Links from Related Sites with Low PR or semi-related sites with High PR?

[applesofgold]

Is it better to get a link from a site with lower PR but related content or higher PR but semi-related or unrelated content?

For example, if I sell shoes, would a link from a PR1 or PR2 shoe or apparel site be better or a link from PR4 website that sells books be better?

I'm not talking about sites with completely unrelated content, but how relevant is PR in obtaining relevant links if I am trying to raise the PR and rankings of my own site?

[EppieVojt]

Links from more authoritative sites are more important for improving rankings than links from related sites.  There are tons of examples of sites that rank well that have almost no relevant links.  One such example that illustrates this is pitchingmachines.net, which currently ranks #1 for the term pitching machine.

While this site has the benefit of being an exact match domain, its link profile is full of links from sites that are unrelated.  70% of their live links come from a paid blog network where the sites cover a wide range of topics (but all have PR), 5% are from article submissions (again, sites that aren't topically related), 4% are blog comments and another 3% are blogroll listings (from unrelated sites).  That's 82% of their links coming from sites that aren't topically relevant.

Another 6.5% of their links are forum profiles, web directory submissions, sidebar links, and links lists.  That means that at best, roughly 10% of their links are legitimate contextual links from related sites.  In reality, it's less than that, as most of those links appear to be from another blog network -- I just haven't been able to identify which one yet.

Is there risk in this approach? You bet.  If Google decided to stop allowing the blog network they're getting links from to pass authority, the rankings would tank.  Worse yet, if Google decided to penalize sites getting these types of links, they may never be able to recover their rankings.  Other than the blog network links, though, I think the risk is minimal.  Blog comments, directory submissions, blogroll links... those are all types of links legitimate sites might be expected to have.

So, don't stress out too much about obtaining relevant links.  Tons of sites rank without them.

[Dr-Pete]

I'd like to be able to make a strong, white-hat argument against what Eppie is saying, but the data just doesn't back it up. Relevance doesn't have the impact we often think it should. His warning is important - lack of relevance can have an impact. If you're clearly getting a lot of irrelevant links, it's often a sign of deeper problems that could even lead to a penalty. On the other hand, getting a "highly relevant" link doesn't often have much SEO impact.

A couple of additional points, though:

(1) It's not just about SEO. Links drive traffic, ideally, and eventually conversion. Relevant links have more impact to human visitors, and they do matter, even if they won't impact ranking that much.

(2) There's a lot more to the value of a link than authority and relevance. Rand has an excellent article about that topic and how complex it gets:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-illustrations-on-search-engines-valuation-of-links

[applesofgold]

Thanks for chiming in. This does clear up quite a bit for me. Ideally, I would like a balance of relevant links & general high authority links.

With that being said, can anyone suggest any high authority sites other than dmoz that I can add my site to that would help?