What the heck are quality backlinks

[App Developers]

Okay, I hear everyone say a million times to get quality backlinks and not quantity. So, in theory I am pretty sure I under stand quality backlinks..in your niche with high PR yadda yadda..... anyone care to elaborate further?
I have a great deal of trouble finding high PR sites I can make comments on that are dofollow. I have to rely on other measures which I am pretty sure is more on quantity and not so much quality. My competitors are using paid directory submissions. I would love to hear everyone's two cents on this issue.

[mandark]

Yes, you are correct that high quality backlinks will have high PR and be in your niche. Some other things that make backlinks high quality are:
-Keywords in your anchor text
-Relevant text surrounding your link - meaning your link is in the middle of some niche-related content.

Some of my favorite ways to get backlinks are by guest posting on blogs and requesting that blogs write posts about your site (sometimes you have to pay for this, sometimes not).

[Chris Sorrell]

Don't worry about relevance or any of that nonsense. Google bot has no idea of relevance so just focus on high pr and diversity. Good quality forum profile links, social boomkarks, .edu links, high pr blogs and the like will all have a positive impact on your ranking.

[Thomas G]

Originally Posted by sorrellaff

Don't worry about relevance or any of that nonsense. Google bot has no idea of relevance so just focus on high pr and diversity. Good quality forum profile links, social boomkarks, .edu links, high pr blogs and the like will all have a positive impact on your ranking.

Are you sure that relevance is nonsense?

[Chris Sorrell]

Originally Posted by Thomas G

Are you sure that relevance is nonsense?

Yup, it's a complete myth. Let me put it to you this way - is youtube or viddler or dailymotion relevant to anyone's website? Nope but they are great links to get. Do you think that the sites ranking at the top for things like 'viagra' 'new york hotels' 'web hosting' 'weight loss' all have nothing but relevant backlinks? Course they don't. Speaking from my experience with my own websites and the work I do for clients sites I would say that not even 2 -3% of the backlinks are of any direct relevance whatsoever, yet they are first page or on their way there for pretty tough keywords.

Forget all the myths about relevance, overlinking, linking too fast etc. Those sort of myths are the very reason the vast majority of people fail miserably at seo in the first place. Do some research on the sites that are at the top for insane competition keywords and you'll see my point illustrated 100% of the time.

[bgordon]

Hi,

There are services like Linkvana and Buildmyrank that enable you to place contextual links in their network of sites. While these services may not be cheap (Linkvana is $147/mo) I can tell you from my own experience they really do work. Plus, you don't waste a lot of time posting on blogs only to get them deleted.

Hope this helps.

Barry

[yukon]

Actually you have to be careful with having very relevant backlinks/keywords on high PR external authority backlinks/sites.

What can happen is, If you have a site with less authority & you place a backlink on a site that has a lot of authority, the authority site has the same exact keywords in the title (etc...) that high PR backlink can sometimes make you trail the higher authority site in the SERPs. You have to decide, are you shooting for 1st place or 2nd place in the SERPs. Then again sometimes 2nd place pays out pretty d@mn good, depending on the traffic for that keyword.

[Matt Helphrey]

I think the best thing that you can do is to put high quality information on your website so that people will want to link back to you. You can also start to develop some relationships with webmasters in your niche and see if they will allow you to leave content on their websites with a link pointing back to yours. Link diversity is crucial.

[App Developers]

Originally Posted by sorrellaff

Yup, it's a complete myth. Let me put it to you this way - is youtube or viddler or dailymotion relevant to anyone's website? Nope but they are great links to get. Do you think that the sites ranking at the top for things like 'viagra' 'new york hotels' 'web hosting' 'weight loss' all have nothing but relevant backlinks? Course they don't. Speaking from my experience with my own websites and the work I do for clients sites I would say that not even 2 -3% of the backlinks are of any direct relevance whatsoever, yet they are first page or on their way there for pretty tough keywords.

Forget all the myths about relevance, overlinking, linking too fast etc. Those sort of myths are the very reason the vast majority of people fail miserably at seo in the first place. Do some research on the sites that are at the top for insane competition keywords and you'll see my point illustrated 100% of the time.

You have a point here that I have been assuming for a while! But was slow to draw this conclusion just over what I have been reading! My competitors have a TON of non relevant directory submission links. Yes, they are number one for a ton of keywords, with a 1,000 recent directory submissions. If I had to only depend on NICHE high PR I would have very few backlinks all together! thanks for posting!

[dtang4]

Originally Posted by sorrellaff

Yup, it's a complete myth. Let me put it to you this way - is youtube or viddler or dailymotion relevant to anyone's website? Nope but they are great links to get. Do you think that the sites ranking at the top for things like 'viagra' 'new york hotels' 'web hosting' 'weight loss' all have nothing but relevant backlinks? Course they don't. Speaking from my experience with my own websites and the work I do for clients sites I would say that not even 2 -3% of the backlinks are of any direct relevance whatsoever, yet they are first page or on their way there for pretty tough keywords.

Forget all the myths about relevance, overlinking, linking too fast etc. Those sort of myths are the very reason the vast majority of people fail miserably at seo in the first place. Do some research on the sites that are at the top for insane competition keywords and you'll see my point illustrated 100% of the time.

Relevancy does play a role. YouTube.com may not be relevant to a niche site, but an inner page with a video may be highly relevant. A great example illustrating this point is Wikipedia.

To your example, a site may be ranked high cause it has amassed a ton of backlinks. However, if we somehow only isolate the variables of quantity and relevancy, a site with 100K backlinks of no relevancy will rank lower than a site with 100K backlinks from relevant sources.

[dtang4]

Originally Posted by App Developers

You have a point here that I have been assuming for a while! But was slow to draw this conclusion just over what I have been reading! My competitors have a TON of non relevant directory submission links. Yes, they are number one for a ton of keywords, with a 1,000 recent directory submissions. If I had to only depend on NICHE high PR I would have very few backlinks all together! thanks for posting!

The key here is that your SEO strategy needs to take into account many dimensions -- e.g. quantity, relevancy, diversity, etc.

Here is a blog article I published that you may find useful:
Understand the 6 levers to SEO. | The Man Who Sold the Web Blog

[Chris Sorrell]

Originally Posted by dtang4

Relevancy does play a role. YouTube.com may not be relevant to a niche site, but an inner page with a video may be highly relevant. A great example illustrating this point is Wikipedia.

To your example, a site may be ranked high cause it has amassed a ton of backlinks. However, if we somehow only isolate the variables of quantity and relevancy, a site with 100K backlinks of no relevancy will rank lower than a site with 100K backlinks from relevant sources.

And how is someone going to find 100k completely relevant backlinking options? There is no more weight behind a similar pr 'relevant' link or 'non relevant' link. Relevance has no correlation to succesful seo and the google bot does not in any way distinguish a relevant link or a non relevant link. And that, my friend is a fact.

[dtang4]

Originally Posted by sorrellaff

And how is someone going to find 100k completely relevant backlinking options? There is no more weight behind a similar pr 'relevant' link or 'non relevant' link. Relevance has no correlation to succesful seo and the google bot does not in any way distinguish a relevant link or a non relevant link. And that, my friend is a fact.

The 100K was just a random number I picked. My point was given 2 equal sets of links, the set with better relevance will have better affect.

If we just take a 1 link example... Let's say you have 2 Wikipedia articles of the exact same PR. And, for the keyword you're ranking for, 1 article is relevant, 1 isn't. I am saying if you get the link from the relevant Wikipedia article, you will have a better impact than getting the link from the irrelevant article.

[Steven Miranda]

High PR links such as .edu and .gov domains. These links are not really any better in terms of Google but they are seen as more trustworthy and have higher PR that is why Google loves these backlinks.

[garben2011]

Originally Posted by App Developers

So, in theory I am pretty sure I under stand quality backlinks..in your niche with high PR yadda yadda..... anyone care to elaborate further?

I think there are really two distinct schools of thought on this topic. From the build backlinks for the robots perspective the high PR is probably all that people mean when they speak of quality.

On the other side you have people such as myself.

To me a low quality backlink (also known as spamming) is one that is created entirely in an attempt to boost your rankings in Google.

An example of this kind of backlink is if I just randomly blast out comments to any and every blog I can find. The comments themselves are just variations of a sentence such as "Nice blog! Keep up the great work." or "Great post!" and so on. The comments can be on blogs ranging from 0 pr to high pr and still to me these are very low quality backlinks because they are adding zero value. In fact, when many of them (from numerous people) start appearing they actually take away from the quality of the blog they are being posted on.

A high quality backlink, in my opinion, is one where I take the time to find good informative websites / blogs. Read their content. Like what I read even respect their views. Then I take the time to leave a comment that actually talks to the author and agree on some points, perhaps disagree on others and share my own views. It can also be simply asking a meaningful question on the topic of that page.

These quality comments act sort of like mini articles. They directly send visitors to my sites and I even have blog owners who contact me and comment on my own sites as a direct result of the quality content I have contributed to their sites.

So, again. Different schools of thought. To me low quality is building backlinks for the robots. High quality is building backlinks for humans. Low quality is building backlinks I'd probably feel pretty lame about sharing with my friends and family. High quality is building backlinks that will stand up to a manual review and stick for a very long time indeed.

Just my 1.987654328 cents

[Chris Sorrell]

Originally Posted by garben2011

I think there are really two distinct schools of thought on this topic. From the build backlinks for the robots perspective the high PR is probably all that people mean when they speak of quality.

On the other side you have people such as myself.

To me a low quality backlink (also known as spamming) is one that is created entirely in an attempt to boost your rankings in Google.

An example of this kind of backlink is if I just randomly blast out comments to any and every blog I can find. The comments themselves are just variations of a sentence such as "Nice blog! Keep up the great work." or "Great post!" and so on. The comments can be on blogs ranging from 0 pr to high pr and still to me these are very low quality backlinks because they are adding zero value. In fact, when many of them (from numerous people) start appearing they actually take away from the quality of the blog they are being posted on.

A high quality backlink, in my opinion, is one where I take the time to find good informative websites / blogs. Read their content. Like what I read even respect their views. Then I take the time to leave a comment that actually talks to the author and agree on some points, perhaps disagree on others and share my own views. It can also be simply asking a meaningful question on the topic of that page.

These quality comments act sort of like mini articles. They directly send visitors to my sites and I even have blog owners who contact me and comment on my own sites as a direct result of the quality content I have contributed to their sites.

So, again. Different schools of thought. To me low quality is building backlinks for the robots. High quality is building backlinks for humans. Low quality is building backlinks I'd probably feel pretty lame about sharing with my friends and family. High quality is building backlinks that will stand up to a manual review and stick for a very long time indeed.

Just my 1.987654328 cents

Appreciate your viewpoint but one of the things that always puzzles me about people's opinions on these seo based discussions is that they look at it through the eyes of a review site creator or general 'internet marketer' and they look to mirror what other succesful or more than usual, not so succesful marketers are doing. Why look to mirror a one man band marketer when you can mirror multi million dollar companies ranking at the top of google for the most competitive keywords possible?

Let me ask all of you this to nail this discussion once and for all -

If you wanted to become a good boxer would you study the local club standard wannabes or watch some Ali and Tyson? hmm..

[App Developers]

All good points and yes two different schools of thought! I appreciate all of the responses and it has given what I needed to continue to move forward!

[krjewellers]

When I think of quality backlinks, I think of links on pages
that are PR 4 or higher with few outbound links.

[Mike Grant]

From authority domains with low outbound links. Relevancy doesn't hurt, either

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by sorrellaff

Don't worry about relevance or any of that nonsense. Google bot has no idea of relevance so just focus on high pr and diversity. Good quality forum profile links, social boomkarks, .edu links,

BY any stretch of the imagination forum profiles and social bookmarks are NOT quality backlinks. they are newly created N/A PR pages. Bookmarking is good for link popularity and some indexing but not high quality.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by krjewellers

When I think of quality backlinks, I think of links on pages
that are PR 4 or higher with few outbound links.

Those are very high quality link but I have seen many sites rank nicely with PR 2 and 3 s

[itchair]

Quality backlinks are links that do not have flaws and are found on reliable websites that have a very good reputation...

[itchair]

Quality Backlinks are links that are not broken and can be found on websites that have good quality reputation...

[simpleonline1234]

Don't worry about relevance or any of that nonsense. Google bot has no idea of relevance so just focus on high pr and diversity. Good quality forum profile links, social boomkarks, .edu links,

Grasshopper you have much to learn about the ways of Google. The Google bot is not the algo that determines what the relevancy of a link is to the site it was pointed towards..they simply gather data to report home.

NEVER under estimate Google for when you think you have the beast figured out they will change the rules of the game and how you stack up on their field.

A word to the wise to all that take anything you hear on any site about learning SEO.....rarely do I take anything I read on here or anywhere else on the net as written in stone...I will test....test...and test some more....what works for Jim may not work for Jane....but if you start with the basics you can learn as you go....else you could take what you read to heart and waste A LOT of money.....

On a final note.....keep building your website on a pile of crap with those links and see how long it takes for your competition to over run you....this race of more like the tortoise and the hare...you decide who you would rather be in that equation.

[Mike Grant]

Originally Posted by sorrellaff

Don't worry about relevance or any of that nonsense. Google bot has no idea of relevance so just focus on high pr and diversity. Good quality forum profile links, social boomkarks, .edu links, high pr blogs and the like will all have a positive impact on your ranking.

Wait, so you think relevancy has correlation to rankings, but you think domain extension does?

[simpleonline1234]

Wait, so you think relevancy has correlation to rankings, but you think domain extension does?

Absolutely!!! Domain extension plays a part of the ranking benefits....it isn't 100% needed but it does give you a small boost for having an EMD (exact match domain)...as far as extension go...I've always stuck with .com, .net, or .info.....else I put some dashes between my words-like-so....

Again these are a few of the many factors that can boost you in Google..

Relevant backlinks are non neccessary to rank high in Google....you could take a million non relevant backlinks and boost your site but all it takes is someone who has a solid relevant backlink portfolio to come along to do half the work to out rank you.

One of the things that you should think about is the trust issue with Google...now I'm not saying that ALL your backlinks should be 100 relevant because that would look un natural but if 99% of your backlinks were from places like bob pizza joint, and then jimmy's fishing rods and your site is about cancer then those links will not be as strong for your site as backlinks from say Memorial hosital or dr john's blog...etc etc...if you think I'm lying go out and google a word and take a look at the backlinks for the top then...you will see sites that have 10x more backlinks pointing their site than the top 5 and yet they are ranked #6...then go and have a look at the types of backlinks they have....chances are the top ten have links that are more powerful for their site due to pr, relevancy, etc than that number 6 site. Even though they are move relevant on page their off page SEO is like building a sand castle near the surf during low tide...give it time and see what happens to them. I've tracked a many of sites that this has happened to over time....sure those quick spammed sites will rise quickly but will they stay there for long?? NO...those spammy links drop off and they are not relevant to the their topic so those slow movers with more relevant backlinks are going to gain more trust with Google and thus out rank them.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by sorrellaff

Don't worry about relevance or any of that nonsense.

LOL

Originally Posted by sorrellaff

Yup, it's a complete myth...

Forget all the myths about relevance, overlinking, linking too fast etc. Those sort of myths are the very reason the vast majority of people fail miserably at seo in the first place...

LOL, LOL.

Originally Posted by sorrellaff

Relevance has no correlation to succesful seo and the google bot does not in any way distinguish a relevant link or a non relevant link. And that, my friend is a fact.

ROFLMAO

Can I pay to have my competitors trained by you?

Seriously, relevancy has nothing to do with SEO? I wonder how Google manages to deliver relevant results?

Sorry to have fun at your expense, I just couldn't resist.

Relevancy, in my opinion, is not only important, it is absolutely essential.

I believe the misguided notion, that relevancy is not important, comes from the lack of understanding the fundamentals of how search engines work.

Please don't feel bad, it is a common misconception that seems to be rooted in the notion that search engines index and rank websites. The first and most fundamental rule of SEO is that search engines do not index and rank websites, they index and rank individual web documents.

Failure to understand this fundamental concept leads to all sorts of silly notions. The ideal that relevance doesn't matter seems to stem from the misguided notion that search engines consider website topics as a signal of relevance. Search engines do not look at site level signals, only page level signals.

You can build all the irrelevant backlinks you want and they will never help you rank for any keyword until you channel that link juice through a relevant link. Relevancy is absolutely essential to ranking.

By learning which signals are used by search engines for determining relevancy you can often outrank competitors with far more resources at their disposal.

[jonnyhardbaked]

Good quality backlinks are good. But Getting this kinds of links is not an easy tasks, my only advice is that don't pay too much attention in getting this links for it will take too much time, my point is, allot some time to find good quality backlinks while continuing your link building campaign.

[Victor Edson]

I don't waste my time searching out blog owners or paying to get my links on the homepage of a "relevant" site.

Instead I use blog networks and submission software to create my own relevant quality links.

To do this, I put my keyword in the title and a few times in the article. I use that same keyword as an anchor text pointing back to my site.

Then I'll backlink that 1 article/web 2.0 post with 100-200 articles that all have the same keyword in the title, and the same keyword as the anchor text backlink pointing back to my article that I've now created as a high quality relevant link.

Total time is about half an hour to an hour and I can get 10 or so of the quality links built in that time.

[calfred]

Matt Cutts has been saying it all the time.

Authoritative, relevant sites.

In other words, guest blogging (aka article marketing on turbo mode).

[Chris Sorrell]

Originally Posted by dburk

LOL


LOL, LOL.



ROFLMAO

Can I pay to have my competitors trained by you?

Seriously, relevancy has nothing to do with SEO? I wonder how Google manages to deliver relevant results?

Sorry to have fun at your expense, I just couldn't resist.

Relevancy, in my opinion, is not only important, it is absolutely essential.

I believe the misguided notion, that relevancy is not important, comes from the lack of understanding the fundamentals of how search engines work.

Please don't feel bad, it is a common misconception that seems to be rooted in the notion that search engines index and rank websites. The first and most fundamental rule of SEO is that search engines do not index and rank websites, they index and rank individual web documents.

Failure to understand this fundamental concept leads to all sorts of silly notions. The ideal that relevance doesn't matter seems to stem from the misguided notion that search engines consider website topics as a signal of relevance. Search engines do not look at site level signals, only page level signals.

You can build all the irrelevant backlinks you want and they will never help you rank for any keyword until you channel that link juice through a relevant link. Relevancy is absolutely essential to ranking.

By learning which signals are used by search engines for determining relevancy you can often outrank competitors with far more resources at their disposal.

I think you misunderstood my point. I never said that relevance doesn't matter to content, I meant it doesn't matter to backlinking which is most of what this thread is about. Funny how all the irrelevant backlinks and completely irrelevant blog networks I use to rank my own and my clients sites snugly on the first page of google seem to be working. I guess the six figure income I derive from this is pure luck and google will sooner or later sit in a meeting and discuss all my irrelevant backlinks and call the internet police.

I will then be tortured and imprisoned for spreading such filth around the warrior forum which some people such as yourself seem to be humoured by or simply misunderstand. I'm now going on the run somewhere google won't find me and to further study on how I can earn my first ever, ever dollar online. I would like to thank you for highlighting the errors of my ways and for setting me on the path towards seo enlightenment that will surely change my life and my finances the rest of my sinful life. Goodnite.

[simpleonline1234]

I guess the six figure income I derive from this is pure luck

further study on how I can earn my first ever, ever dollar online

Wha?? Which is it?? are you earning a six figure income or are you still trying to earn your first ever dollar? Based on your skill level of input I am going to say you are still trying to earn your first ever dollar.

Relevant backlinks are also extremly important if you want to not only rise but to STAY there as well....

[Chris Sorrell]

Originally Posted by simpleonline1234

Wha?? Which is it?? are you earning a six figure income or are you still trying to earn your first ever dollar? Based on your skill level of input I am going to say you are still trying to earn your first ever dollar.

Relevant backlinks are also extremly important if you want to not only rise but to STAY there as well....

lol - And they say americans don't understand irony or sarcasm. Can't think why.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by sorrellaff

I think you misunderstood my point. I never said that relevance doesn't matter to content, I meant it doesn't matter to backlinking which is most of what this thread is about. Funny how all the irrelevant backlinks and completely irrelevant blog networks I use to rank my own and my clients sites snugly on the first page of google seem to be working.

Hi sorrellaff,

It's not the irrelevant backlinks that helped your web pages rank well on the SERP. The irrelevant backlinks provide no direct benefit at all, it is the relevant backlinks that provide all the benefit.

If you take a closer look at your own methods I'm sure that you will discover that you have been channeling link juice through relevant backlinks. Perhaps your success came through unwitting use of effective techniques and you did not realize many of your backlinks were in fact relevant.

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while.

Again, much confusion comes, from misunderstanding how search engines work. For example, website topic is not a signal used by search engines for relevancy, and this applies specifically toward backlink relevancy. All signals are page level. A backlink from a page that contains the targeted keyword in or near the anchortext is a relevant backlink. An irrelevant backlink has no direct influence on ranking. It is only after link juice is channeled through a relevant link that you will receive ranking benefit.

[Kurt]

Originally Posted by dburk

LOL


LOL, LOL.



ROFLMAO

Can I pay to have my competitors trained by you?

Seriously, relevancy has nothing to do with SEO? I wonder how Google manages to deliver relevant results?

Sorry to have fun at your expense, I just couldn't resist.

Relevancy, in my opinion, is not only important, it is absolutely essential.

I believe the misguided notion, that relevancy is not important, comes from the lack of understanding the fundamentals of how search engines work.

Please don't feel bad, it is a common misconception that seems to be rooted in the notion that search engines index and rank websites. The first and most fundamental rule of SEO is that search engines do not index and rank websites, they index and rank individual web documents.

Failure to understand this fundamental concept leads to all sorts of silly notions. The ideal that relevance doesn't matter seems to stem from the misguided notion that search engines consider website topics as a signal of relevance. Search engines do not look at site level signals, only page level signals.

You can build all the irrelevant backlinks you want and they will never help you rank for any keyword until you channel that link juice through a relevant link. Relevancy is absolutely essential to ranking.

By learning which signals are used by search engines for determining relevancy you can often outrank competitors with far more resources at their disposal.

The only thing I disagree with is that Google doesn't use site-wide factors when considering individual page ranking. Sites like Wikipedia and Amazon clearly get some type of site-wide benefit and we've heard of things like -30 penalties which are applied to all pages on a site.

[Kurt]

Originally Posted by sorrellaff

Don't worry about relevance or any of that nonsense. Google bot has no idea of relevance so just focus on high pr and diversity. Good quality forum profile links, social boomkarks, .edu links, high pr blogs and the like will all have a positive impact on your ranking.

Actually, it's not that difficult to create a scoring system for relevancy between two documents. Here's a quick one off the top of my head:

1. How many keywords in each pages' titles match? Add "10 points" for each word contained in both pages' titles.

2. First, remove all "stop words". Now, how many words are contained on both pages? Add 1 point for each.

3. Look at all the anchor text used in the links to both pages. How many of these anchor words match? Add a point for each anchor word that matches.

4. How many different sites/IPs/pages link to both domains? Add 1 point for each.

Do we come up with two pages having 50 "relevancy" points or 5 points? Factor this relevancy total into a "link juice" formula to determine the value of a link.

I'm not saying this is how Google does it. I'm only showing one example (of many) that could easily be used to determine relevancy, and my example is pretty simple and with a little tweaking it could probably be pretty effective.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by Kurt

The only thing I disagree with is that Google doesn't use site-wide factors when considering individual page ranking. Sites like Wikipedia and Amazon clearly get some type of site-wide benefit and we've heard of things like -30 penalties which are applied to all pages on a site.

Hi Kurt,

Wikipedia uses extensive internal and external linking, so it's still individual page level factors. Links to and from individual pages using keyword anchortext is where Wikipedia and similarly constructed sites get all their individual page ranking from.

And to the notion of -30 penalties, I don't buy into that since you almost always find long tail keywords where those same pages are ranked #1 in the SERP. The idea that Google would waste resources on an individual page/keyword penalty system seems implausible to me.

[Kurt]

Originally Posted by dburk

Hi Kurt,

Wikipedia uses extensive internal and external linking, so it's still individual page level factors. Links to and from individual pages using keyword anchortext is where Wikipedia and similarly constructed sites get all their individual page ranking from.


And to the notion of -30 penalties, I don't buy into that since you almost always find long tail keywords where those same pages are ranked #1 in the SERP. The idea that Google would waste resources on an individual page/keyword penalty system seems implausible to me.

Hi Don,

I have a Wikepedia mirror, same links, etc. It even has a lot of pages indexed. None that I can tell rank above wikipedia. And while I agree with you about Wikipedia's strategic linking, it doesn't prove there aren't other factors involved, such as a "white listing" by Google.

My -30 example was one of only many possibilities and a -30 doesn't have to be a huge resource, simply triggered by a red flag or two. Plus, Google has recently admitted that they do have humans over-ride the algo to make "corrections", so it really isn't up for interpretation.

[samuel.johnson]

I strongly believe that links in content and in footer from high PR, less OBL page seems to be very much effective.So I believe it to be quality link.