I would like to thank everyone who has put their input into this thread. And I would like to point out 1 reason I posted it. I just received an email from another SEO site and I'm not going to mention them for I also know a lot of people here have received this same email.

In this email is an article that reads, and I'm only going to point out two of them that really bother me.

10 Key Content Strategies to Increase Online Visibility
By Lani and Allen Voivod (c) 2007

1. BLOG COMMENTS

Go out of your way to read other people's blogs. Your Mother always told you that reading is good for you. She was right! But, when you do so, be sure to productively interact with those bloggers. It makes them feel good. It validates what they're writing about. It starts up a relationship between the two of you. AND, here's the best part, it gives you an inbound link to your site.

4. PARTICIPATE ON INDUSTRY FORUMS

Similar to blog comments and trackbacks, participating on industry forums will get you hooked up with other like-minded professionals, keep you abreast of current trends, and you get to build your own inbound links in the signature line of your posts.

Now I'm the only one that sees this as unethical and unprofessional? This is from a very well know site telling people to go out and just post really anything, but make sure you have a sig file that points to your site. No wonder we have so much spam and people only commenting one time, maybe saying 5 words and never responding again. I like to go on record and say I really respect the admin of this site and what they are trying to do. But I really wonder how many would leave if you could not have a sig file? I would also love it if they went through and looked at peoples past posts and seen how much one really tried to help "compared to just saying "nice job" and have a sig file 4 miles long". If I came on this site and post a totally spam ad, I'm sure it would get deleted " Now I ask you what is the difference from me posting a spam ad or just saying "nice job", other than last one will not get deleted but it is still spam because the only reason that person is here is to promote their own web site.

People come to this site for a few reasons.
1 to get help / advice
2 to give help / advice
3 to spam their own site

now you may be asking if I feel the sig file should be gotten rid of and the answer is no. This is only due to no one is going to help or advise anyone for free, everyone wants something. But it falls on the admin of the site to figure out who is here to help first and promote their site second. And I also feel that if the only reason that one person joins a Blog, Forum or any site is to post short one liners, then yes that person is a spammer and should be removed from that site.

MikMik stated Well would you like it if people post short one liners just to get backlinks in their file? In a way is this not a loophole in the system?

Is this method of getting backlinks sneaky and underhanded?

Now I'm NOT saying MikMik or MarcieZoob was doing this or they are not outstanding members and I'm not trying to offend anyone, I just quoted them to help back up my point, and yes I agree with them.