Will this destroy my SEO

[mattsgame]

Not really sure if this is the place to put this but would like some input from some of you more seasoned web masters.

My site is going threw a little rebuilding phase and is a bit messy at the moment (kinda irrelevant but felt the need to mention it )

I was going to make two new sections, One for other web masters to promote there site/s (not spammy with strict rules)

And another where Web master/article writers can post there articles with a backlink to there website/s.

These two will most likely be in a blog type section.


Just wondering if this will effect my site in a negative way at all? will I be seen as a link farm, spammer etc

My SEO is not that strong as it is so I would rather avoid anything negative, and someone has already tried to destroy it anyway, Dunno why when I get bugger all visits atm.

Cheers
Matt

[Silencio]

I'm new to the industry, so I think it's a good question
Google states in its rules on links:

This is in violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact your site's ranking in search results. Examples of link schemes can include:

Links intended to manipulate PageRank
Links to web spammers or bad neighborhoods on the web
Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging ("Link to me and I'll link to you.")
Buying or selling links that pass PageRank

source: http://www.google.com/support/webmas...y?answer=66356

Well I have the funny feeling most people don't follow these rules at all, and they have a high ranking because of it.
Also among them are some sites which offer bogus bonus codes just to get you to sign up.

Don't know if the pasted text is of help to you.. but as I'm new I can't really answer your question, though my guess would be it probably wouldn't be worth the effort.. I think

[rkj87]

You MUST buy and exchange links to rank for any money making term.
Don't listen to that Matt Cutts bullshit, just watch the top affiliates perform and try to copy them.
However, if you exchange links do it per MAIL and don't write anything about it on your website.

[xecutable]

There's no right or wrong answer here. It all comes down to what kind of quality will these articles/post will have and to what sort of sites you will be linking to. If all of the posts are around 500 words and link to well built websites with no penalties then you will be fine and perhaps will even benefit from the fresh regular content that you will be getting. However, if for some reason you happen to accept spun articles, or some sort of gibberish that's like 200 words long, it will affect you in a negative way.

If any of these sites happens to a major violator of Google's rules and gets penalized you might see an effect of this as well. Bottom line is it can be positive or negative, depending on the quality. Don't worry about excessive link exchange, as 'excessive' means a loooooooot.

I do agree however that ranking on money keywords will require some link buying, unless u came online in year 2000 or around there.