Rand wrote a blog entry today.

I'm sure we've all read it by now.

One thing he says is one of the top 4 factors is "Raw Link Juice."  This got me thinking...

You can't spend too much time on SEO forums or web sites without seeing a discussion about how such a such a link doesn't matter because the page rank is too low or there are duplicate content issues or that directory doesn't matter, etc. etc.

This is my opinion.  A link is a link is a link.  Are some links on some pages better than others?  Absolutely.

Other than supposedly paid links - which is still up to debate -  all links are viewed as "good" and you won't be penalized by it.  It might not help in your ranking, or might only help very little - but it won't hurt you.  And in the end, it will probably help you. Even a link with a nofollow tag can help if someone clicks on it and you get traffic, possibly linking to you later without the nofollow attribute.

Trying to figure out which areas you should build your links on by doing some in depth analysis - full of mathematical equations - is like splitting hairs.  ALL links are good!

So go out and build your links.  Post articles.  Contribute to forums.  And Build Internal Link Juice with lots of content.

A link is a link is a link.

(Oh, and don't forget your anchor text as your're doing it - that's factor #3).