Are you here for free advertising?

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

There is no such thing as free advertising.
Let's get that one out of the way.

If you are here, solely to advertise your food blog or YouTube channel, or a business, you'll not get any advertising because we close accounts down if that's all you are here for. We consider it rude and a form of spam if you sign up and just push your food blog/YouTube channel/business without participating on our site.

Why? We're a small forum. Our members contribute to the running costs of this site when they can and the rest is met by the site owner. So let's put it this way: why should we pay for your advertising? There is no benefit to our members, or the moderators or the site owner unless you participate on the site.

So our rules are simple: we expect members to participate, and then get their advertising. Why? Put simply, you came to us, not the other way around.

You will get your advertising from many avenues just by participating in our community and often without even realising it. The more you participate on our site, the more advertising you'll get from it. It is that straightforward. This includes, but is not limited to

• Your member/username gives you free advertising. The more comments, posts and quality threads in your name, the more times search engines see your online identity.
• Your logo/avatar gives you free advertising. Again, the more comments, posts and threads in your name, the more times search engines see your logo/avatar/gravatar).
• Your signature can include a link back to your site/blog/channel. So every post will have an additional link to your site (once established as a full member).
• In your "About You" page, you can mention your site/blog/channel there (once established as a full member).
• You'll also be able to link to your site/blog/channel in the website link in your profile.
• Uploading recipes onto CB in accordance with our T&C's (ingredients & method are minimum requirements) gives you a chance to link to the recipe page on your site/blog/channel. The more recipes/articles/reviews you add here, the more links to your site you'll get. Each of these links increase the chance of a search engine finding your site and indexing it.
• Decent photos that match the ones on your site/blog/channel also give you free advertising. Search engines match photos nowadays.
• If it is a video recipe, we don't host videos, so you get a free link back to your video in addition to the full recipe, method & any photos you've added.
• Adding quality new threads to our site, such as reviews of kitchen equipment or talking fruit/veg/meat preservation for example, gives you another chance to link to your site for more information, to expand the depth (e.g. history behind the subject) of the thread for example.
• Commenting on other members' recipes again gets your username & avatar out onto the search engine results.

Search engines work by following links, so if you want your blog to be found by Google or any other search engine, you need to promote your site by adding links here on CookingBites. And to do that you need to add content to our site. So the more quality content you add here, the more search engines see your member name, links, signature, profile page, contents, photographs, videos and avatar, the more free advertising you get from it.

All of these methods advertise your site by links back to you and your member name. Many of these will have multiple ways of a search engine linking back to your site.

Search engines also look at dates and the quality of the content you add, so regular participation that's more than "that looks nice" counts far more than adding a couple of recipes and disappearing for a month or two..