To buy or to Trade?

[tanicos]

which is the best solution for links? To buy them with only 1 way links or to trade them? And why?
Are blog links more powerful than normal sites?

Example:
I had a link exchange program and had about 500 links /month with any kind of website or PR...i had the link pages with nofollow and .htaccess restricted for robots
I've got PR3 for all my site pages--about 15...even for the portfolio ones

I've stopped that and bought some PR3-4 links
After 1 month google sent me to page 4 instead of page 2 for web 2.0 design keyword, and even took all my pr leaving me a PR2 for the homepage..

Strange right?

 

[bermuda]

Well, it is now clear that exchanging links with other webmasters is not a great way for boosting a website's PR. One way links are still the best votes for websites but your point maybe about the fact that Google might already know that the links are paid ones.