Lets say I get a backlink from a PR6 page and it simply says my name, rather than a keyword... does this pass much PR at all to my site? Or is it pretty much a worthless link?
This is like blog posting where you name is is the link. Although link text with keywords in it is better, the type of links your are referring to are still good for your ranking, just make sure they are do-follow.
The value of pagerank it passes will not change, the only difference is you won't get much (if at all) benefit to your targetted keywords. Sure, high PR links using your domains name as the anchor text, I'm convinced, has something related to gaining sitelinks, if your internal structure and linking coheres so Google's regulations.
hmm this is interesting, because well I know pagerank does not have as much weight today as it did back in 05, but I know it does have more value when it is coming from related sites. So what I have been doing is I put together a list of dofollow blogs all with a PR4+, there is actually a hell of a lot out there im suprised. The ones that don't require moderation and instant post I will put my corporate name followed by my keyphrase as the name, which will then linkback to my site. For the ones that do require moderation I just use my personal name and linkback to the site. Now here's the benefit I am really looking for.... I have several websites within the same niche/topic which I want to promote(all on different subnets). I figure if I can get enough high pagerank links into my site, I can then pass the pagerank on to my other sites via 3way linking, or since its more than 3 sites I can just do round-robbin.
Well, site A places a link to site B, and site B places a link for site C... Recip links arent worth as much to Google, whereas, all of these in the 3-way are one-way links
No, that's as far from accurate as you could possibly imagine. Site A links to site B, B links to C and C links to A. That, my friend, is called a LINK FARM, please read up on link farms before you post ridiculously shoddy advice.
This is a good explanation of the use of links. I have see many people waste links by not using the opportunity to target keywords and phrases. Do you know if a link from a PR0 page helps target a keyword even if it has no or little PR to pass on?