many possible links or URL's you could get into your signature. This is what i found;
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1. This forum will parse,(Make a link click-able), your URLs if you put them in the URL tag like this; [ url] google.com [ /url]

So with no formatting what-so-ever, i got 10 full URL's into my signature. It made the links very unreadable.
Example; http://google.comhttp://yahoo.comhttp://msn.com

2. With a small amount of formatting, you can get 9 click-able links into your signature.
Example; http://google.com | http://yahoo.com | http://msn.com

But if all the links were as short as msn.com, you might get more. That not very practical though!

3. When writing your url, you don't need the WWW or the http://, you can just do them like this(without the spaces); [ url] google.com [ /url]

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I have not tested fitting as many different pictures or images into your sig yet, but it would be a good test.

Making you links appear as images that are click-able takes up many characters. But the end result can be worth it;
Example for google, this image is click-able;

I know that using http://tinyurl.com you might be able to get more stuff to fit!

Anyone got any more ideas?

Just how much stuff can you get into your signature with the 250 character limit!

John.

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..or you can write your text in an image and put as much as you want in.

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Reality Internet Personality

I renamed by jpgs to single character filenames to help alleviate the problem.

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Some good idea's there!

It takes a minimum of 15 characters to make a URL that works. This is the shortest working URL that i know of; http://U.tv, and its a TV station in Ireland, the website is real!. it still takes 15 characters to make that URL click-able in your sig!

So the ultimate limit for different individual click-able URL's in your signature is 16. You can get 16 different URL's, with no spaces between them, into your signature. All the url's would be the basic 4 characters needed like u.tv in its square brackets like this; [ url]U.tv[/url]

Of coarse many of the URLs don't have any website! {EDIT} Many of the links do have a website!

So this is what it would look like;
http://a.tvhttp://b.tvhttp://c.tvhttp://d.tvhttp://e.tvhttp://f.tvhttp://g.tvhttp://h.tvhttp://i.tvhttp://j.tvhttp://k.tvhttp://l.tvhttp://m.tvhttp://n.tvhttp://o.tvhttp://p.tv

Each of the 16 links in that would go to a different website if it existed!

John.

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With click-able images, i have found the limit to be 5. You can just about get 5 images into your signature that are click-able to different websites. You cannot fit the 6th click-able image even with very short image url's and website address's. You might get the 6 click-able image in if you could upload images to the website u.tv and have image address's like u.tv/a.jpg, then you might get 6 click-able images OK.

Here is an example that fits in your signature and has 5 click-able links to very basic websites link "a.tv" and "u.tv";

| | | |

That sig would be 218 characters! Not enough left to get the 6th in!
John.

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<--- No longer has signatures activated in an effort to evade my stalker... ;)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

<--- No longer has signatures activated in an effort to evade my stalker... ;)

I'm sorry to hear that Jeffery!

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I also got exactly 10 images just using the 250 character limit. I had zero characters to spare!

Looks like this using the same image over and over again;


The images are not click-able to anything. They are just pictures.

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Well I managed to cram some stuff it my sig.

Use something called TinyURL to shorten long URL's...

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Never surrender and never give up. In the darkest hour there is always hope.

If you want to take it to the max then you better use tinyurl. At one point I was playing with my sig and got 5x the stuff in when I made it tiny - and tinyurl also works perfectly for pictures!
tinyurl.com

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I'm a Prefectionist ;)

Well I managed to cram some stuff it my sig.

Use something called TinyURL to shorten long URL's...

Thanks for the link. I was not aware that such a site existed.

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Well I managed to cram some stuff it my sig.

Use something called TinyURL to shorten long URL's...

Thanks for the link. I was not aware that such a site existed.

I have been using tinyurl.com for some time now, and cramming as much as I can into my signature has been an on-going quest for me ;)

My current signature here in SETI has 4 images and 4 links, and 12 characters left over ; (leave out the spaces after the "[" )

[ url=tinyurl.com/2boh4t][ img]tinyurl.com/ynvrfm[/img][/url][ url=tinyurl.com/2azz2a][ img]tinyurl.com/327fvy[/img][/url]
[ url=tinyurl.com/24hekz][ img]tinyurl.com/3obzmz[/img][/url][ url=tinyurl.com/248ebs][ img]tinyurl.com/ynmjsu[/img][/url]

The SETI forum is more forgiving than other forums I have tried, including the free forums. For example, you have to add http:// in front of “tinyurl.com” in other forums which detracts from the characters you have available. Additionally, in the other forums the tinyurl does not work with images, so the full http path has to be used, eg, http://pix.brilliantsite.com/g.jpg. Again, this detracts from how many characters you have to make links and images in your signatures.

SETI remains the forum where I can cram the most into my signature, including Es99’s suggestion of making a graphic with words in it (my first image in my signature)

SETI also allows the use of “something different” that other forums don’t cater allways for. I don’t use this technique in my current signature, but have done so in the past. Refresh this page and see how the following image randomly changes (you may be lucky to get the same one - please refresh and try again) ;)

[ url=tinyurl.com/248ebs][ img]tinyurl.com/52hr4h[/img][/url]

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flaming balloons

My new signature's got quite much stuff in it. I made the filenames under my control shorter, but I hate meaningless filenames, so I didn't make them as short as possible. After that I removed all "http://" and "www." nonsense from the URLs.

Quite some time ago, I rendered the Greek text into a GIF, because these Unicode characters are not universally supported and take up more space than normal characters.

My full sig here, [] replaced with {}:

{img}boincstats.com/signature/user_banner_bam27792.gif{/img} {url=austria-national-team.at}{img}files.helsionium.eu/ant.jpg{/img}{/url} {img}root.helsionium.eu/gott.gif{/img}
{img}root.helsionium.eu/ao.gif{/img}
{b}{i}(Revelation 22:12-13){/i}{/b}

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I have been using tinyurl.com for some time now, and cramming as much as I can into my signature has been an on-going quest for me ;)

Ice, i knew you were the grand master at this Signature Optimisation stuff..LOL

The SETI forum is more forgiving than other forums I have tried, including the free forums. For example, you have to add http:// in front of “tinyurl.com” in other forums which detracts from the characters you have available.

That is because many of the other projects are not upgrading to the latest BOINC software version. The projects that update will have the same functionality as here on SETI. SETI@home will always have the very latest version of BOINC.

Additionally, in the other forums the tinyurl does not work with images, so the full http path has to be used, eg, http://pix.brilliantsite.com/g.jpg. Again, this detracts from how many characters you have to make links and images in your signatures.

I was not aware the tiny url would work for images on only some of the projects.

SETI remains the forum where I can cram the most into my signature, including Es99’s suggestion of making a graphic with words in it (my first image in my signature)

I watch your sig all the time. You have been very inventive!...LOL

SETI also allows the use of “something different” that other forums don’t cater always for. I don’t use this technique in my current signature, but have done so in the past. Refresh this page and see how the following image randomly changes (you may be lucky to get the same one - please refresh and try again) ;)

[ url=tinyurl.com/248ebs][ img]tinyurl.com/52hr4h[/img][/url]

This is very clever, i will have to do some tests to see if i can get it working. I have used this before in other places with html. I must see if i can get it working through tiny url here on SETI.

John.

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I might also add, i hate clicking any link if i don't know where it goes. I look at every single link before i click it, to see what the URL is. link URL address's appear in the bottom of my browser when i mouse over them. Generally if i see links from Tiny URL, i don't click them as they could go anywhere. You have no way of knowing!. That's putting a lot of trust in some guy you don't know that he is not sending you to some porn site or something malicious.

John.

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I might also add, i hate clicking any link if i don't know where it goes. I look at every single link before i click it, to see what the URL is. link URL address's appear in the bottom of my browser when i mouse over them. Generally if i see links from Tiny URL, i don't click them as they could go anywhere. You have no way of knowing!. That's putting a lot of trust in some guy you don't know that he is not sending you to some porn site or something malicious.

John.

That's a fair comment John. My first link takes you to cafe.forum5.com which is displayed in the first image. The second takes you to my Brilliant toolbar displayed in the second image. The third to my favorite web page associated with my team, and the fourth to my team page, associated with the BOINC image for my team stats.

I hope I am being fair with my links ;)

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flaming balloons

I might also add, i hate clicking any link if i don't know where it goes. I look at every single link before i click it, to see what the URL is. link URL address's appear in the bottom of my browser when i mouse over them. Generally if i see links from Tiny URL, i don't click them as they could go anywhere. You have no way of knowing!. That's putting a lot of trust in some guy you don't know that he is not sending you to some porn site or something malicious.

John.

That's a fair comment John. My first link takes you to cafe.forum5.com which is displayed in the first image. The second takes you to my Brilliant toolbar displayed in the second image. The third to my favorite web page associated with my team, and the fourth to my team page, associated with the BOINC image for my team stats.

I hope I am being fair with my links ;)

I know and trust you Ice!

The point being that you have explained it to me, and i understand because i know you. But anyone who puts a link in their signature, they generally put it there because they want people to visit that website. But lets say that if 20% of people do what i do and don't want to click links when they don't know where the link goes, then you loose 20% of the possible visitors to that website just because you used Tiny URL. The figure might be higher, it could be 30% or 40%, i have no idea!

Its one of the reasons i stopped using tinyurl for Sig's. I would rather get the possible 100% of clicks if i put in a link. Its quality clicks rather than quantity of links fitted in sig!...LOL

John.

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I might also add, i hate clicking any link if i don't know where it goes. I look at every single link before i click it, to see what the URL is. link URL address's appear in the bottom of my browser when i mouse over them. Generally if i see links from Tiny URL, i don't click them as they could go anywhere. You have no way of knowing!. That's putting a lot of trust in some guy you don't know that he is not sending you to some porn site or something malicious.

John.

That's a fair comment John. My first link takes you to cafe.forum5.com which is displayed in the first image. The second takes you to my Brilliant toolbar displayed in the second image. The third to my favorite web page associated with my team, and the fourth to my team page, associated with the BOINC image for my team stats.

I hope I am being fair with my links ;)

I know and trust you Ice!

The point being that you have explained it to me, and i understand because i know you. But anyone who puts a link in their signature, they generally put it there because they want people to visit that website. But lets say that if 20% of people do what i do and don't want to click links when they don't know where the link goes, then you loose 20% of the possible visitors to that website just because you used Tiny URL. The figure might be higher, it could be 30% or 40%, i have no idea!

Its one of the reasons i stopped using tinyurl for Sig's. I would rather get the possible 100% of clicks if i put in a link. Its quality clicks rather than quantity of links fitted in sig!...LOL

John.

Hmmmmmm, I hadn't thought that people might be hovering over my signature to study their status bar to see where my links might go. Time for me to get my 'creative' hat on and go for 'quality' rather than 'cramming'. Thanks for the thought John ;)

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flaming balloons

I currently have a signature with two graphic images that are randomly changed when you refresh your browser. I have not been able to do this in any other forum than here in SETI. It can be more interesting than the same old static stuff ;)

The left bottom graphic I made for my current team. The right bottom graphic for my previous team, Team England (BOINC), which I am very pleased to see that they are still using :)

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flaming balloons

I might also add, i hate clicking any link if i don't know where it goes. I look at every single link before i click it, to see what the URL is. link URL address's appear in the bottom of my browser when i mouse over them. Generally if i see links from Tiny URL, i don't click them as they could go anywhere. You have no way of knowing!. That's putting a lot of trust in some guy you don't know that he is not sending you to some porn site or something malicious.

John.

That's a fair comment John. My first link takes you to cafe.forum5.com which is displayed in the first image. The second takes you to my Brilliant toolbar displayed in the second image. The third to my favorite web page associated with my team, and the fourth to my team page, associated with the BOINC image for my team stats.

I hope I am being fair with my links ;)

I know and trust you Ice!

The point being that you have explained it to me, and i understand because i know you. But anyone who puts a link in their signature, they generally put it there because they want people to visit that website. But lets say that if 20% of people do what i do and don't want to click links when they don't know where the link goes, then you loose 20% of the possible visitors to that website just because you used Tiny URL. The figure might be higher, it could be 30% or 40%, i have no idea!

Its one of the reasons i stopped using tinyurl for Sig's. I would rather get the possible 100% of clicks if i put in a link. Its quality clicks rather than quantity of links fitted in sig!...LOL

John.

Hmmmmmm, I hadn't thought that people might be hovering over my signature to study their status bar to see where my links might go. Time for me to get my 'creative' hat on and go for 'quality' rather than 'cramming'. Thanks for the thought John ;)

You see Ice, there is another category of person in forums that you had not considered before!

1. We all know these ones; The posters
2. Some people are these ones; The Lurkers
3. But! there are also these; The Hoverovers!!

But i hear you ask!! Who are the The Hoverovers!!

They would be a special category of forum user that spend their time Hovering over links to check them before they click the link.

But i hear you ask!! Is this a common practice in forums?

Yes, in my humble opinion, about 20 - 30% of users are The Hoverovers!!

I currently have a signature with two graphic images that are randomly changed when you refresh your browser. I have not been able to do this in any other forum than here in SETI. It can be more interesting than the same old static stuff ;)

The left bottom graphic I made for my current team. The right bottom graphic for my previous team, Team England (BOINC), which I am very pleased to see that they are still using :)

Ice, currently your signature looks terrible. It really is all over the place.
1. Its Very large and gawdy
2. The images are very poor
3. All the links are to tiny url
4. This thing looks terrible;

Ice, for the master of Signature Optimisation, you can do a lot better than that!. I have faith in you my friend....Go on, show us what you can do!

Ice, can you do; Nice, Neat, Compact and Quality!

John.

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