Brett pointed out in his original article 7 SEO Techniques That Google Smashed in 2007 that Google had smashed Directories that charged a pay for review fee.
In regard to Directory links Google did smash a lot of low quality Directories. I’ sure there were some paid for review Dirctories that got hit. I think that was done to Directories that were obviously built to help webmasters game Google. In reality Directories of that type only had two purposes.
They generally promoted links, pagerank, and obtaining links to get better rankings in Google. I think the other thing that stood out about these directories was the fact it was obvious the Adsense adds were more important than the directory listings.
IMHO Google did not smash paid for review directories. In fact I think Google has made it clear that they do not consider a pay for review directory as a paid link as long as the directory does not include every site that pays for a review.
For further reading:
How To Report Paid Links
Hidden Links
Text Links and PageRank
If you want to read my other post in this series:
2007 Changes in Google Regarding Links
2007 Changes in Google Regarding Supplemental Pages
Indeed there has been a lot of changes with google in 2007, especially bad for the text link business and directories. However, there is still yet a long way to the end of battle for a clean SERP free from paid for position influence. Paid links are now hidden in content making it even harder to identify. Directories are seeing some changes to overcome the ‘thin content’ page etc. 2008 is going to be another interesting year.
I don’t do link exchanges, and I don’t buy links. Personally I have some problems with the way Google is doing this.
Whether I agree or not Facts are Facts.
I think the Fact is that Google is doing all they can do to discount link exchanges, and paid links.
I agree they have a long way to go. On the other hand they have come a long way in the last couple of years.
Whether I agree or not why fight Google if you want free traffic from Google?