For years Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has been characterized by the effort to trick the seach engines with shadow networks or the more benign practice of trading links.  Google has implemented a new system called Jagger that now finally makes all this futile.  We have finally arrived at the age where the ranking of a site will be based on that site's content and the quality of that content.  If you want to get a high rank, start doing the real things that should improve your rank, namely publish relevant content, write articles with links back to your site, actually participate in online discussions about the topics you wish to be well ranked for...

This is actually good news (as you should be able to tell by my tone) since we are finally beyond the "get rich quick" mania that has been the mainstay of SEO since it's inception years ago during the Dot Com boom.

Write and encourage your community to write in your forums.  Do the things that will make your site worth visiting and the traffic will come.  A long hard road, but a fair one.