Obviously the quality is important in obtaining links but if you view the competetive areas of seo the sheer number of links some of these big boys can bring to bear means you need both
Go for quality, look at the Google search results, the highest ranking sites often have less backlinks than the lower ranking, it all comes to the quality of the links.
What if your competitors also have similar quality links? In many industries there are just a few of them so it's easy for everyone to get them. In that case, quantity may come into play. But what I mean by quantity is not link farms...
Quality is the thing that has mattered from decades! A good quality will also give good ranking in google. So go with Quality
I don't think non-relevant links will help at all.(If anything they will hurt?No?) Isn't the quality of the link more of an over-riding factor than the amount of links you have? I guess I'm just wondering if linking to PR1 & PR2 sites(with relevant content) is worth any effort at all. Long term they might build a following and gain rank. Or, like John Lennon, " maybe I'm just a dreamer..."
I spent all last summer building hundreds (actually thousands) of low quality links. I saw very little effect. New idea: Go for good quality links (or as good as I can get)... E.g., here's my first attempt: http://money.cnn.com/2008/04/07/smbusiness/incorporate_business.fsb/index.htm?postversion=2008041512 They're giving my CPA firm a link (search on Steve Nelson) half way down the page... I don't know if I get link juice off of this or not... can the page get "too deep" into the subfolders? BTW, would love to have an honest assessment of this type of link from one of you experts...
You need both quality and quantity and it is a matter of how much of each works for you and your site.