Hi, My blog is PR2 and I had a link exchange with a PR5 websites. But, there are 2 things that i wanted to know. 1-We have 2 different niche, mine is a blog and his website is a tutorial website. 2- My website link is NOT played on his website it's placed on the .htaccess its in the the directory /links.htm . Am I getting any benefits from it?
does the link back to your site exist on a page that can be accessed by search engines and does it contain a nofollow tag?
No, it does not contain nofollow tag. Just the difference are the different niche and my link is placed on another page like www.yourdomain.com/links
as long as the search engines can access the page (check the google cache for the page) and as long as the link does not have a no follow tag (also check for the nofollow meta tag) the link will count. the link will benefit you, even more if you have use one of your targetted keywords within the anchor text, no being in the same niche wont do any damage but it wont give it any boost either.
link exchange with different themed web sites is not useful . i dont think that your link exchange will effect your serp and pr.