Question About Linkbacks and Indexing

So there are a lot of sites that will give you a backlink or multiple, you just need to display their badge somewhere on your site or a link. What are the best ways to get these approved so your site will be placed on theirs, but not vice versa?

I put one on a .com/linkbacks.htm because they simply required a linkback. If I have no links from anywhere on my .com pointing to .com/linkbacks it's not going to take away from my page rank/get indexed is it?

you can do it using robot.txt.

Wow yeah, stupid question.

I guess the only remaining question is when they make you put those little badges on your site.

you have to put their badges to get your site approved on reciprocal basis.
they might check sometimes manually and then remove your link on their site.

Is there any way to get around it though such as iframing them in somehow or something? I'm sure there is a way to do it without actually making them (or all of them) visible? Can we change the image to something else such as a 1 pixel thing? I'd assume we can nofollow the links.

yes, to make it disappear use "display: none" attribute.
That way if they check with program it will be there but will not be displayed.
that is what you want, you do not want to clutter your webpage with too many badges.