My forum signature grind actually landed a real backlink
Most seo folks laugh at forum links as spam. I kept posting helpful stuff with my site link in the sig. Out of nowhere, a mod spotted my replies and linked to me in their resources. My site saw a tiny but real bump in traffic. Kinda stoked that my stubbornness paid off for once.
Google's last core update seemed to really go after obvious link spam, which might accidentally make a genuine forum link stand out more. Your story is a good example of how a real person seeing your link changes everything compared to some automated scheme. I see what @ivan_perez is saying, it worked because it wasn't just a link drop for bots. That tiny traffic bump proves the value was in the helpful posts, not the signature itself.