... and well, I can say that I personally surely don't consider all this is a "white hat" technique. I mean all those "I ordered a few PR4, PR5 backlinks...", "I've submitted to virtually every directory out threre", "Anyone with >PR5 site wants to exchange links", "How to get link on Wikipedia?", "Looking for a way to build .edu back-links" threads made me think that this getting backlinks on purpose (may I say sort of forcefully) to get higher SERP positions is all not quite so "innocent" (even if Google allows it), and the point is of course on the word "purpose". Isn't it obvious that the one particular site for which user wants to have an .edu backlinks (or the one for which user wants a Wikipedia backlink) obviously doesn't "deserve" a backlink from a site on .edu domain (or the other from Wikipedia), because if it would, it would already have it in the first place. tayiper
that's like saying if your site isn't already getting traffic for widgets it doesn't deserve it, so you shouldn't optimize your on-page factors for widgets. as far as I'm concerned anyway.
Tayiper, you have an interesting view. I sort of feel that you have to "go with the flow" to get yuor website "seen". You may have the most worthy and and interesting website but no one will get to see it unless you build some links to start with. But once you have built the links it then becomes a question of whether your visitors like the website, if they do they hang around and make repeat visits. I guess what I am saying is you need the links to get started, but to succeed long term you need "customer appeal" - and I am sure that's what Google and other SEs want too, websites that visitors want to find. So in brief, go with the flow and build links to get you going, but build a site that customers like if you want to be around in the long term. Just my view.
my point was artificially manipulating SE results via link development is no different from artificially manipulating SE results via on-page optimization. both can be done inacceptable, whitehat ways, and both can be done in ways that're bound to get you banned. where you draw that line is up to you. but link building is no more automatically evil than optimizing the titles of your pages as far as I'm concerned.
... especially things/tactics like purchasing links bother me, and anything let's say "artificial" as that. tayiper