You should blame Google for creating the confusion. When you get backlinks, it's now a roll of the dice. Do not over-optimize, do not get social links in quick bunches, get bookmarks at very slow rate, do some comment links that are nofollow.
In fact, your link profile should look like this:
10 to 20% keyword optimized
at least 40 to 50% no follow links
10 to 20 % bookmarks
5 to 10% editorial links.
If you have your own blog network, but proceed with caution as your competition will snitch on you.
Warning: Do not use indexing services as you're just letting Google know you just created stuff that is against their terms of service.
People are trying to make a living at the BST threads. The only issue I have is that most of them do not bother to test the services before selling. You cannot survive by killing off your customers money site.
With all the data collected from the millions of DISAVOW fillings, Google now knows how backlinks are created. Yes they know about tier linking.
You just have to proceed with caution, if you want your rankings to last.
Lastly, if you can get links from well recognized domains, it will do your site much good.
