More to link value than pagerank

I’ve been saying a lot lately that there’s more to a link than its pagerank, and it’s a bad strategy to buy links in the hopes they will pass on PR. SEOmoz explains it much better than I possibly could, though. The post itself is highly detailed and useful:

This comment, too:

the original PR formula has so little to do with rankings nowadays that I’m inclined to largely overlook it. Besides that, the very, very slow rate of PR updates, the intentional inaccuracy in the toolbar and the high benefits of anchor text and links from trusted sources make me question the value.

These things are happening because Google is trying to protect pagerank as their own metric. I still won’t be shocked if, at some point, they simply stop making it public. When and if that happens, do you know how to tell where you need to get links?

And will it matter if you got them free or paid? Let’s face it: some of us can’t launch sites without some form of advertising. The world is blind to AdSense. We’ll be blind to contextual ads shortly, too. Banner ads can work on some sites, but not always. Paid links - done smartly - will always be a viable part of online advertising.