Can You Get Penalized for Inbound Links to Your Site? - Arguments and counterarguments
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A popular counter argument to this stance is the “text link ad” angle. One might say, “what if Google is only penalizing inbound links that are obviously from text link ads? They could look for a link on the footer of a site, or links that are bunched close together to one another, or exist on totally unrelated sites.” There’s a big problem with this assertion. Once again, it would be incredibly easy for an unscrupulous webmaster to create a site that mimics these features in order to purposely sabotage their competitors.
Here are some other interesting points and counter points to ponder:
Nothing that is beyond the webmaster’s control can harm rankings. Inbound links are beyond the webmaster’s control.
From Google’s webmaster FAQ: "There is almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index. Your rank and your inclusion are dependent on factors under your control as a webmaster, including content choices and site design."
According to a prominent member of the SEO community, the phrase “almost nothing” was a recent modification. I have no way of verifying this though.
It is possible that an inbound link (from a “bad neighborhood”) that is part of a reciprocal link exchange may indirectly harm your site. By indirectly, I mean that although the inbound link, in and of itself, will not harm your site if you reciprocate the link (point a link back at the “bad neighborhood” site), the resulting association of your site and the “bad neighborhood” site may cause adverse affects.
Theoretically, there may be glitches in Google’s system that cause URLs or entire domains to be “accidentally” penalized for inbound links.
A real world example of why inbound links most likely do not cause any negative or adverse effects is the following:
Most sites get unsolicited link exchange requests from questionable sites that would be considered “bad neighborhoods.” Many of the requestors of these exchanges have already placed a link on their site. These “bad neighborhood” requests are usually not reciprocated, but the “bad neighborhood” webmasters rarely bother to remove the link from their link directory. So in effect, most sites have one or more existing “bad neighborhood" sites pointing to them, but suffer no ill effects from these inbound links.
Link Trading 
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