Interesting reading… more I read on SEO more I do not understand… anyway forum is good if releated to your niche… people will see your website and get traffic because you are talking of the same issue.
So I’m member of some web forum (this maily in order to learn from more expert and help) and some photoforum where I get people also visiting my web as in signature and photosharing.
About the link value in forums really no idea… I prefer think about how to make a good code or make a good shoot 
I just noticed this comment in older post in this thread. MORE ABSOLUTE NONSENSE. Bing does not even see the signature links at Sitepoint.
It’s spam and annoying. Don’t do that.
The post quality from my experience is pretty decent. I remember when I ran a political forum I hired some people to do this and they got pretty involved in the communities. They are trying to not get banned so their behavior adheres to the rules quite strictly. I’ve never seen a paid poster make a post with the link of their site. I think it’s a poor choice for someone to do this to try and get traffic, if anything I would go for the little link-juice for what it’s worth if there’s not other viable options.
Paid forum posters that work for companies generally get to pick the topics they’re interested in posting about. It’s a way to maintain quality control.
But I can see your point, especially coming from an Admin position having to deal with user spam on a regular basis.
Forum submisssion in one of off page activity…It’s used to increase traffic website with makes forum signature with backlink and als as media to do promotion progam to introduce your’e website or websites …
Thanks
yes with do follow forum help to increase back link and increase ranking. But i advise Most of u participate your industry related forums, that is help to increase back link and also increase traffic and also u will promote your business.
Or, I know this is kinda crazy so just bear with me… we participate in our industry related forums because we enjoy engaging with others on industry related topics! Some people (I would hope most people) participate in forums because it’s helpful or interesting. I would bet that the top 100 participants here at SitePoint aren’t posting thousands of useful topics/replies because it’s going to help increase traffic to their own websites.
It’s unfortunate that so many people view quality forums as a SEO tool rather than a real community discussion.
Its a very important method for generate regular traffic for long time. But you have to follow that rules…
Just get a variety of backlinks. It doesn’t really matter if you created them or a total stranger. Forum sig files do work as backlinks.
Forums sig links i think is very good because they are permenant and the more active you are the more links you get, plus forums in nature are seo friendly i mean look at the title of this thread! and look at the whole page…it’s a perfect on-page SEO!
Except for the fact that the signatures on this forum aren’t viewable to search engine spiders.
use only signature and post relevant posts intelligently
You are right the signatures here are No Follow but sometimes do get counted as backlinks even though they are no follow.
No, the signatures on this forum will NEVER be counted because they are not visible to search engine spiders. A user must be logged in to see the signatures and search engine spiders don’t log in.
I always prefer forum submission. This is one of the powerful backlink.
Wrong, as it’s getting harder to get backlinks there are few white hat places to get backlinks nowadays. Forums is definitely one of those white hat places. I’ve been building links through forums for many years now, it is a great method to build traffic to your site and boost pr I think. Officially no one knows though, only Matt Cutts.
Are you serious? Forums are the worse place to get backlinks! They useless for SEO!
Think about this: This page is unlikely to ever get above PR0 – I can count over 100 links on this pages already (internal navigation links; profile links; etc etc). Do you serious want us to believe that a link from a PR0 page when that PR of 0 is shared by over 100 links actually has some value as a backlink?
Just becasue a links shows up in the Google Webmaster Tools, does not mean its is actually passing ony or much link juice.
You are probably right. I was just referring to No Follow links in general.