You probably had built a lot of links from other ways and would have been PR5 anyway even without the links. I'm sure they still made your site stronger though, don't count out forum links, they do help.

Maybe you got it a very reputable forums. . .Its a good news for you. Can we see your site's url?

Originally Posted by Kaabi

You probably had built a lot of links from other ways and would have been PR5 anyway even without the links. I'm sure they still made your site stronger though, don't count out forum links, they do help.

I agree with Kaabi + PR update happened SAME time(minutes, hous, days, months :P) you removed link from sig. and your PR increased (point is didn't drop ), so how much time do you think Google needed to index that changes and apply it to its update? Maybe in next update your PR will drop if you keep your link off the signature (try that if you think forum links wont help)....Also, visible PR and its update may not have anything to do with real PR update in matter of time and value. Time intervals between these changes should be included too into your post before making these statements.

I think you want to get spammers off the forum with this post, or at least people that think PR matters.....not cool....

I strongly feel forum links will definitely help in improving the PR, if not doing any harm. I have seen many people buying links in various forums.

From my experince, forum links help. But dont expect too much from them!

backlinks might not helpful but it wont hurt