I have a WordPress blog, at PR3 now. To monetize it I was thinking about selling links, and one of the options is backlinks.com. They have a wordpress plugin you are supposed to install in your blog, and it pulls links from their server. Now I am not sure about using this because I dont have control over exactly which links it is going to pull (I can only opt for "approved categories" of links), the payout is also very low compared to other link selling sites, will it affect my PR, if I use this plugin? I read that the links are all HTML links that look like normal links, that is OK, but what if some Google employee goes to backlinks.com sees my site listed for selling links, and brings down my PR?
google don't like you selling links where the intention is to manipulate PR, rather than just for advertising. Ask yourself if backlinks.com is deigned to sell links in order to manipulate PR, and you have the answer to your own question.
I know google doesnt like selling links on sites with PR, that is why I am cautious about it. I dont see any other decent way to make money from my website as motivator to provide good content, apart from selling links and allowing ads. There are thousands of sites selling links, and Google cannot tell which site bought a link from another site, unless somebody actually complains. That is why I am asking whether this particular service is safe , whether they are going to display my site URL to advertisers before they make payment. I know Text-Link-Ads.com doesnt show the page URLs to advertisers, until payment is made, and TeliAd has the option to hide your site URL and make it display only to premium customers.