Stupid qns regarding Pagerank

[babooni]

hi i just got started with the laborous task of finding quality websites to exchange links with.
the homepage and link page have different google toolbar pagerank ratings so which one do i see when assessing their quality?
i'm sorry if this is such a stupid qns i really have no clue.
thx for helping.

[Justilien]

Welcome to SEW Babooni!

I would recommend these two resources. They provide a ton of useful information to get you started.
SEW: Link Building 101 (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=2616)
SEOmoz: Advanced Link Building (http://www.seomoz.org/articles/advanced-link-building.php )

To answer your question, toolbar pagerank is only one indicator of quality and it would be for the page the link is on. I rarely trade links unless it will benefit the users of both sites.

Here are a few things I consider to judge the quality of a link.

Backlinks to that site
Backlinks to that page
Number of .edu, .gov and .mil backlinks
Number of authority and industry backlinks
Age of site
Cache Date
Traffic
Location of link on page (will people click on it?)
Number of DMOZ and Yahoo Directory listings

Remember you are looking for links that will pass the most link popularity and trust.

Best of luck!

[babooni]

Boy am i glad to have asked my stupid question. Now i have to recheck all the sites i have bookmarked for exchange. A good example would be bodybuilding.com they have a 7/10 on their main but 0/10 on their links page.
Thanks Justilien for all the advice but i'm really running out of time here so i can only use pagerank and some common sense to pick out quality sites.
Probably use linkpopularity.com too. Do u think these will suffice?
Thanks again!