Sorry if this is a daft question but do email signatures count as a backlink?
No, e-mail signatures will not be counted as backlinks, since e-mails are password protected and search engines cannot crawl password protected links.
Yes, e-mail signature will not be considered as backlinks as you will be the only one who sees it and the one you’re sending the e-mail. 
Email signatures are also useful for email marketing and promotions. You just have to get leads or email ads the right way or your campaign will look like a spam. You don’t want to incorporate the word spam to your company, client or your own website.
Email signatures are not counted as backlinks as they are password protected and can’t be crawled. But they are helpful for promoting your website or business through email marketing when you send the marketing email promoting your product or service to the clients and give your website address in the signature for more information and for easy contact. In this way you can get traffic to your website.
Like other guys said, email signature will not count as backlinks, but it may work on generating traffic or promoting some offers.
Thanks all for your replies. I have to say the advice in this forum is awesome. I have learned more in the last 7 days in this forum than I had in the last year reading books on the same subject.
Forums like this one have the power of a brainstorm. Everyone comes and brings to the “table” something they know / experienced.
On topic - e-mail signatures are not counted as a back link , like someone above said they are password protected and search engines have no access to that. It is in fact a very good thing, spammers would be ranking at the top for every keyword.
Oh This is clear… however Why the backlink is important?
What about Gmail ?
what do you think?
Backlinks are important because the number of backlinks to a website has a direct impact on how Google ranks your website.
well e-mail signature can not be counted as backlinks whether it any of the email portal.
Search Engine bots cannot fill out any forms whatsoever and therefore cannot access your email (if it could, that would be a violation of privacy) so links in your signature would not count as a backlink.
The purpose of an email signature is to give the recipient a bit more information about you, possibly your twitter and facebook account and how to contact you back.