Q: Should I Buy Pay Per Post Reviews?

At the current time I don't think you should.

Why? Because Google doesn't like paid links, and these are what you are in effect trying to buy.

If you are only looking for traffic then you might be okay. However, speaking anecdotally, I've seen sites get penalized for using Pay Per Post. Perhaps only when the PPP blog loses PR, but potentially Google will discount valid natural links as well as those that were paid for.

Be careful here.

However, if you can find a way to get a blogger to write about you, without appearing to be a paid post, then you should be okay. This will take a lot more time and effort than using the PPP service.

Q: Should I Buy Links?

This is a question that gets a different answer every time it is asked.

To make a long story short, yes, but read on to see the ins and outs of this situation.

Yes, Google can penalize a site for selling links. This means that the selling site might lose PR and that the links may not pass PR to you. Obviously, if you are purchasing links for the purpose of acquiring PR, then this is something that will concern you.

However, don't forget, links were originally sold for traffic. Buying a link, a banner, a button or whatever is simply advertising. It is a great way to get targeted traffic to your site for whatever purpose you want them there.

Importantly, no, Google does not generally penalize a site for actions that somebody else could do to your site. If you think about it, if buying links caused a penalty to the buyer, then people would buy links for their competitors in order to have them be penalized.

The competitive nature of the net ads a lot of things to think about when determine how and why penalties might be applied.