As a newbie, I am wondering whether it is worth spending lots of time achieving PR0 inbound links against concentrating on fewer quality links. Any advise. I realise I can pay directory submission services, but as a newbie am worried about penalties from google. Any advice much appreciated.
A mixture of both is advisable, but only if you have a fairly well established site. Just take a look at someone like http://www.moneyexpert.com/ they have nearly 3.5 million links according to Yahoo Site Explorer and are using DP co-op to get most of those but they also have some really high quality links from trusted sources. And they rank #1 for the term loans (in the uk at least im not sure about google.com) which is probably bringing in millions of pounds or dollars worth of revenue. If the site is being promoted from scratch I would take it steady and not build too many links to fast.
When it comes to quality, your content eventually will be very important, so, as pedigreechump6 said, build good, even very good site, and than bring the quality links, and of course some less.
thanks guys for answers - I take it that the middle course is best. I will aim to build quality links and in the background pay some DP submitters to build volume
As it has been said already before...Quality is very important! Try to go for impressive page ranks and similar content
Quality is very important however, you should not base the quality of a link on the page rank alone as the page rank may increase over time, the amount of traffic you may get from a link is also important as well as the relevance of the link.
Quality before quantity, no doubt about it. Then BUILD those links, meaning not ALL at once. Organic grow is important. Then DEEP link, not all links to your index, make some to a page inside your domain. And the quality one way links form High PR sites, if possible relevant to your niche. Perhaps you need to buy them. But a handfull of them will do it. G.