Can I be punished for linking for too many random links?

[Blue_Chi]

I offered an advertising spot in all of my forum pages to this new advertiser that is putting 5 direct links (not redirections) to random websites, each page gets different direct links. Can this lower my Google rankings or anything like that?

[chickenpaw]

Yes is the short answer.

Stick to doing recip links with websites in your industry or related to your industry. If you are just linking to websites make sure that you think your visitors would find these sites interesting and of value.