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Sorry to hear about your loss of links Ray, although knowing some of the personalities at that forum it is not a surprise.
Here is my personal take on the subject of signature links, it is important to state this, as some people post in a manner that would have others believe their assumptions are factual, when they will never be, not on the subject of SEO
I will only deal with Google
There is value on every link placed on an external website, as long as it does not incorporate the no follow attribute. The success of Google bombing highlights this.
So what value does a forum signature have?
I put forum posts in the same pot as directory submissions, their inner pages hold little weight, most are not even indexed. Also as time goes by any strength that was their diminishes as the page is moved to the back end of the site.
If you want to use forums for SEO benefit you need to start threads, incorporate your keywords into the title. The more the thread is populated the more strength will be passed on to your site.
If you do want to use signature blocks to benefit your website, modify them regularly, anchor to other pages on your website, not just your homepage. Too many people become fixated with optimising their homepage, when each page of a website has the ability to have its own individual positioning.
The final point, there are always URL issues with forums, take this thread for example it could hardly be considered SEO friendly, even though the plugin will state so.
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