I also agre with you... Nothing is SAFE these days... When there could be an update just a few seconds after I post this message for example!
All of the largest websites on the entire WEB are buying links constantly ... i.e http://www.sex.com/ and http://www.webmd.com/ are two websites that have purchased links from me before (oops) Google would never know if a link is paid for, all they care about is the quality of the link.
Paid links per definition is not safer/more harmful than natural/quality/manual backlinks or whatever you choose to call them. It's all about what site they are coming from and how they are coming from that site.
The bottom line with paid links is that Google and/or other search engines will never know they're paid links, they are just as natural looking as other links (that of course if you stay within the boundaries and don't go buying 1000 guest posts on spammy blog networks). The best way to do SEO is to closely watch the bigger player and analyze their linking structure.
If the links are from High Quality sources, They should never got any penalty from Google before. They must be 100% legit and authorized only. The algorithm of google is - If you build 1 back link of site which have 5 PR then it can work like 55 back links of 1 PR site. So, Yes paid links from the High Quality sources are worthy.
@DiggitySEO: Could i have some questions for you? 1. When you build links for your customers, do you use sitewide backlinks or not sitewide backlinks? 2. Where do you often place links in your website? I mean links on sidebar, footer.. etc All the best, namsypro
I always use homepage contextual backlinks. Surround the link in related content. Anything else is subpar in passing link juice.
Buying links is bad! its black hat! ..............But its still the best and fastest way to gain fast results in the serps if you know what you are doing. There are some very decent vendors on here, most of which are hidden in amongst the crap, granted.. But there are some diamond vendors on this site.