I'll be honest. It's not just random backlinks, or even backlinks from relative sites. It's in-content backlinks that is apart of the REAL content. Google is beginning to think like a person. They barely even bother with the links in the footer or sidebar... and if they do, I look for them to stop in the next few months or year.
I have a question regarding sitewide linking. I am a web developer/designer and my sites each have my link in the footer for every page. What is the difference between the links I use and a sitewide link on an unrelated site? The sites I build are from all walks of life and none of them are related to web design I assure you. Is there something I should do differently???
Site-wide links are fine and give you the opportunity of receiving traffic from all pages of a website. However , website cross linking & link schemes can cause a penalty if detected. Though "cross links". for example, in the footer saying visit our network should be o.k.