Clarification of link schemes

Avoiding link schemes

[sandpetra]

On my oft perusal of the quality guidelines I've been pondering Google advice:

"Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank."

er...isnt this what we all do - I mean try and increase PR and traffic through link schemes of our own making wether it be blog community exploitation or reciprocal one or two way links?

Do they mean avoid schemes that will put your site on thousands of sites in one go?

Do they mean avoid reciprocal linking and site interlinking on a small scale?

For instance. Can I have a site about dogs and a hundred sub domains for each dog and heavily interlink them between each other? If I could be bothered I'm pretty sure this network described would be top 10 in google for most of these breeds.

[trinorthlighting]

The only types of links we buy are advertising links, adwords, overture, etc.... Otherwise, we steer clear of it....

[sandpetra]

Yes I've never bought a link. Isnt Google at risk of criticism by saying "don't buy links" (paraphrase of course) and then selling links on their own content networks?

[europeforvisitors]

Isnt Google at risk of criticism by saying "don't buy links" (paraphrase of course) and then selling links on their own content networks?

No, because Google isn't selling links that transfer PageRank.

[sandpetra]

Cheers.