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We have not yet developed a Law.SE-specific policy on these. What follows is my personal proposal and reasoning.

As a general rule, I think we should point people to the guidance at https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/promotion. I also like the idea of alerting answerers via comment to the fact that link promotion here will not help their SEO.

For nuance I would break the "self-promotional link" question into three categories:

1. Links that support a good answer. If somebody provides a good answer, and they link to content that provides support for the answer, no need to consider further. I don't care whether people get directly paid for content if the content is good. Here is an answer that was voted helpful, and that links to self-promotional content that is also helpful to the answer.
2. Links that provide credibility to the answerer. This attorney popped onto the site a few times and posted helpful but short answers to hard immigration questions. Initially he signed each answer and hyperlinked his signature to his professional site. Stack Exchange norms do not tolerate this, so he was encouraged to move the signature to his profile. But he also hasn't been back. I think it would have been better to leave those links in his answers for two reasons:
3. It's better to have a terse, helpful answer whose only support is, "I am a licensed expert" than to have no answer at all (or a wrong answer by somebody else).
4. Most attorneys are wary of participating in sites like this. But the more licensed attorneys we have spending time here the better. Therefore, I am willing to tolerate gratuitous self-promotion in exchange for helpful content.
5. All other links that are not clearly spam. The problem with my suggestion for the second case might be that it's a slippery slope to unhelpful content. However, I think that our existing systems of downvoting unhelpful answers are adequate to deal with this. Especially when compounded with some notice links here won't boost SEO.

We have not yet developed a Law.SE-specific policy on these. What follows is my personal proposal and reasoning.

As a general rule, I think we should point people to the guidance at https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/promotion. I also like the idea of alerting answerers via comment to the fact that link promotion here will not help their SEO.

For nuance I would break the "self-promotional link" question into three categories:

1. Links that support a good answer. If somebody provides a good answer, and they link to content that provides support for the answer, no need to consider further. I don't care whether people get directly paid for content if the content is good. Here is an answer that was voted helpful, and that links to self-promotional content that is also helpful to the answer.
2. Links that provide credibility to the answerer. This attorney popped onto the site a few times and posted helpful but short answers to hard immigration questions. Initially he signed each answer and hyperlinked his signature to his professional site. Stack Exchange norms do not tolerate this, so he was encouraged to move the signature to his profile. But he also hasn't been back. I think it would have been better to leave those links in his answers for two reasons:
3. It's better to have a terse, helpful answer whose only support is, "I am a licensed expert" than to have no answer at all (or a wrong answer by somebody else).
4. Most attorneys are wary of participating in sites like this. But the more licensed attorneys we have spending time here the better. Therefore, I am willing to tolerate gratuitous self-promotion in exchange for helpful content.
5. All other links that are not clearly spam. The problem with my suggestion for the second case might be that it's a slippery slope to unhelpful content. However, I think that our existing systems of downvoting unhelpful answers are adequate to deal with this. Especially when compounded with some notice links here won't boost SEO.

We have not yet developed a Law.SE-specific policy on these. What follows is my personal proposal and reasoning.

As a general rule, I think we should point people to the guidance at http://meta.stackexchange.com/help/promotion. I also like the idea of alerting answerers via comment to the fact that link promotion here will not help their SEO.

For nuance I would break the "self-promotional link" question into three categories:

1. Links that support a good answer. If somebody provides a good answer, and they link to content that provides support for the answer, no need to consider further. I don't care whether people get directly paid for content if the content is good. Here is an answer that was voted helpful, and that links to self-promotional content that is also helpful to the answer.
2. Links that provide credibility to the answerer. This attorney popped onto the site a few times and posted helpful but short answers to hard immigration questions. Initially he signed each answer and hyperlinked his signature to his professional site. Stack Exchange norms do not tolerate this, so he was encouraged to move the signature to his profile. But he also hasn't been back. I think it would have been better to leave those links in his answers for two reasons:
3. It's better to have a terse, helpful answer whose only support is, "I am a licensed expert" than to have no answer at all (or a wrong answer by somebody else).
4. Most attorneys are wary of participating in sites like this. But the more licensed attorneys we have spending time here the better. Therefore, I am willing to tolerate gratuitous self-promotion in exchange for helpful content.
5. All other links that are not clearly spam. The problem with my suggestion for the second case might be that it's a slippery slope to unhelpful content. However, I think that our existing systems of downvoting unhelpful answers are adequate to deal with this. Especially when compounded with some notice links here won't boost SEO.

We have not yet developed a Law.SE-specific policy on these. What follows is my personal proposal and reasoning.

As a general rule, I think we should point people to the guidance at https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/promotion. I also like the idea of alerting answerers via comment to the fact that link promotion here will not help their SEO.

For nuance I would break the "self-promotional link" question into three categories:

1. Links that support a good answer. If somebody provides a good answer, and they link to content that provides support for the answer, no need to consider further. I don't care whether people get directly paid for content if the content is good. Here is an answer that was voted helpful, and that links to self-promotional content that is also helpful to the answer.
2. Links that provide credibility to the answerer. This attorney popped onto the site a few times and posted helpful but short answers to hard immigration questions. Initially he signed each answer and hyperlinked his signature to his professional site. Stack Exchange norms do not tolerate this, so he was encouraged to move the signature to his profile. But he also hasn't been back. I think it would have been better to leave those links in his answers for two reasons:
3. It's better to have a terse, helpful answer whose only support is, "I am a licensed expert" than to have no answer at all (or a wrong answer by somebody else).
4. Most attorneys are wary of participating in sites like this. But the more licensed attorneys we have spending time here the better. Therefore, I am willing to tolerate gratuitous self-promotion in exchange for helpful content.
5. All other links that are not clearly spam. The problem with my suggestion for the second case might be that it's a slippery slope to unhelpful content. However, I think that our existing systems of downvoting unhelpful answers are adequate to deal with this. Especially when compounded with some notice links here won't boost SEO.

We have not yet developed a Law.SE-specific policy on these. What follows is my personal proposal and reasoning.

As a general rule, I think we should point people to the guidance at http://meta.stackexchange.com/help/promotion. I also like the idea of alerting answerers via comment to the fact that link promotion here will not help their SEO.

For nuance I would break the "self-promotional link" question into three categories:

1. Links that support a good answer. If somebody provides a good answer, and they link to content that provides support for the answer, no need to consider further. I don't care whether people get directly paid for content if the content is good. Here is an answer that was voted helpful, and that links to self-promotional content that is also helpful to the answer.
2. Links that provide credibility to the answerer. This attorney popped onto the site a few times and posted helpful but short answers to hard immigration questions. Initially he signed each answer and hyperlinked his signature to his professional site. Stack Exchange norms do not tolerate this, so he was encouraged to move the signature to his profile. But he also hasn't been back. I think it would have been better to leave those links in his answers for two reasons:
3. It's better to have a terse, helpful answer whose only support is, "I am a licensed expert" than to have no answer at all (or a wrong answer by somebody else).
4. Most attorneys are wary of participating in sites like this. But the more licensed attorneys we have spending time here the better. Therefore, I am willing to tolerate gratuitous self-promotion in exchange for helpful content.
5. All other links that are not clearly spam. The problem with my suggestion for the second case might be that it's a slippery slope to unhelpful content. However, I think that our existing systems of downvoting unhelpful answers are adequate to deal with this. Especially when compounded with some notice links here won't boost SEO.

We have not yet developed a Law.SE-specific policy on these. What follows is my personal proposal and reasoning.

As a general rule, I think we should point people to the guidance at http://meta.stackexchange.com/help/promotion. I also like the idea of alerting answerers via comment to the fact that link promotion here will not help their SEO.

For nuance I would break the "self-promotional link" question into three categories:

1. Links that support a good answer. If somebody provides a good answer, and they link to content that provides support for the answer, no need to consider further. I don't care whether people get directly paid for content if the content is good. Here is an answer that was voted helpful, and that links to self-promotional content that is also helpful to the answer.
2. Links that provide credibility to the answerer. This attorney popped onto the site a few times and posted helpful but short answers to hard immigration questions. Initially he signed each answer and hyperlinked his signature to his professional site. Stack Exchange norms do not tolerate this, so he was encouraged to move the signature to his profile. But he also hasn't been back. I think it would have been better to leave those links in his answers for two reasons:
3. It's better to have a terse, helpful answer whose only support is, "I am a licensed expert" than to have no answer at all (or a wrong answer by somebody else).
4. Most attorneys are wary of participating in sites like this. But the more licensed attorneys we have spending time here the better. Therefore, I am willing to tolerate gratuitous self-promotion in exchange for helpful content.
5. All other links that are not clearly spam. The problem with my suggestion for the second case might be that it's a slippery slope to unhelpful content. However, I think that our existing systems of downvoting unhelpful answers are adequate to deal with this. Especially when compounded with some notice links here won't boost SEO.