lol

SE's take one way links and recip links differently, although there would be no relevance vote cast in your scenario, that link would still help you greatly in both authority score and pagerank.

I love that webmasters link with irrelevant sites, it means they have so much more to manage which dilutes their efforts in getting the actual links that count. I think you and many others look at the BL count and check for links to see many irrelevant ones, rest assured these are not what is making the site rank, they likely have just as many relevant ones which may not show in a BL check or get lost in the sheer volume of BS links they have acquired.

My promise - If you build 100% relevant links you will need far less then if you link to every viagra site that comes your way.

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lol

Yes, if it was a recip link from NY times it would change the weight you got from it, just my feeling on the matter but I think one way are more valued then recip.

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From a site like the NY times being relevant would just be a bonus (if it was in say the real estate section), the authority nature of a site like that is huge. I would take that link in a heartbeat.

Most of the non-relevant links you see are from worthless sites so there is little value unlike your NY times example.

I wouldn't turn down the link but link exchange for the sake of link exchange is a waste of time because link relevance is a broken concept. Links lost their relevance when SEO marketers began to sabotage Google's intent by gathering inbound links in "non-natural" ways. So why should Google penalize them for wasting their time. The logic is simple. When webmasters and marketers gather links for a perceived SERP boost they devalue the importance of "links = votes," by stuffing the ballot box. (Your example adds weight to my premise.) It didn't matter much when only a few were doing it, but now its so widespread that it no longer be fixed. Does this mean that Google will drop links as a measurement? No, but they may have already shifted the focus from the link itself to the "process" of obtaining the link.

lol

The process of linking. Looking at google's patent and TrustPage it is evident that this is their direction. Of course others may disagree. Why the shift?

First, it is apparent that google can no longer deliver relevant results based on the premise that 'links = votes' when the ballot box is being stuffed. Even ethical SEO, using only white hat methods in obtaining links is stuffing the ballot box.

Second, Google is highly vested in 'linking' they can not let go of it but they can shift strategies to linking behavior or the process of how, when and why web sites obtain links as well as how the links 'interplay' with content. What types of behavior? These are just a few. How fast a web site gets links. Number of links on a page as determined by the ratio of inbound links to outbound, ratio of reciprocal to one way, ratio of internal links to outbound links and ratio of links to amount of content. Interplay of links and content. And, yes, who links to the web site will continue to play a role.