Richard over at SEO Gadget discussed a touchy topic. He did the research to determine the ranking ratio for authority of the page vs. the relevancy of the page. Shockingly surprised for some the authority of the page means much more than the relevancy of the page. However, it hard to say if this would stick in the long run or if its only a short term solution.
I believe it is very dependent on the state of the website. If the website is branded and has trust within the search engines then irrelevant links will stick. However, if the site is new without a web presence then it is advised to build relevant links as these will give the long term effect needed to succeed.
The point is the page of where the link resides may change in quality or value over time. With this being the case, when these pages are devalued so are the links which linked from this page. It’s never 100% when predicting the effectiveness of a page, but starting with the root domain will probably be a good start.
