I just started a new site with a forum to discuss stocks. I've already submitted my site to DMOZ. To help promote my site and to help people who are looking for stock discussion forums to find it, I'm thinking of submitting my site to a few more directories but I'm hesistant because I know Google will penalize a site if it believes the backlinks to the site are spammy and/or low quality. So, I have a few questions:

1) If I submit my site to directories with a PR between 4 and 5, will those backlinks be considered spammy/low quality? I noticed most free directories have a PR between 4 and 5, but I don't know if backlinks from those directories would be considered spammy by Google.

2) I'm thinking of submitting it to Best of the Web and JoeAnt, but these are paid. Does anybody have any experience with these two paid directories? Are these two directories considered higher quality by Google?