Possible Dangers with this "links on blogs" SEO Method?

[cmendla]

One of my clients was approached by an SEO who is 'guaranteeing' ranking increases. (First red flag)

From what I can see, it looks like they have set up or have relationships with a bunch of different blogs along the lines of 'reviews'. They place an ad on the blog with an H1 heading (almost all 'pay per post' ads), a link to the company getting SEO'd (Without any nofollow attributes), a bunch of ads including adsense, alexa buttons etc.

The SEO company and the blog have a PR of 0.

If I do a site: operator in google for the blog I find about 500 pages listed from all types of industries (Ie the blog is not focused on any one topic).

I wouldn't touch anything like this for my sites. However, my client is leaning toward it and I'm looking for some info/discussion.

It seems to me that this might work in the short term, but I can see google and the other engines being able to quickly unravel this. I would think that it would probably fall into the "Paid links" that Matt Cutts has been warning about lately. I'm getting visions of the robot from Lost in Space... "DANGER Will Robinson... DANGER"

Anyway, I'd appreciate any thoughts....
thanks

cg.

[glengara]

Wouldn't touch it myself but then I'm from the Chicken Little School of SEO.

Not sure if a better example of the genre would bring any actual danger to your client though.....

[Pico_Train]

Well what are you clients' ambitions? Short-term or longterm? Go from there.

Short term - Go for it I would think if you think it will work.

Long term - Stay away...

[Marcia]

it would probably fall into the "Paid links" that Matt Cutts has been warning about lately.

Yes, or it could also fall into "linking schemes," wording which IMHO they should not have taken out of the webmaster guidelines Q&A. There are "schemes" going on with blog links that aren't quite paid links as such, but it's being done on an organized basis. There's at least one website out there that offers just such an arrangement, very specifically.