Let's you're paying someone legitimately (like an SEO expert who works at an actual agency in the U.S. who does freelance work) to actually do white-hat outreach to acquire quality links for your brand, then this is not considered buying links, am I right? I don't see how in the world you can ever get penalized for doing this. It's not like I am paying $10 to incompetent Indian spammers overseas (see Fiverr) who immediately raise a red flag and should be avoided at all costs. I am talking about actual U.S.-based agency guys with a portolio and a Linkedin porfile who do real SEO work and is even willing to hop on a call with you. Of course, I am paying for a "service" in hopes of acquiring high-quality links, since the work will be strictly manual but it's really not "buying links" straight off the bat. But of course people will always tell others, "never buy links". But I'm pretty sure in cases like this, it's perfectly fine, ...