That was fast

So, considering a while back I wrote about links and link buying, a recent article that I read requires me to go back and amend what I said.

Seems like Google has gotten much smarter, deciding to hide the fact that a link that you have purchased / the site it is on is no longer passing on 'reputation'. So even if a site does have a Page Rank, it still does not mean that it will vote for your site.

Since there is now no easy way to tell, the best suggestions I've come across thus far is
a) don't buy links at all
b) do so if it makes sense for the site / content that you have (so say buying a link on a floral afficiando for a florist)
c) See what else everyone else is doing. If there are a lot of advertisers and/or link purchasers who have purchased from them, it probably is still good.

Of course option c) believes that everyone else knows what they are doing.