CZ said
"I pay $89 per month for site wide links coming from a site/forum/reading area that are dead on match for relevancy."

They advertise 1.5 million page views per month. That's a lot if your ad is shown on all page views.

You ask.
"Can using their paid "advertising" (produces no visitors) be harming me now in light of Google changes?"

If 1.5 million ad views is producing no visitors - something is wrong. sometimes in forums it only pays to place an advert for a short period of time, this is because it is usually the case that the same users are viewing your ad. If they looked at your site last month. . They probably will not look at that ad again.

In the light of Google changes? . . If user traffic for the forum from Google has slumped. . If your user traffic from Google has slumped. then something has caused it. The current trend in popular opinion is "paid links will do that"

Do you get any stats from the site. I would prefer not to count page views that show for less than a few seconds. Does the site currently show 1.5 million page views, (any evidence of this )

But the bottom line is. . . (produces no visitors) TIME TO CHANGE.

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