Frequently I see text links for sale, well more like for rent from high page rank sites for and average of $150.00 to $250 for several months or some king of monthly charge. The amount makes no difference. What does make a difference is I can't afford renting text links from a pr7 site at that kind of money so I want to know if there is a payoff long term or is the benefit just for the time you one way link is coming from those high pr sites?
The benefit only lasts as long as you have the link. Many temporary PR6 and 7 links are used to get a new website indexed by google in days rather than months.
You definitely need to look for permanent ones and for temporary ones. Just make sure you know which are which.
If your budget is not enough to buy a PR7 link or so, don't worry. Just write some really good content and you will get natural links from nice, authority sites. Content is the king!
If you cannot afford PR7, what about PR6 or PR5 or PR4 or PR3? + there are many free directories with good PR
I think it could be depending on what you do with gained PR. If you are thinking of selling links from your site, then PR is one of major factors. If you are trying to rank higher in the Google SERP, you may not to worry about PR so much even though PR is one of ranking factors. see more info on buying text links here. It may be a help.
If you want to get indexed just put a link in your signature here, you will get indexed quickly. Also a PR4 link is more than good enough for fast indexing. Buying high PR links DOES have short/medium/long term benefits and you might even be able to pay it back quicker than you think. If it's from a high traffic site, the link can drive traffic and we all know that this is the best option... this traffic might result in more free links as well. If you already have a decent PR (say PR4 or PR5), a high PR link might help you boost your PR even higher and therefore give you an opportunity to sell ads/links on your site... making back part of the money you spent. No guarantees though, it's a matter of trial and error. One thing is certain though, if your website doesn't have compelling or interesting content, don't bother. The whole idea is to get noticed by a wider audience who will in turn help spread the word and link back... if your website is crap nobody will stay or link and advertising it is a waste of money. Trust me, I speak from experience. I've tried without success to advertise MFA and other sh*t websites in hopes of getting quick PR/traffic/cash and it never works. On the flip side, when one of my websites has something fun/useful/interesting it will always get spread by others even without my intervention.
You can find a lot of good link exchange programs that are free. example: www.interlinkexchange.com It has the price - you have to place a link to them on your home page
I don't think we're talking about those types of links. Besides, nobody is going to give you a link from a high PR, high traffic website in exchange for a link from a low PR/traffic site. I am assuming the thread starter has a low PR/traffic site that needs links... otherwise there would be no need to start this thread. If you need it, pay for it... just like AdWords. If it brings people/dollars to you, it's worth the investment (usually).
To clear things up originally I was trying to find out if it is better to have a lot of free directory submissions or pay for a few submissions with high pr and germinate links. I finaly had a pr of 2 at the end of last year but it suddenly disappeared a few months ago. Although I would like to sell links to my site the main thing I am looking for is high pr so my keywords will beat other sites with the same keywords to give me higher ranking.
Free links can disappear just as quickly/easily as you got them. If you buy into directories like the Yahoo directory, your link will automatically appear in thousands of smaller directories that scrape the content from the bigger directories... so it just might be worth it. That said, free directories have always been good to me so if you have time, submit.