Link buying service.

What do you think of this service www . text-link-ads . com.

Surely the very definition of a paid link designed to manipulate SERPs? Spend the money on something else that will help your site rank, or donate it to your local cat sanctuary.

Very true yes, but is that not what smart SEO's do; manipulate the SERP's. It looks the they would be hard to trace. I know what you mean though, it's putting on a black hat. Also, it may be pretty expensive because they don't give out the prices on the site. I won't be using it, I'm just wondering if anyone had any knowledge about it, that's all. Thanks anyway.

Yes, but using methods that work, and that will likely continue to work long into the future.

Paying money for something that Google has categorically stated that they are looking to target and devalue probably isn't that smart.

Simple lists of external sites in a side column are some of the most obviously "paid for" links in existence, and are almost certainly going to be devalued straight away.

Thanks JagNet, I will have to start thinking this way. I find it hard to easily drift back to thinking about buying links for some reason. It must be because shortcuts are appealing.

Very true. It's human nature to look for short cuts, and to convince yourself that they'll be of benefit (no one likes to admit to themselves that the time or money they spent will be wasted).

Hmmm, reminds me of the root causes of the current economic situation. Huge credit built up as a short cut to having "shiny things", whilst sticking heads in the sand that it's not all going to unravel faster than a hand-knitted jumper caught in the door of a speeding car.

well I think google is wise enough to determined who uses paid services just to manipulate their SERP,but it should be better if we do it manually for better results.

If its like any of the link broker sites that I have seen then they will have URL's of sites that are looking to sell links. Would it then be difficult for google to discount links from those sites?

I know some say that buying links is still a good allocation of resources but I dont like the idea of not knowing if the service that I have paid for is giving me any benefit. Its an expensive habbit.