Do those huge sites with thousands of links and no other content actually help pagerank at all? Is it possible for links from there to actually hurt pagerank? What do you recommend for getting more quality links?

Originally Posted by gman

Do those huge sites with thousands of links and no other content actually help pagerank at all?

PR is a function of backlinks and isn't influenced by content. Inbound links can't hurt pagerank. Pagerank, before unscrupulous webmasters got their hands on the concept, was supposed to give an indication of a web page's 'importance' - i.e. the more links to it (votes), the more important it was.

I wouldn't worry about PR too much (I mean at all!)

Originally Posted by gringo

...Pagerank, before unscrupulous webmasters got their hands on the concept...

Whatever you may think of the concept, tainted/untainted or what have you, it hardly ever makes sense to simply throw the baby out with the bath water.

Originally Posted by gman

Do those huge sites with thousands of links and no other content actually help pagerank at all?

No because the amount of benefit for the Toolbar PR from the page depends on page's pagerank as well as number of outward links and those pages are not good in PR as well as high outbound links.

Originally Posted by gman

Is it possible for links from there to actually hurt pagerank?

No one apart from Google can say but if you search the forum you will see its just waste of time because you don't have any benefit. It atleast hurts in the sense you have wasted your time and you could have done something better.

Originally Posted by gman

What do you recommend for getting more quality links?

Yes.