Do links in forums have any effect on SERPs?

[Bears]

I'm working for an online company exploring the possibility of using forums on existing, thematically-related sites to correspond with potential customers while at the same time boosting our site's ranking on search engines by adding inbound links. Specifically, I was wondering whether search engines attach any importance to links on spidered forum pages when determining page placement for searches. While these pages generally have low pageranks (for lack of a better metric of popularity), I was wondering whether anyone had any thoughts on whether the increased thematic relevance of these pages might make these forum pages good venues for content-driven linking ideas. Thanks.

[JEC]

After recently downloading and installing a backlink check program, I discovered that several of our competitors are doing just that. I reviewed several of the sites linked to them only to find that they had signed numerous guest books and even replied using their web address in many of the top websites forums out there. Most of which were not thematically or industry related in any way.

As I am relatively new to the SEO scene, I can't say for sure whether this is a practice you should pursue or not as some of what I have read would indicate that this is black hat optimization and should not be used, while others say it's fine and legitimate. All I can say for sure is that some of our competitors are doing it, and it seems to be working for them.

JEC

[kidmercury]

It's a matter of time. They can help, but you'll need to spend a lot of time amassing a big quantity of them. Personally I think it'd be better to spend the time focusing on getting links from quality sites -- they will probably have the added benefit of bringing you more human traffic as well.

[Mel]

From what I have seen I am of the opinion that forum links are indexed by Google as valid links but the anchor text does not seem to be counted as highly as anchor text from other types of sites.

That said they can help in getting new sites indexed and of course your may get direct traffic from forums.