CainIV - 7:53 am on Mar 12, 2010 (gmt 0)

Really? Most of the users can tell me how many sketchy links will get me penalized?

No, that is your job. My quote referred to most users on this forum knowing how to reverse engineer the SERP's.

Most of the users know everything they need to know about the algo, and couldn't use more clues to help reverse engineer?

My point wasn't particular people could use more help or not. My comment was in context and reply to the notion of Google allowing webmasters to selectively select (or rather deselect) links from the Webmaster Tools interface in order to send signals to Google that they are aware of, and do not approve of particular links.

Make sure that paid ads do not transfer PageRank - then Google is happy and your ads send traffic.

In a black and white world this would work great, but unfortunately it isn't practical anymore. We all know how 'fuzzy' the topic can be.

For example - why should a paid ad in context in a well written article on an authority blog or news website be blocked from passing pagerank?

-To adhere strictly to the Google guidelines?
-To lower risk for the idea behind 'paid' - even if it is unlikely undetectable in this case and will help the business?
-To play fair?

This is the part that is difficult to understand for many business owners online.