most links are in footers hidden away somewhere, and most of the time unrelated to content - right? my main question is, would a respected seo agency use such programs? would it be violating google norms (code of practice and all..) "Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank." http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769 Surely this is one of them link schemes, right? Just wondering...
IMO no more then a link exchange forum, or the like. But I would say google could certainly say it is. Google does what google wants to do. You gotta pay to play!
In other words, I am assuming no respected, trustworthy SEO agency would ever use such schemes, right?