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I think that the first question that anyone who wants to hire a linkbuilder should do is ask himself is... "Do I have any content on  my site that is worth linking to?"   If the answer to that question is "no" or "maybe" then you will need to find a linkbuilder who is either a freeking magician or a linkbuilder who will only get you links from spammy sites. From dignan99:  I personally do not trust the links done by the vast majority of services that offer link building. I agree.  If I needed a linkbuilder, I would hire someone to sit in my office and do it.  Then I could control the process and know that when they found good links that they would not be duplicated for my competitor's sites.     That's how you start an arms race! If you have received some of the link requests that I get you would know that ignorant linkbuilders will make a fool out of you in front of other people in your industry.  Worse... turn an idiot lose and tell him to drop comments on forums and blogs with your name on them.  That can really damage the image of your business in the right places. Getting to your question... I would ask where they are going to look for these links and I would want to see periodic reports of where the links are located so I can will know when to fire the linkbuilder for stinking up my domain by posting crap on other websites.

Good link building companies are very expensive. Theres webuildpages.com. $2500 for 10 permenant links. They are good quality. Also, I'd be sure to keep away from judging links by solely by PR. It's not a good metric on its own.

Thanks. That's really helpful. You should write an article on it!

I think it depends on the customer really. It might be wise to discuss your strategy openly with them, it is quite possible they have someone on their staff that could help you write copy, and save your time for more valuable things.

Based on your comment I decided to confirm my understanding. I had thought the "nofollow" tag in the header was a directive to not follow any links on the page. Apparently I was mistaken. I created a test page and verified the result with two link checkers. Both view the link as a followed link despite the "nofollow" tag in the header. I will modify my original reply.

I think he meant to say QDF. Quality Deserves Freshness. See: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-query-deserves-freshness

I like the ideas Stephen but these are 30,000 gallon tanks. Not the kind you use for your bbq. I wonder if there was another way to do what you suggest for this type of boring topic.

Just an opinion..... Don't worry about PR.  Give them a followed link. If you nofollow the link you are sending these potential signals.... - this site paid me to link to them - I don't trust this site - this site could be spam So, if you nofollow the link why should any clean power flow back to you? I am not saying that the above is fact.  Just how I think about it.

What you are referring to is link triangles. It's black hat, and punishable. You clearly want to perform a link exchange, but you know the links would be discounted. In order to manipulate the system, you link to another site to avoid the link exchange. The bottom line, it is a search engine's job to determine which web pages are the most relevant and reliable for a user. Links are a large part of their calculations. Anything you do to muddy the waters and make it difficult to determine whether a link occurs naturally, or it is paid for / exchanged, it black hat and would be subject to consequences upon discovery.

Simple answer, Yes.

Dear Michael, Does your agreement state what you should be getting for your investment? My agreements spell out exactly what my clients are getting- 10 articles, blog posts, videos press releases etc.. Was it strictly link building?  Was there any mention of optimizing your Google local places? What were your goals when you started? If there were no goals set how can you gauge success? Have you had any meetings with them?  Is your traffic increasing?  Are you getting more sales? These are all questions you'll need to ask.