Here is a quote from one of my link partners. This is not the first time I have heard this lately. Advanced Access is well known for having high ranking websites for Real Estate Agents. What do you think?
Too many links could trigger a Google penality if you add the links over a short period of time - the search engines can become suspicious. It's best to make sure the links are on different IP addresses, and are introduced over a period of a few months. Re. reciprocal links. No one really knows other than the search engines, but it has been rumoured that reciprocal links carry much less weight when optimising your website for the search engines. The best link exchanges are 3 way, i.e. you link to my site A and I link to your site B OR even better are 1 way link exchanges, which are obviously much more difficult to get and involve more work on your part, i.e. submitting articles, press releases, etc.
I would say 'yes'. One-way backlinks are more preferable. There is one more thread about that with a few good answers: Adding backlinks to increase Google SERPS
too many links shouldn't be a problem 1: the site which links to you is relevant to your site's topic 2: the site links to your site is not a link farm 3: don't use the same link title over and over again
too many links shouldn't trigger any penalty. If it does i'm going to go get a few thousand guestbook links pointed toward my competition in a short period of time.
I guess your question isn't really wheter too many links will hurt you, but whether too many reciprocal links will hurt you. The answer, from my experience, is a resounding "yes!" I no longer exchange links, though I do link-out freely to any site that I feel would be useful to my readers. Reciprocal links are just too easy for Google to catch, and I've been penalized before, so now I try to stay on uncle G's good side