Has anyone had any success in buying links and not getting penalized by Google? Do you think Google has robots that have figured this strategy out yet?

We have never bought any because I cant believe that the robots could not figure it out. If they scan you site for new content and all of the sudden they see 300 new links from the last update you would think that the would recognize that you purchased the links.

We do it the old fashion and slow way of going out and looking for reciprocal links and try to find sites that complement ours.

We have bought some links and receive a higher page ranking and received some more traffic as a result of them. I just do not think the quality of the traffic we received was that great.

We have bought links and we have not been penalized I think the trick is to not add 300 links in a week it is better to grow them over time so it looks more "natural"

Buying links can really hurt you especially if you do not "renew" the membership and you go from having 500 links to perhaps 25. Google will not look at that kindly so if you do buy links see how long they commit to keeping them on and use a program online that allows you to check backlinks

I think it is a complete waste of time and will only get you a short term rise in traffic but could potentially hurt you long term.