Two well-defined triphenylamine-based fluorescent conjugated copolymers with pendant terpyridyl ligands were synthesized through Suzuki coupling polymerization and were further characterized by 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR, gel permeation chromatography, Infrared, and UV-vis spectra. Polymer P-1, terpyridine-bearing poly(triphenylamine-alt-fluorene) with a high fluorescence quantum yield (62%) shows much higher sensitivities toward Fe3+, Ni2+, and Cu2+ as compared with the other metal ions investigated. Especially, Fe3+ can lead to an almost complete fluorescence quenching of polymer P-1. Whereas, the analogous polymer P-2, in which N-ethylcarbazole repeat units replace the fluorene units in P-1, shows a very poor selectivity. It demonstrates that polymers with a same receptor may show different sensitivity to analytes owing to their different type of backbones. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 48: 1310–1316, 2010