Ok so I am tryng to for sure understand what a back link is?

I take it that it is a link so that people can get back to my site, but How exactly would you do that?

And does it really help search engine positioning?

A backlink is a link to your page from another page. Generally, the more backlinks you get, the higher your pagerank goes but don't worry too much about that. The main advantage of increasing your backlinks is the increase in visitors that may come with them.

Here is some info on it and also a little list that can help you get started

Click here

Great thank you, thank link was very helpful

I think that a good way to get backlinks... or at least to get people to visit your site from links... seems to be staying active in forums that have a link in your signature
-[looks away and whistles innocently]-

thats a good idea I need to look into that