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Can you link to the webinar you mentioned? I'll keep an open mind, but from everything I've experienced in the last five years, links that don't get clicked still work pretty darn well. It would be hard for Google to track which links are getting clicked. In addition, the links boost the site's ranking and so they will gain traffic organically. (Maybe I misunderstood you) I don't consider forum profile links to be spam or even grey hat when used appropriately. If you are using a tool like Dripfeed Blasts, then of course that's another story. Much of grey hat SEO and a moderate portion of black hat is still in effect. I still see competitors from two years ago sporting a large number of links from terrible neighborhoods, and still ranking incredibly well. I've reported them countless times to no avail. It almost seems like you have to get a competitor featured in a New York Times article for Google to do anything substantial. Cheers.