will non related backlinks say for such on this forum pointing to a 'health' related website hurt its position in the search engines?
No it will not hurt, but it won't really help either This is absolutely FALSE... Can you imagine if it was true, then all I would have to do to sabotage by competitors websites is submit their URL to a ton of unrelated directories.
This forum already points to thousands of health websites (in SIG link) and that has not affected the forum badly and nor has it affected the health websites badly. Referral traffic from unrelated sites is negligible, SERP boost is also less as compared to link on related website. But I would not say link on unrelated sites don't help in SERP, they do.. However, if you own the site that points to totally unrelated websites, it could be easily interpreted as link selling unless your website is a directory or a forum that has 1000s of links.
I agree with vstar, backlinks unrelated to your site won't harm your site but you won't get the same link juice as if you had a link from the same niche as yourself.
Somewhat disagree with you. Off topic backlinks don't add alot of value, but they do add some. However, if one is looking for quality backlinks, then they should focus on related websites for the backlinks.
not hurt..sometime i realize that also can help you to get more traffics even it is not targeted traffics..
i think not related backlink will give certain value for the link but lesser value for related backlink
no it will not hurt you, but it might help spread the word about your site. overall i would say any link can either be neutral or help you.
If the site has a high page rank and it's unrelated it will still definitely help you. For instance, lets say Adobe decided to link to my Acne site... Well, they sure aren't related, but I wouldn't be complaining.
This is true...I don't think that unrelated links could hurt your PR or SERP...maybe they would be links that won't help
they will not hurt your rank unless you are linked to "bad" sites i believe. One thing though.. its still a source of traffic