ok I have noticed everyone has pages linked in their signatures. How much does having links in your signature for different forums help ?
You'll never know who might actually click on it and then get converted also. Any ad is good no matter if it's good or bad, just how you spin with it.
I say for search engine rankings dont' post a million posts on one or 2 forums, instead post a few posts on many many forums. That way search engines will think your site is being talked about on many forums rather then just one forum.
All most all search engines bot stay always in popular forums so to get cached it's good. Also for link popularity siggy links are ok. But your won't get any serp benefit from it.
It certainly helps if you are an active member participating in a niche related to your website. Try establishing yourself as an expert on your subject. The links isn't worth much to Google and other SE's though
it depends on what you want...I post in a lot of forums and I get a good deal of traffic from them...for YPN or adsense users, I think the goal is traffic...since you want people to click your ads...just MHO
I post in many forums - dunno if it helps but it sure can't hurt any... Haven't seen many hits from forums on my HT site but have got quite a few for my directory. Another thing is if you post on webmaster forums -- some webmasters (more than casual internet users) are running the Alexa toolbar and their hits on your sites help your Alexa ranking.
I think they help alot so that's why I posted here. Ok that and to say that forum posts show backlinks quicker than you can hit reply. So for me it's less about serp's but i will take them no matter how much it helps, but the visits by bots is unparalled and cheap!