If my client is a real estate agent and I am linking to content about TV houses, then the real estate sites will be relevant to the client while the entertainment sites will be relevant to the content. “Now I know your question is about authoritative links versus niche links. With that in mind, I will prefer highly relevant but less authoritative links when working with niche and close-to-the-customer content because those are the people who will actually care to take action. However, high authority links will be a priority when working

with editorial content that has the potential to be featured on major online media outlets. “In short, that shouldn't be a question either. Who doesn't want to have both? - Gisele Navarro, NeoMam Depends on clicks If everything is really equal, some experts jewelry retouching service would lean towards which link would actually get clicks. “If that's the only action I can take, I'd take the high authority, low relevance link. If, however, the relevant link was a lower authority, but sent more direct traffic, I'd take that one! -Rand Fishkin, Moz "That's a tough question to answer.

I've seen small sites get a few links from irrelevant sites that actually seem to help rankings significantly. I'd like to answer with a third option. I want to get the most likely link to send me referral traffic. "There are two reasons for this. The first is that I can generate business from people who click on that link. But, the second reason is because of a theory of mine. I really think one of the ways Google can feel confident about devaluing links with Penguin is that they have algorithms that value links based on the likelihood of them being clicked.