canuckseo - 3:21 pm on May 16, 2012 (gmt 0)

I think people are over-thinking this thing - worried if a link will appear "natural" enough. I think what gets a lot of people caught up has to do more with HOW they build links not what type of links.

I'd bet that there were a lot of sites that bought up links in blocks - IE a couple hundred in a month and then stopped. This is a sure sign of unnatural link building.

But if you do it right - buy links from reputable link builders using Google criteria (unique IPs, unique domains, IPs spread around (not all in the same block), on different pages (not all on a links or resources page), and so on) they will tend to look more natural and therefore harder for Google to disqualify. Add on top of this doing it gradually over time and consistently and not a big bunches and this is one of the keys to effective link building.