Chard - 4:46 pm on Mar 8, 2005 (gmt 0)

How sure can anyone be that you won't be penalised?
The top-ranking site in my industry has been penalized, lost most of his PR and all but disappeared from Serps, apparently for having many thousands of paid-for links from 2 or 3 relevant(ish) sites.
Of course, he could have been penalized for something else entirely, but I reckon it is links. His site stood out like a sore thumb, as having 40 or 50 times more links than anyone else in the industry. When you check his links now, the total that Google recognises has been reduced by some 2000, but he still shows tens of thousands, site nowhere to be found.
I would be inclined to tread very carefully!