Difference Between Spam And Backlinks

This post is about Web Spamming especially in forums and how they can be combated effectively by both forum Moderators and Administrators.
The title of this post may not be the very best it can get but I'll make up with the Article body.
We'll be discussing about spamming and backlinks in 2018 and try to distinguish between the two because people can easily mistaken one for the other.
Let's start by defining some of the most basic terms here
Spam: Spam is simply a way of describing
illegal activities performed by users of a
site in terms of submission of data which
is usually displayed to other users.
Hence,
spamming is a word normally used in forums.
People can equally spam blogs but this is
utterly useless because the comments posted
in the blog are usually filtered.
- in WordPress by special plugin and
humans
- in bloggers and most other CMS
softwares, by Human beings
So, spamming generally is a forum thing.
Backlinks: These are links on a page pointing
to another page on another website. It's
powerful and useful for Seo purposes.
Backlinks can help and harm a site depending
on how it's used but for the most part, it's
used to boost a site's ranking on search
engines' results page, SERP.
Spamming and backlinks are similar in that
Spam is unauthorized, unorganized
backlinks
that are not user friendly so most
times, forum moderators spend a lot of time
fighting off spam than they do in other things
unless there's a very good spam fighting
technique.
So, in the forums Spam is a big problem that
has to be faced squarely because it can bring
down a website jist like it did @
galaxykins.com. Too bad.
Let's go ahead and see good and bad
backlink strategies in 2016
Here,you'll see what makes a backlink to
become a Spam
1. TOO MUCH links
This is the most common of all. Users who
spam forums especially for the sake of Traffic
tend to post excessive links in the forums
directing the forums users to another site.
This is a form of negative advertising. A type
of advert that's not authorized by the forum
administrators.
2. Rice in Beans farm / Weed / Mixed
Cropping
That's a name I just choose for a situation
where by someone posts a helpful link in an
unrelated part of a forum.
For example, someone posts a link to a
football betting site in the Smartphone
tutorials section.
This is a weed spam because, had it been
posted in the proper section, it would have
been helpful but it becomes a distraction
when posted in a place it's not meant to be
in.
You have to understand that posting the link
in the Above example in both forum
Categories is not a Weed Spam. It becomes
a Link farm spamming, the one in the first
example.
3. Misleading Links
This is a very annoying type of spamming.
Someone may link to a webpage talking
about gaming and put an anchor text like
[Top 15 Seo Tips 2016].
Users of the forum will surely click through if
the forum is about seo and end up in a site
that can do a ton of unpleasant things to
their browsers and logged in accounts.
By all means, this type of link spamming
should be fought in forums as it can easily
discourage people from visiting.
4. Fake Information
This is another category of Spamming that
doesn't involve links.
Someone can Post misleading information in
the forums and people may work with the
information trusting it's perceived
authenticity.
This leads to loss of trust by users on the
forums.
Forum administrators should be alert
for this kind of threads. They hurt the forum
silently. They're not links so you may not
detect and fight them easily.
People who sell fake products in the
forums are fond of using this method.
Some Acceptable method of Backlinks in the
Forums
Backlinks can still be gotten from forums and
in fact add some value to the Forum and
users alike.

http://www.jackobian.com/threads/what-is-the-difference-between-spam-and-backlinks-web-forum-management.279/