Site not Ranking well, considering buying links

This is my first post & am need of some guidance so please take it easy.

I have a website that's been around for about 6 years with good PR, but poor ranking. Thus far I have used many white hat basics such as creating profiles on local search sites, getting reviews on Google Places, getting PR from local news paper etc however competition is very aggressive. Lack of links seems to be the missing piece based on my research.

The question is after executing all of the above and still being outranked I have considered buying backlinks to help boost SERPs. What are the real world odds of buying backlinks hurting this website?

all depends on the quality of links ! if you buy a xrumer blast and it blasts to adult sites then you will feel the wroth ! get yourself a angela and paul link package and hire a filippino to place your links should cost no more than $20 for 100 or so top quality links

"What are the real world odds of buying backlinks hurting this website?"

Odds are that YES backlinks can hurt your site:

- xrumer blasts
- scrapebox blasts

these can hurt you if they are in the xxxx numbers. What I suggest is do some research on your competitors and TRY to get the links they have. Use MS, SEO Spyglass or Majestic Hope this helps.

Crowly

I don't think I agree with the two previous posters about too many links hurting u...Though I've once been sandboxed blasting wiv scrapebox in the 50,000's AUTo approve...but my xrumer experiences have all been +ve.

try the free service on my signature first and see if that helps b4 buying links...

I don't really recommend going to the link brokers, but definitely try to find a handful of sites who rank well for your target terms that will sell you links. You only need a few most of the time if you get the right ones.