If you have bought links on a good website then the links itself are worth the money because of the traffic they generate. They can use no-follow to make shure that search engines are not fooled by these bought links.

We do not need such unethical behavior. Link buying is fine as long as the rel=nofollow attribute is used.

Looks fine to me Lara

Part of the problem I have with this is the relevance factor. If I want to sell links on my site, it’s a given (for me, not for everyone) that the links I choose to display must be relevant and geared toward who I already know are my visitors. Likewise, if I’m going to buy links, it’s going to be on a site where I think their visitors would appreciate the information I have to give.

That said, I know that most people who are heavily into link buying/selling are doing it for less than honorable (so to speak) reasons, however not everyone does it for that reason. I look at it as simple advertising though - what’s the difference really, short of the “nofollow”? Both link brokers I’ve worked with to sell space on some of my own sites do so with some sort of javascript, which the SE’s can’t read anyway. So why the drop in “trust”?

Frankly, I don’t see it stopping as a trend - regardless of it’s “Google weight” - it’s still a valid form of advertising by all other standards. I just don’t think it’s fair to be penalized for it - don’t count it as “link juice” if you want, Google, but don’t punish people for advertising their sites.