That is the question. And the answer you get will depend on the honesty of the person you’re talking to. Granted, I don’t know everyone in the industry, so I have to admit that I am about to make an assumption. Out of everyone I’ve encountered, I don’t know ANYONE delivering any value in the area of link development who is not buying links. There are hundreds of link swappers out there, but they’re the bottom of the food chain. Most people who get good links buy good links.

Yes, there’s a lot of noise out there about link bait these days. Professional link baiters claim that a well-written blog post or article will bring in the links. Fooey. Those people have lots of friends who do them favors, including free book marks, Diggs, and Stumbles. If a person can gain a quick 100+ Diggs based on their personal influence, it doesn’t really matter if the piece they wrote was top notch, does it?

For those of us yet to develop the international clout of these SEO stars, we have to do some actual work. That includes the negotiation of paid links from webmasters around the world. If you’ve never tried it, start off slow. You can get from a network of bloggers.

Sure, Matt Cutts will hate you. You’ll be on his shitlist, even. But does that REALLY matter? Is your goal to be his buddy or to help your clients? Answer that question and you’ll be ahead of the so-called stars of SEO.