Sorry if this is already discussed somewhere else, I could not find it. Do links form relevant Yahoo groups and free websites like Geocities, Tripod etc. help? Do those counts as one way back link?
All links count, but you have to remember the quality of the link. If a link back is on a pr0 site, it won't have the same value as say a link on the front page of cnn. Also, a handful of links from one site (eg tripod) will be of benefit, but if there are 100s of links from one domain, the SE may not give you the same benefit.
Links from free websites like on Tripod, Geocities, etc. are of very little worth in my opinion. They never helped me a great deal. Surely the search engines take into consideration that anyone can make a site there for no money, hence the great potential for abuse.
Yes, I would think the same idea would be applied to places like BlogSpot that allow you to host blogs for free. The link abuse runs rampant there already anyways.
my opinion is link is link. Every link can to bring a new user. Ok if a link its not seo friendly (like 302 or any redirected) then its bad. But a link of a free site its good. Maybe your freespace page can be faster indexed als your new site.