backlinks , as in google , normally are PR4 links AFAIK . so unless the pages which hotlinks ur page , are PR4 it wont matter and more over people hotlin files , not html / php pages
Thanks for those responses but it doesnt answer my question. Does a hotlink to one of your files count as a back link?
If it does, and I'm not saying it does, it only counts as a backlink to that file. So unless it is a .pdf, .doc. or other format google indexes AND you are trying to make that file rank well, the link is useless.
That may be true. However, what if the SEs consider any backlink to your site in the "overall view" of your entire site. Perhaps it would be a benefit to your "over-all" site PR and rankings.
It won't affect PR because that file isn't linking to any other pages to transfer the PR it got so the PR it gains is instantly lost. It won't affect your site's ranking because search engines don't rank sites, they rank pages. (But they do ban sites).
i have heard many theories about the "tustworthiness" of a site/domain being determined by the overall links to the entire domain - giving content on that domain an added push even if it isnt specifically linked to.
So far those are just theories and there isn't anything to justify just yet so it's probably best to ignore that line of thinking for now. Plus that may only include web pages and not media (as that would be more logical).
That's not true. Any link to an inner page (a page within a domain) will have an effect on the PR of the domain itself as well. So, any external link leading into a domain will effect the page and to a lesser extent the domain itself.