Links from unrelated sites

[Gandalf]

I've always thought that if you have links from a site that is similar in theme to your site you would be ranked higher than if you had links from a totally un-related site.

But after reading a few SEO sites it seems that linking from un-related sites is actually a good thing.

What's your take on this?

[franke1]

Links are always useful. If they are from related sites - they are better. But having unrelated links is better than not having any at all.

[mickmel]

Correct. Links from un-related sites help a little bit, but sites from others in your niche are much more valuable.

[manager2006]

links from unrelated web sites are important than nothing. you can add value to these links by using the anchor text correctly, use your keywords with the anchor text will add more value to your unrelated and related links.
links from unrelated can be less than related to rank well in search engines but with page rank, all are the same because page rank are a formula without taking quality or unrelated links.