As far as google are back links the best SEO method?

[jerry2mok]

If there is one thing you are going to do in SEO, getting back-links to your site would be the thing. With that said, you want to focus on the quality of the links as opposed to quantity. Try to get links from relevant pages/sites with your keyword in the anchor text. As for having bad inbound links hurting you is false. Only if you link back to these bad sites will you be penalized by the search engines. Think about it, if bad links could hurt your site by simply linking up to your site, why wouldn't companies target their competitors with bad links? Search engines know this and this is why they don't penalize but they just simply don't give you credit for the link.