Form and blog post for links.

Is there a way to tell if my post on this or other forums is creating backlinks to my site?

Try reading the forums to find out. If you are here just to grub for links by posting the same question in multiple places then I am going to put sig links up for your competitors.

If you have already posted to the forum in question, wait a few days to ensure the page you posted on has been indexed by the search engines, then do a yahoo search for backlinks to your site

You do this by typing link:mywebpage.com into the yahoo search bar. If your link in the forum does not come up, then it is likely they use the no follow tag.

Do not use google for this because they do not list the majority of your backlinks

If you want to find blogs that do not use the no follow tag just visit bumpzee.com

Yep! The Yahoo Site Explorer would show your forum sigs as backlinks. Google doesn't always show all of your backlinks with the link: query.

Take advantage of participating in forums as a way to learn new things and make friends with other webmasters. Don't just post for backlinks - be constructive and insightful so as to benefit others as well.