Weight of Links from Different types of pages

Hey there guys and girls.

I've just recently thought of something interesting. I've basically be using directory submission to increase the SERPs for a keyword for website.

Just the other day I had a "light bulb in head moment" and decided to start commenting on blogs with links back to my website.

Strangely enough I've actually gone a bit overboard and got my website on the "comments" page of so may blogs but it doesn't seem to affect the SERPs at all eventhough a handful of these blogs have a PR rank of 4 or 5.

Now the question is:

1) Is there a discount mechanism for Search Engines for links from blogs

2) If this discount mechanism exists then what do you think is the least discounted type of page where links carry the most weight (E.g. blogs, directories, articles...etc)

3) How much weight do you think google places on the age of site and links now. Coz my site is new and naturally my links are new too.

Just to get the discussion rolling and put some numbers to the questions.
I have over 500 links from other pages according to Yahoo! but my competition has only 100+, my links are somewhat relevant and are indeed from PR+ sites but still my SERPs are on the 8th place rather than my competitions 3rd place.

Thanks in advance for taking the time to read this

Ryan

 

There is if the blogs use rel="nofollow" and most of them do...

- Michael

 

I knew it...something smelled fishy. Anyway, how to I check if the blog actually has this "no follow" attribute before I waste time commenting on it?

 

View the HTML source and look at the HREFs in the comments section.

 

Just look at the source code for the page with an existing link like the one you would place and see if it has the attribute. If you are going to do this regularly you can use the firefox searchstatus plugin.

- Michael